In today’s review, Joe Kurtenbach evaluates the CORD Pandora PB-3 red dot sight. Suitable for performance pistols like the Springfield Armory Echelon, the PB-3 is a rugged sight with an IPx8 rating. The sight was loaned to the author for this review.
We all know the saying, “if you want something done right, sometimes you’ve got to do it yourself.” Well, when a group of shooting-savvy engineers is challenged to design a robust and reliable enclosed red-dot optic, the results can be brilliant.
But let’s back up a bit. When The Armory Life asked me to review a new optic from CORD, I gave editor Mike Humphries my usual response, “Of course!” followed by, “Who is CORD?”
The Backstory
If your response to this article’s lead was similar to mine, don’t worry, it took me only a few seconds and an internet search to get back on track, and I’ll save your fingers the keystrokes this time.
While you may not have heard of CORD, many will be familiar with the name Lead & Steel. Part firearms and accessory retailer, part enthusiast engineering cabal with only a hint of mad-scientist syndrome, the team at Lead & Steel built not only a successful online storefront — leadandsteel.co — they built a community of shooters that appreciate a little bit of rebellious spirit and the company’s willingness to go their own way and do it themselves, if necessary.
Lead & Steel is also known for having one helluva product warranty and is widely praised for its customer service — qualities that have never hurt when it comes to community building or rebellion raising.
Based in the Columbus, Ohio, area, Lead & Steel’s evolution was natural. The storefront carried products the team liked and trusted, but engineers really can’t help themselves, can they? When there were opportunities to make improvements or fill gaps in the catalog, the company had the will and skill to do it themselves. Enter the Central Ohio Research Division, or CORD for short.
Named as innocuously as the early CIA’s covert-action-oriented Office of Policy Coordination or the Vietnam-era Studies and Observation Group (SOG), CORD is Lead & Steel’s microelectronics skunkworks. Its first project was the company’s Promethean LP-1, a duty-ready red-dot sight for rifles and carbines that featured all the bells and whistles of its more established competitors but offered at an everyman price and backed by Lead & Steel’s stellar customer service.
The success of the Promethean provided a launch point for this article’s topic: a review of the CORD’s first pistol optic, the Pandora PB-3.
Pandora’s Box
Warning: If you are among the proto-curmudgeons who have adopted slide-mounted optics to improve your pistol craft but you refuse to get down with cool kids on fully enclosed red dots because they look like toasters on a rail, stop reading. Nothing that follows will disabuse you of this wrong-minded, albeit accurate, perception.
The CORD Pandora PB-3 is a fully enclosed micro red-dot sight designed for mounting atop semi-automatic pistol slides. Cutting to the chase, she’s built like a brick shithouse. No fancy lines, no extravagant lightening cuts or engraving, just a muscular tank of a toaster-shaped optic. While CORD calls it “duty grade,” I just see “overbuilt,” but in the best way possible. Like the way you’d build a fallout shelter, because who wants to be bothered by nuclear winter?
By the numbers, the PB-3 is 2.05” long, front to back, 1.37” tall, and 1.24” wide. Sans battery, the sight weighs 2.3 oz. For comparison it is slightly larger than the Aimpoint ACRO P-2, and more comparable to the Steiner MPS, although the Pandora’s sleek, all-business external design gives it a much trimmer appearance.
[Be sure to also read Robert Sadowski’s Aimpoint ACRO P-2 review for more information on that optic.]
In terms of glass, the window is noticeably larger than competitive products. At 22x17mm, we are only talking about a couple millimeters in difference, but it might as well be miles to my eye. Some enclosed red dots leave the impression of peering through a peephole — a lot of structure obscuring your sightline for just a small porthole to peek through. The Pandora provides almost the opposite experience. Despite its obviously robust housing, when I bring the sight on target it’s almost all glass, no frame. More on that later, but suffice it to say early impressions were very positive.
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Of the housing, the Pandora is constructed from 7075 T-6 aluminum and wears a Type III hardcoat anodized finish — black, olive green, or coyote brown. It overhangs the glass, front and rear, to protect the lenses from impact, and sealing plates ensure the lenses are secure and stabilized within the housing. The optic achieves an IPX8 waterproof rating, surviving at least 90 minutes when submerged to a depth of 10 meters. Like most pistol optics in its category, the Pandora PB-3 utilizes the ACRO mounting footprint, which features a cross-slot lug and clamp to ensure secure and recoil-resistant attachment.
In Your Sights
The Pandora PB-3 is a multi-reticle optic with a range of illumination settings. Three reticle options are easily selectable: a 3 MOA dot, a 32 MOA ring, or a ring-and-dot combination. At the time of writing, red is the only reticle color available. There are 10 total brightness settings, 7 daylight illumination levels, and 3 night-vision-compatible settings. From inside the house to the indoor range, I found that the lowest daylight settings provided a crisp, easy-to-see reticle, and I appreciated the added illumination options as an overcast outdoor range day turned into a bright, full-sun afternoon. There seems to be plenty of adjustability for varied lighting conditions.
