Please check out our video on the Lead & Steel PB-3 red dot. Ryan shares his thoughts and a few extra notes in this blog post below.
We originally saw a bit of drama on the internet and reached out to Lead & Steel just telling them, hey, we saw your response to the internet trolls and such, and had a lot of respect for them being so open and such. Because of this I started looking further into the company and was interested in testing the LP-1, but they were out at the time and we discussed us taking a look at the PB-3 competing in the pistol red dot space. Featuring an ACRO cut footprint, we have an enclosed emitter red dot with housings machined in China, glass from Japan. 3 MOA dot, 1 MOA click values with 100 MOA range, 3 NVG / 7 daylight settings, 2.3 oz., and a larger window claiming to be 30% larger than the Aimpoint ACRO. Runs on the classic CR2032 battery.
The newer version offering a 1MOA red dot is American made. Machined and molded in Ohio, emitters bought from NY, and assembled in their clean rooms, the glass is the only exception for not coming from a US manufacturer.
We have a centurion arms slide that was made for a Glock 19 gen 3. We love all things Centurion ever since our first CMR rail from them, and have been supporters since. The slide filled a role for us and we mounted a Steiner MPS originally and we love that combination. We wanted to try other optics in the space so we opted for the PB-3 as a lot of those other "chinese" optics that were announced at the same time look like a bunch of brothers and sisters at a family reunion. The PB-3 truly stood out. We are biased to some degree as 80% of our optic collection is Aimpoint red dots versus Trijicon/Eotech/Vortex etc.
We tried to mount the PB-3 to the Centurion slide but found it would cam or lift upon cranking the screw tighter into the body. Essentially two sloped planes were grinding and causing the mobile one to dive into the body which then made contact with the top of the Centurion slide. I brought this to the attention of L&S who advised not to shoot the optic on the slide until we could ensure proper mounting. Me being me, I ensured it was clamped tight even if it was offset/lifted. There was no rocking motion side to side, nor any movement front to rear. I ended up shooting it and had no issues, other than zeroing wouldn't be normal as the X and Y axis were not true. I also wouldn't be able to fit it into the holster that I use. SIDENOTE - with irons in front of the optic which may help/hinder fitment to a safariland holster - we can confirm it fits inside a 6354RDS (it makes a little contact re-holstering) and it DOES NOT fit a 6354DO-832 (GL17-22 SF x300). This is with a Glock 19 slide threaded barrel or comp and SF X300.
The company was nice enough to send me an extra clamp in which I filed the clamp/mount to try and get the angle to match better/be a better depth for contact. We went back and forth with some measurements, and they told me to hold off with the design of a new clamp coming. I also gave them my slide to help make some new measurements with. We never got it truly 100%. I started to question if I had a lemon or what as the Steiner MPS lockup is tight. I took the PB-3 and mounted it on the PWS MK114 Pro with the Eratac USL mount, in which it performed great. I then mounted the PB-3 to the Arisaka offset mount, and same thing, it mounted flush and performed great. On the Gen 4 Glock 19 MOS slide and the Gen 3 Glock 19 Brutta BEC slide, it mounted nice and flush. It felt strong. Ideally we would have liked to Loctite the mount and then witness mark it. I personally do not think from regular one handed manipulation it would have gotten as loose as it did. I understand that dimensionally they all have the cross bar/brace to reinforce and assist with mounting, but that dimension could be different based on optic, slide, tolerances etc. I was hitting the slide as hard as I could so I could break it or allow some sort of leak.
The optic is durable. It's resilient. It did not open up or turn off at any point. At the very end of the video to take it a step further, we decided to try and spike it on the pavement to see if it would open up at all. It did not open up. That housing took a beating from me spiking it directly into the pavement. It actually chipped a piece of the pavement that I thought was part of the optic. Tim also gave it whack with a baseball bat. We will be remounting the optic, thread locking, and continuing to shoot it. If we change our minds on recommending this optic, we will post on our Instagram. A final side note - we were testing a Holosun AEMS Core and we broke the mount. The OEM mount chipped on the inside similar to what you see here like we did with the PB-3, but even after filing/sanding to make it mount flush again to a rifle picatinny rail, it still won't zero, yet the PB-3 will. We also tested a Holosun for the S&W Equalizer, and it infuriates me that a company like them would give one of my students this answer "At 7-10 yards there will not be enough room for internal adjustments to be made, please attempt at a distance of 20 yards to zero the optic." I feel like this is a cop out, and with Lead & Steel, I feel like I'm not going to get any excuses and the product actually will have the adjustment window it should. If anyone wants to buy us a mount for the AEMS Core, we'll gladly give it a second chance at making it past 30 seconds of a review.
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