Slide Mounted Vortex Venom

I have not shot Bullseye Pistol for a while now.  When I did, i shot a Springfield Armory Loaded .45 acp with a Kart barrel and a slide mounted Ultradot 1" 4 moa dot.  At that time, I was shooting 3.8 gr of BE with Star 185 swaged HP bullets at 25 and 50 yds.  I had to drop my recoil spring way down for reliable function.  Does anyone have experience with the lighter the weight Vortex Venom red dot and how it affects reliability from iron sights?  Also, are Bullseye shooters shooting red dots like the Vortex or is Ultradot still more common.  Thanks, Steve

I recently replaced the slide mounted Ultradot (Clark base and low Weaver rings) on one of my .45 wad guns with a Burris FastFire, which is very similar to the Vortex Venom. I mounted it using a base from EGW that fit the existing dovetail in the Colt government style slide. My standard load load was 3.80 gr. of Bullseye and a 185 gr. lead bullet.  With the Ultradot set up, I used a 10 lb. recoil spring. When I changed to the Burris, I initially tried a 12 lb spring and, much to my surprise, eventually ended up with a 16 lb. recoil spring.  I dropped the powder down to 3.62 gr. and still got reliable functioning with the slide locking back after the last shot.

I put the on my 52 and 745.  They work well with no respringing required.

I prefer the 'tube' type sight - I seem to be able to reacquire the target better with one (and yes - I realize this points to the errors in my technique :-) ) but for my 38SP 1911 the Venom was the lightest sight I could find that worked reliably.  They do seem to be popular amongst shooters looking for the very soft shooting loads.

I have the vortex venom on a USPSA gun and an ultra dot on my 45 bullseye 1911 and high standard 22