Making the illumination adjustments is exceptionally easy. On the top side of the housing are two intuitive, tactile, rubberized arrow-shaped buttons. Up and down, simple as that. Pressing either button will turn the sight on, then the up arrow will increase brightness and the down arrow will dim the reticle. Pressing both buttons together will cycle through the three reticle options: dot, ring, and then combo. And, to power off the sight, press and hold the up arrow for three seconds.
Other controls include an elevation adjustment dial on top of the housing, below the brightness controls, and a windage dial on the upper right side of the housing. Both dials have slots for inserting a flat-head screwdriver, or similar tool, and each click is valued at 1 MOA of adjustment, so about 1 inch at 100 yards or, more practically for pistol shooters, .1 inch at 10 yards. Both dials are clearly labeled as to which way they should be turned during the zeroing process, and more detailed instructions are included in the user manual for those newer to pistol-mounted optics.
The Pandora PB-3 is powered by a single CR2032 that loads into an easily accessible compartment on the left side of the housing. CORD advertises an average runtime of 30,000 hours per battery, but actual battery life is highly dependent on the reticle selection and brightness setting. Most users will likely get three to six months of worry-free use at a medium illumination setting, and for use on defensive firearms, I’d just recommend more frequent checks and battery changes.
One cool feature that appeals to my always prepared mindset is CORD’s AuraWake technology. Similar to shake-to-wake systems, the Pandora PB-3 will enter a “sleep” mode when the firearm is stationary for more than five minutes in order to conserve power. Then, as soon as the gun and optic are moved, the reticle kicks back on to its previous setting. However, unlike traditional shake-to-wake, the PB-3 never fully sleeps. Instead, the outer ring will shut off, but the 3 MOA dot is always on. I tend to prefer always-on pistol optics, distrusting slightly the power-saving circuitry (now who’s the proto-curmudgeon?), so the AuraWake system offers an ideal compromise to my mind.
CORD Pandora PB-3 Specifications
- Magnification: 1X
- Reticle Options: 3/32 MOA Dot/Ring
- Eye Relief: Infinite
- Weight: 2.3 oz.
- Dimensions: 2.05”x1.37”x 1.24”
- Window Size: 0.87”x0.67”
- Price: $419.99–$449.99
On The Range
To get a better feel for the Pandora PB-3, I mounted it on top of the king of optic-ready pistols, the Springfield Armory Echelon. Accommodating most optics with a footprint-configurable direct-mounting design, the Echelon’s Variable Interface System also readily accepts an ACRO-pattern mounting plate, sold through Springfield’s online store.
Assembly could not have been simpler: Remove two screws and pull the pistol’s cover plate, then install the ACRO plate with its two included screws. Finally, mount the Pandora PB-3 so that the cross-slot interfaces with ACRO plate’s channel, and tighten the clamp with the included T-10 Torx wrench. Voila.
At the range, the first task was to sight-in and zero the optic. Well, as it turns out, the hard work was already done for me. I’m happy to report that most pistol dots are, out of the box, going to be pretty close to zeroed given a quality pistol and proven mounting system — both production firearms and sighting systems have come a long way in recent years. Still, I couldn’t have predicted that the Echelon and PB-3 would be dead nuts at 10 yards with no adjustment at all. It was awesome.
My first impression of the setup was just admiration for how wide open my field of view was. One key to shooting an optic-equipped pistol is to remain target-focused and let the reticle simply appear in your sightline during presentation — no more managing multiple focal points or fixating on the front sight. With the Pandora PB-3, it was just so natural. I didn’t feel as though I had to look through the sight; I just had to look at the target, and the sight would be there. Reliably, unobtrusively. I credit the PB-3’s large lenses for this exceptional shooting experience, as well as its unassuming exterior. The optic is all business, no distractions.
A great test of a red-dot sight’s ability to facilitate or hinder target focus and situational awareness is to work on transitions. Spacing out multiple targets and engaging them in sequence introduces additional eye and body movements to the process of identifying the target, acquiring a good sight picture, pressing the trigger, and repeating for multiple shots. So, arranging three targets in modified “El Prez” formation, I worked the targets over and over in every sequence and order I could imagine, relishing the wide-open visibility paired with the crisp red reticle. Easy mode, engaged.
Conclusion
Overall, in the case of the CORD Pandora PB-3, I’m happy to report that the optic’s performance is a far cry from its namesake’s box of calamities. I am hugely impressed by the sight’s professional appearance, suite of features, bombproof construction, and deceptively large lenses.
It’s a credit to Lead & Steel’s team of engineers that they can enter a packed category and still deliver a unique and exceptional product, as well as value with a capital V at a price of $419.99 to $449.99.
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