Raft Wars 3
A Rugged But Tiny Red Dot Sight
Carbines came about as a means of giving a soldier who had to ride a horse or for whom fighting with a personal weapon was a secondary role, something more effective than a pistol to retaliate with. One of the best recent examples of such a carbine is the US M1 and its variants the M1A1 and M2. The M1 gave artillerymen, sappers and corpsmen serious firepower, enabling them to beat off attacks from up to 300 meters. It’s only limitations were its lack of penetration and killing power. The post war period saw a focus on engagement distances of 300 meters and less – the distance at which Soviet motor rifle troops would dismount from their armored carriers. Whilst the Global War on Terror and Afghanistan in particular have driven up engagment ranges and interest in longer barrelled, harder hitting weapons, in most cases the issue carbine is still perfectly adequate. Barred from possessing the military 14.5″ barrels without onerous paperwork and tax, civilians bought up 16″ barrelled AR15s in droves.
The military heritage of the AR15 gives it an undeniable appeal, but they’re put to a plethora of uses including self defence, action shooting, hunting and pest control. You can bolt almost anything on to an AR15 platform, but that in itself can become problematic. An AR15s sleek lines don’t lend themselves to having a heap of ugly, angular gizmos hung from it. Keep this up and before long you can end up with something as light and handy as an outboard motor.
Adding things is fun and can add functionality, but you have to choose carefully. A foregrip flashlight doesn’t add much weight and will make your rifle night capable at a fraction of the cost of NV. A tactical sling adds very little weight for the huge improvement in ergonomics and readiness it imparts. Now you come to mount a sight on your carbine. A military spec red dot sight is going to be a big, heavy lump of aluminium that’s going to tie up a whole heap of your rail space -or at least that was once the case. Things just changed!
Aimpoint offer their tiny Micro H-1 and Micro T-1 red dot sights in a package that, even with screw operated Picatinny rail mount come in at well under four ounces and take up only 2.4 inches of rail space. Aimpoints are extremely rugged. To save you cash Aimpoint deleted the night vision capability found in the T-1 to make a less expensive Micro H-1 model for hunters and sports shooters. The Micro T-1 and Micro H-1 both feature a 4 MOA red dot for rapid target acquisition. These units are barely larger than some flip up backsights. A single CR2032 battery can keep the red dot glowing for 50,000 hours or five years and the sight will withstand immersion in 80ft of seawater. They can be used in conjuction with an Eotech G23.FTS flip to side magnifier for those occasions when you need to be able to ID targets that much further out – some units in Afghanistan are already utilising this capability. A whole range of mounts are available from Aimpoint and third parties that add height, quick release and cantilever design to mount these ultra compact sights.
Eotech recently added a range of small holographic weapon sights that employ a single transversely mounted CR123 battery to reduce length and eliminate the chance of recoil induced connection issues. This is sealed in by a simple tethered cap and O-ring which will not spring off. To clear AR15 delta rings all these units have a cantilevered battery housing. They start with the non night capable, thumb screw attached XPS2 models and gradually increase in specification, the XPS3 adding night vision compatibility and, in the EXPS3 series, a 7mm higher quick release mount to enable co-witnessing of BIUS in the lower 1:3 of the field of view and side mounted NV buttons to enable very close mounting of NV or 3X magnifiers. Taking up 2.75 inches of rail space, these units can run continuously for 600 hours on one battery. In this series -0 models have a 1 MoA reticlered dot in a 65 MoA circle, -1 models have one 1 MoA red dot and -2 models have a 65 MoA circle with two 1 MoA red dots to enable aiming off for range. They weigh 8 to 11.2 ounces and are waterproof to 10 meters or 33 feet.
Which do you choose? The Aimpoint is somewhat more expensive and offers slightly less flexibility in head/eye placement but it is tiny, utterly rugged and has vastly longer battery life. Eotech have the edge in longer range engagements with a smaller dot and you can adopt more radical shooting positions due to their totally parallax free HUD. Whichever you opt for, you will have the state of the art in sighting technology in a unit that will give you many years of reliable service.
Raft Wars Part 1/3
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