Picture from Soviet Bazaar - The place I purchased mine, I will get some of my own pics as soon as I can get a near digi cam again

Price: £136    Field of vision: Unlimited    Weight: 410grams    Number of sighting marks: 4    Aiming mark size: 1.6MOA     Dimensions: 154x50x73    Battery type: CR2325 (CR2032)

This is the real deal, a real as used by Soviet Spetsnas forces Cobra Holosight!

What's so good about it? I hear you ask, well practically everything.  Like me show you:

The package you get is: Holosight, Very comprehensive Instruction (english) leafleft, Cleaning cloth and a Camo carry case for the sight.  And it all comes in a very Russian cardboard box. (plus Soviet Bazaar put in there own easier instruction leaflet)

The holosight works a bit like a HUD in a fighter jet.  A back light projects an image onto a front panel of glass.  In the Holosight it projects a red dot.  So when looking into the sight it looks like your looking at a laser light on your target.   What makes this better than a laser is that they cannot see the red dot.   Fantastic, no messing about with geting the sights at the right angle, the red dot is where the BB with go!

There are many red dot/holosights on the market so what makes the Cobra better than any of them?

Well the first thing you notice is that being Russian made, it's built like a tank.   Solid metal, and weighs quite a bit for that which I suppose is the Cobras only down side.

It has the usual things you'd find on a good red do scope, Windage and distance correction knobs, variable brightness rocker and an on/off button.  But what makes this very special is that it also has a button for changing the image projected.  

There are 4 images, a simple red dot, a red dot with triangle underneath, a triangle and last but defiantly not least a cut away T shape.  The T shape makes it so easy to identify and bring to bear on targets it's almost like cheating!

Another nice feature with holosights is that you can use them with both eyes open i.e. you don't have to close one eye to look down the sight.  This takes a bit of getting used to but in the end is so much better than a normal scope or iron sights that I'd never go back.

The glass in the front of the scope is blued from the stock end and redish from the targets end meaning that they cannot see the red light even on the brightest setting, very nice.

The scope uses watch batteries that can be picked up from practically anywhere, you get about 14hrs usage from one battery depending on the brightness setting of cause.   The battery fits in a hole in the bottom at the front and is fixed in with a screw on plug with a handy coin slot in for tightening.  This makes the scope completely waterproof, so you can drop it in a stream an not worry!

There are several different mounts that the Cobra can be bought with, standard dove tail, Weaver Rail and AK/SVD side rail.  I wanted to use mind on more than just my AK so went for the Weaver mount.  The weaver mount is a quick release mount, this means that you can flick the mount arm around and the mount just comes off the weaver rail.   Very useful if you run out of battery power and need to use iron sights in a hurry.   There is one downside to the weaver mount though, if you have a rail that is just a little wider than it should be then the scope won't fit. (I had this problem with the Classic Army M4/M16 mount.  I just filed down the edges of the rail and it all works fine now.  There is also a myth about them not fitting on the M4 rail on the top of the receiver, just to point out mine does fit fine!)

The only problems I can see with the Cobra are, it's a little heavy and some people may not like the size/look of it.  Personally I love that clunky Russian look, and it looks great stuck on the top of my M4 (US and Soviet together, now there's an odd look ;o) ).  The Cobra also doesn't have parralax correction which is only a small problem as the parralax issue doesn't seem to effect it until you are very close to a target.

Conclusion

Well if you don't like the look or aren't prepared to deal with the extra weigh then this scope is not for you but if you want the best Airsoft scope for under £250 then buy one, buy one NOW!  You will not regret it.

As I may have said I bought this from Soviet Bazaar at a very reasonable price with some very good service, they dealt with my Email queries very quickly and even sent me a big picture of the Spetsnas using one.

p.s. I have no links with Soviet Bazaar, I'm just impressed with their service.