Nov 222019
 

I was having lunch with a friend of mine earlier today and, as it often happens, the conversation turned to guns. We talked about politics prior to that and a fifteen minute conversation was all it took to solve the majority of world’s problems. We had a little time left, so we figured we should tackle something substantially more complicated: what gun he should buy next. He used to be a LEO, so he has had a lot of training with submachine guns. However, now that 300 Blackout is here, I do not see a ton of value in that. A 300 Blackout SBR would be kind of cool. In a perfect world, he would just get a HoneyBadger SBR from Q and be done with it. Except you have to deal with NFA and there is a six month backlog on the gun itself. Next best thing, I figured, would be a Honeybadger pistol. With that approach, you do not have to deal with NFA, but apparently the folks at Q are doing something right, since the backlog for that one, as of today, is around 15 months or so. I am a big fan of Q’s guns, so I checked to see the situation with the Sugar Weasel pistol. That is also backordered. Sugar Weasel uses the same barrel and gas system as Honey Badger, but the stock is a little less sophisticated and the receiver set is essentially mil-spec. It is very slightly heavier than the Honey Badger, but it kicks ass otherwise.

He knows that I’ve built a few AR style guns over the years, so he asked me for some recommendations on what components I would choose if I were building a 300 Blackout AR pistol, so here we are. Generally, I do have one of these that I built a while back and I learned quite a bit about working with a 300 Blackout cartridge in a short barrel from it. However, the one I built has a folding stock from LAW Tactical and Dolos takedown barrel system. Altogether, it is kinda heavy, so I figured it is worthwhile for me to go through the exercise of building another one that is a lot lighter. I think I can shave a couple of pounds off of the weight of the one I have. Ultimately, I am going to go through a set of considerations for a 300 Blackout build that is mostly designed to replicate Q’s Sugar Weasel, given that my chances of finding one are fairly slim with their crazy backlog and all. I will explain why I suggest using Q’s components where possible and why. The links to most of the components I mention are at the very end, although I will link to a few things in the body of the article as appropriate.

Because 300 Blackout was designed to work with both supersonic and subsonic loads, you are dealing with very different gas volumes and pressures. If you also use a suppressor (and you should), you add some additional concerns. Basically, you end up with four distinct possibilities:

  1. Subsonic unsuppressed: least amount of gas volume to work with, so the gas port needs to be the most open in this case
  2. Subsonic suppressed: suppressor adds back pressure, so the gun will cycle with a smaller gas port opening
  3. Supersonic unsuppressed: a little more gas volume, but basically this works at a fairly similar gas port opening as subsonic suppressed
  4. Supersonic suppressed: even more back pressure, so if you use one of the earlier settings you will be overgassed.

With short pistol barrels, tuning the gas system can get kinda tricky and getting it to run reliably with every load is not likely if you do not pay attention.

The sorta standard recommendation from many manufacturers is to pick one scenario and run with that. I appreciate why they suggest it, but I think there is a way to work around it.

In principle, most short barrel 300 Blackout pistols end up using an adjustable gas block. However, switching between gas block settings with most of these is not something you can do on the fly. They are really designed to be tuned once and left alone. The two exceptions to that I am aware of are Collar Adjustable gas block from Strike Industries and Select Gas Block from Seekins. Both of these can be adjusted with a simple tool through the opening in the handguard. I have not used either one of these myself, but I might. I do know people who have used them.

With conventional gas blocks, I like the idea of using them together with a Bootleg adjustable bolt carrier. The bolt carrier has four gas settings, so you can adjust the gas block for the most lowest gas pressure situation (subsonic unsuppressed) and then experiment with the bolt carrier gas settings to make sure everything works with other loads. Unlike the gas block, the bolt carrier adjustment is easily accessible without disassembling the rifle.

With barrels, if I manage to find one in stock, my preference would be to get the Honey Badger barrel assembly from Q. I know I talk about Q a lot, but they make good stuff and there are a couple of things about their barrels that are rather unique. The barrel assembly linked above comes with an adjustable gas block secured by a jam nut and faster than usual 1-in-5″ twist rate. Both are a good idea. Also, their barrel comes with a machined taper up front for mounting a suppressor. If you eventually add one of their direct mount suppressors to the mix, that tapered surface makes sure proper suppressor alignment.

