Our entire lives run on batteries now, from our weapon mounted lights to the sights on our rifles and handguns. But if you do have a red dot sight, the question of when to change your optic batteries is something you need to answer.

When to Change Your Optic Batteries Plan A: Every Six Months

A lot of people use this method. When they change out their smoke detector batteries every six months, they also change the batteries in their optics. You do know you should change your smoke detector batteries every six months, right? An easy way to remember this is to change your batteries the week of Easter and the week before Halloween. While Easter floats around, it’s usually about six months before Halloween. Or, you could be really organized and set a calendar reminder.

Plan B: Change Your Optics Batteries When the Time Changes

Another strategy for when to change your optic batteries is to do it when the time changes. Spring forward, fall back, change the batteries in your Trijicon RMR. Or whatever optic you have. The drawback to this is that Daylight Savings Time is longer than Standard time now, so you’ll end up with one battery that does 8 months of service vs one that does 4. Of course, with some modern red dot sights measuring battery life in years, does that really matter?

Plan C: Change Them Once a Year

The last option is to change your optic batteries once a year. As mentioned above, many modern pistol and rifle optics like the Holosun 407 measure battery life in the thousands of hours. The once a year strategy would probably be fine if you’re changing the batteries in optics that spent most of their time off, like competition guns. But for a home defense gun or carry gun? I wouldn’t wait for a year to change batteries.

Of course, you could always just go with the most common method. That’s where you turn your optic on, but it doesn’t work because the battery is dead, and then you change it. Not really recommended, but it’s what a lot of people do, unfortunately.