7 Best Red Dots for Walther PDP – Reviewed 2024

The Walther PDP comes optic-ready, but like with any other pistol, when you start looking for an optic to pair it with, there are questions about compatibility and effectiveness. Since not all red dots will work with the Walther PDP, we’ll cover seven of the best ones to look at as you’re getting started.

Like with any firearm + optic combination, some are better for some situations than others, and a lot comes down to personal preference as well. I’ve done my best to include options that cover a variety of priorities but feel free to let me know if there’s a red dot that deserves to be on this list.

Product Reviews

1. Holosun HS507C X2

The Holosun 507C is one of the most common red dots you’ll see on a Walther PDP. Walther recommends it on their website and has a mounting plate designed specifically for the RMR footprint, which the 507C uses.

The 507C nails all the basics: it uses a 2 MOA dot and a 32 MOA circle combination for the reticle, which is my personal favorite style on a reflex sight. I find that it gives me fast target acquisition when I need it and the ability to hone in for high accuracy at a distance when necessary. 

It mounts nice and snug to the PDP, but you’ll want to use the short screws that come with the Holosun instead of the factory screws that come with the mounting plate from Walther. The optics are nice, the image is clear, and glare isn’t a big problem on this sight.

But what about other features? You’ve got some mini solar panel or cells on the top that can power the sight in daylight, and the 507C has a shake-awake that will kick it on automatically based on movement. Holosun claims that you can get 50,000 hours of long battery life on a single CR1632 battery between these settings.

Not only that, but the Holosun also has a lock mode to prevent setting changes from accidentally pushing the buttons. The buttons themselves are lower down on the red dot than in previous versions, which makes them harder to bump in the first place.

Pros:

• Circle-dot reticle for both fast acquisition and high accuracy
• Great battery life (up to 50,000 hours)
• Solar fail-safe power solution
• Auto-adjusting brightness (if you want)
• Cheaper than other high-end red dots

Cons:

• Doesn’t come in both red & green versions
• Holosun customer support is hit-and-miss

2. Sightmark Mini Shot M-Spec

If the 507C is a little too rich for your taste, I’d recommend looking at the Sightmark Mini Shot. It’s about half the price and still gives you a lot of the functionality that you get from more expensive red dots.

When you look at budget red dots, you start to run into many unrecognizable and unreliable brand names – Sightmark is not one of them. Sightmark has a good reputation for making decent quality at a lower price point. 

You’ll need the Doctor/Vortex plate from Walther to mount on your PDP, as the Mini Shot uses the same footprint.

The reticle on the Mini Shot is just a 3 MOA red dot, which is small enough for accuracy but should be large enough that you can find it quickly when you bring your gun up. The reticle has ten brightness levels, two of which are night-vision compatible.

Whether you like or dislike the 3 MOA dot is really up to preference. As long as it’s bright enough, I don’t find that it slows down my target acquisition too much, but what does slow it down is the lack of shake-awake. This means that you have to manually turn the sight on when you want to fire it, and there’s no option to have the brightness adjust automatically.

This means if you train at the range in daylight, then carry while you’re out at night and happen to forget to adjust the brightness down, you may have to take critical seconds to adjust the brightness or try to see past the glare.

Granted, it’s not likely that you’ll be in a situation like that in the first place, and if you are, it’s even less likely that the two seconds it takes to pop the brightness down a bit is going to make a difference. It’s up to you to decide how much that matters.

Pros:

• Great price
• Has automatic shut off after 12 hours
• Night vision compatible
• Strong and durable

Cons:

• No shake-awake
• No automatic brightness adjustments
• No green dot option

3. Leupold DeltaPoint Pro

Leupold put a fair amount of thought into their design of the DeltaPoint Pro. The battery compartment doesn’t require tools to open, and you can swap out the battery without having to remove the sight from the gun, which is very convenient. The dot is a bit smaller than the Sightmark at 2.5 MOA, which gives you a slight edge in terms of accuracy.

Battery life isn’t as high as some other options, and that, combined with the smaller dot, makes the DeltaPoint Pro a slightly better fit for target shooting than for duty or carry, in my opinion. The DeltaPoint has motion activation and will still perform great in most carry situations, but I would argue the 507C has an edge on it when it comes to life-threatening circumstances.

What Leupold has over the 507C, however, is Leupold’s warranty. They offer a forever guarantee on every single one of their optics, so they tend to build them tough enough to withstand just about anything.

Often the trade-off with Leupold’s more affordable optics (like the DeltaPoint Pro) is that you don’t get as many features as with some other brands. That said, you still get eight brightness settings, waterproofing up to 66 feet, shockproofing, and fog proofing. 

Pros:

• Easy to swap batteries
• Good for accuracy
• One of Walther’s recommended optics for the PDP
• Forever warranty

Cons:

• No automatic brightness adjustment
• Battery life isn’t as long

4. Aimpoint ACRO P-2

The ACRO P-2 is a unique sight. Rather than have the “open” reflex style, it has encased the LED and all the electronics in a protective shell. This gives it a boxy look that makes it seem bigger than it actually is, but it also does a great job of ensuring the functionality of the red dot, even in inclement weather.

On most red dots, it’s possible for the emitter to become occluded with mud, sand, dirt, snow, or rain, but Aimpoint wanted to eliminate that possibility altogether. They went with a 3.5 MOA dot, which should be a good middle-ground for target acquisition and accuracy. It’s water resistant up to 115 feet and competes well against the 507C for battery life.

So, where does the ACRO P-2 fall short? Couple places. First, it’s far and away the most expensive sight on this list. Second, Walther doesn’t appear to directly manufacture a PDP mounting plate for the ACRO. If Walther does offer them, it’s not anywhere on their website and does not come up in searches. 

Third-party plates will run you an additional $50-$75 on top of the price of the sight. Even with the added expense, though, the ACRO P-2 is one of the most popular sights for the PDP. That should tell you something about how good of a sight it is.

Pros:

• Unmatched durability due to protective housing
• Best-in-class waterproofing
• Field of view is surprisingly good considering its design

Cons:

• Expensive
• No green dot
• No auto on/off, no auto-brightness settings

5. Trijicon RMR Type 2

The Trijicon RMR checks a lot of boxes for me. It’s reasonably waterproof, shockproof, and fog-proof, it offers a great image that doesn’t change the color of the target area nearly as much as some other options, and you can toggle between manually adjusting the reticle brightness and automatically adjusting it.

Trijicon’s specialty is battery-free illumination via the use of tritium, and the RMR has a nifty option that will use a Tritium-phosphor lamp for low-light illumination or an LED option that runs like a more traditional red dot.

Supposedly the RMR offers a wider field of view than other red dots, and that may be true, but honestly, I’ve never personally felt like reflex sights struggle with FOV in the first place. So it may be the best of the best, but I doubt you’ll notice much difference between this and any other open reflex-style red dot.

Pros:

• Good image clarity
• Auto brightness
• Auto-off
• Durable

Cons:

• Not as many brightness settings as other options
• More expensive than all except the Aimpoint

6. Vortex Venom

Venom is a household name in the handgun optic world, and for a good reason. It’s small, light, comes in either a 3 MOA or 6 MOA reticle version, and offers good battery life. It has ten brightness settings on the reticle, you can change the batteries without removing the sight, and the adjustment buttons are within reach of your thumb while the gun is drawn.

All those things are why the Venom red dot is on this list, but you may wonder why it’s not higher up. One of the biggest things pulling it back is that it will take a little finagling to get it mounted on your Walther PDP. You may have to mill certain parts down a bit to get it to fit properly, which makes this not as great of a choice for the PDP.

Also, it’s only waterproof up to 1 meter, isn’t certified to operate in as low of temperatures as other options, and overall just isn’t as durable as the choices that are higher up. 

All that said, the price is good, and the Vortex warranty is even better. If you’re attracted to the Leupold DeltaPoint Pro but don’t want to spend quite that much money, the Vortex Venom is a great one to consider.

Pros:

• 3 MOA or 6 MOA reticle choices
• Good battery life
• Ten brightness settings
• Conveniently located buttons

Cons:

• Not waterproof beyond 1 meter
• Requires milling to mount on a Walther PDP

7. Swampfox Kingslayer

Last on our list is a brand you probably have not heard of: Swampfox. Their Kingslayer red dot is a hidden gem that is worth considering, especially considering its low price. At right around the same price as the Sightmark Mini Shot, the Kingslayer gives a slightly different offering that might be exactly what you’re looking for. 

First, you can choose which version you want: a simple red dot, a green dot with a circle, or a red dot with a circle. You can’t toggle between them: you have to choose which one you want and buy them. There are a few slight differences between the models (13 brightness settings vs. 12, for example), but nothing substantial.

They do offer a warranty, but it’s what they call a “50,000 round guarantee” as opposed to a lifetime or forever warranty. I don’t know how they verify whether an optic is in or out of warranty, so how this warranty works in practice depends entirely on Swampfox’s behavior as a company. 

I’ve never had the pleasure of making a warranty claim on a Swampfox optic, so I can’t speak to how they do. All the other basic features are there, and the Kingslayer has an auto shut-off after 4 hours in case you forget to turn it off.

Pros:

• Low price
• Can choose reticle
• They offer a warranty

Cons:

• Warranty is vague
• No shake-awake
• Not as well-known of a name

Buying Guide

Compatibility With Walther PDP

It’s important to note that not all handgun optics are compatible with every handgun. Each manufacturer has its own specifications for mounted optics, and even “optic-ready” handguns like the PDP don’t have universal compatibility.

All of the sights on this list are verified to be compatible with the pdp red dot sights, but if you’re looking elsewhere for a sight, make sure it will fit.

Footprint

The most significant factor in determining whether a sight will fit is the “footprint” that it has. This refers to the size and shape of the bottom of the sight. There are a few ones you’ll see frequently, like the “doctor” footprint used by the Vortex Venom and the RMR mounting standard used by the RMR and the Swampfox.

Feel free to check Walther’s website for recommended optics or call their customer service to find out which plates they can send you. They should be willing to send you one complimentary plate as long as you know what you want.

Co-Witnessing with Iron Sights

Back-up iron sights, or BUIS, are (in my humble opinion) critical for a handgun. Any time your primary means of aiming requires battery power, I would highly recommend having a non-electrical backup that you can move to if needed. Co-witnessing iron sights with a red dot will often require purchasing new irons that are suppressor-height.

A few red dots sit low enough to work with regular iron sights, but they’re not common.

To learn more about shotgun red dots, visit Hunting Mark’s best red dots for shotguns.

Holstering/Carrying

One of the things that caught me by surprise when I was looking at my first handgun optic was that I wouldn’t be able to fit my gun into the holster I had at the time if I put a red dot on it. This seems like a little thing, but it can matter a lot, especially if you’re putting the optic on a weapon intended for concealed carry.

Dot Color/Reticle

As a general rule, green is better for the day, and red is better for the night vision equipment. That said, you can use either color in either situation simply by adjusting the brightness. While I personally don’t have astigmatism, I have heard many people say that a green dot is better for theirs than a red dot.

Visit Hunting Mark’s best red dots for shotgun to know more about shotgun red-dots.

Frequently-Asked Questions

Also Read: What Is MOA on a Scope?

Conclusion

I feel that overall, the Holosun HS507C X2 is the best red dot to put on your Walther PDP. It has a host of impressive features, incredible durability, and advanced technology that make it a great match for the situations that the PDP excels at. If you want to pick up the 507C, you can do so here.