Aside from that, most barrels in the 7″ to 10″ length will work fine, but it worth your time to check with the barrel manufacturer what the had in mind when selecting the gas port diameter. For example, Noveske’s barrel are designed to run with subsonic suppressed and supersonic unsuppressed. There is a good chance that subsonic unsuppressed will not cycle.

I have had good luck with Seekins barrels and I know they can be tuned for all four scenarios. There are, of course others that work well from Odin and Rainier.

Handguards are kinda in the eye of the beholder. There are a lot of them and they mostly work. Some people like long handguards that are virtually as long as the barrel, but with a short firearm like this, I am concerned about accidentally sliding my hand in front of the muzzle. I’d go with something in the 6″ to 8″ length range depending on which barrel you end up using. Q’s excellent 6″ handguard is, naturally, out of stock right now, but it is certainly a good option. Lately, I’ve used handguards from MI for a couple of builds and I think they offer a very good combination of performance and cost.

As far as receivers go, I kinda like somewhat lightened receiver sets like Palouse from 2A Armament. There are lighter ones out there, but they get really expensive. Something like Palouse is not bad, but a standard mil-spec receiver set from someone like Aero Precision is not a bad option either.

Charging handles are also kinda personal. I have had good luck with ambi charging handles from BCM and Raptor, so I would go with one of those.

Lastly, we get to the arm brace. There are quite a few out there now, but I think SBA3 is your best bet for flexibility of use.

Lastly, I want to touch onto the subject of triggers. There very many good AR triggers on the market. If you already have a preference, go with that. Personally, I’d probably just go with Geissele’s SSA or SSA-E and be done with it. It is a know quantity and I have yet to have a problem with one.

 Posted by at 10:12 pm
Jun 302018
 

A little while back, I got a chance to play with a pre-production model of the new Leica Tempus red dot sight.  I only had a day with it before it had to go back, so rather than experimenting with equipment, hooked it up to me 10mm carbine and headed to the range.

I spend a lot of time with different red dot and holographic sights and at one time or another, I have had damn near all of them in my hands.  Still, new ones keep coming out and I mostly gave up on trying to keep up.


I have developed some preferences, of course.

With holographic sights, I really like Vortex UH-1.  It is built like a tank and is my choice for applications where I may want to run it with a magnifier.

On handguns, I have had exceedingly good luck with Docter and Shield.  Shield’s diminutive RMS and RMSc are my favourites for handgun use, although Doctersight III is doing quite well on my 10mm Glock as well.

On carbines, I am really fond of Shield SIS, in addition to the aforementioned UH-1.



Leica Tempus is a different approach than the SIS and for some applications, I expect it to be an exceedingly nice option, although I will not make any overarching conclusions until I have spent some time with a production piece.

What I did so far was gran a few other red dot sights I had on hand and look at them side by side with the Tempus.

Leica Tempus, Shield SIS, Shield RMS, Shield RMSc, Doctersight III

Tempus is a little bigger than typical compact red dots like the Doctersight and Shield with a substantially larger window.  On a carbine, the bright red dot was exceedingly easy to pick up.

In the picture above, the Tempus is on the carbine, Doctersight III is on a long slide 10mm Glock (the slide was cut for me by Winkle Design, who I can not recommend enough.  Fantastic quality), Shield SIS and RMS are sitting on the bench, Shield RMSc is on my Glock 43.

The TNW carbine has a very heavy bolt that seems to slam hard in both directions, which I thought will make a good impromptu durability test for the Tempus.  No issues after a couple of hundred rounds.

I purposefully avoided looking at any of the published specs, in order to form an unbiased first impression.  The dot size in this one was 2 MOA, but 3.5 MOA is also available.  I’ll try to get a 3.5 MOA one to play with when production units get here.

I have no idea how long the battery lasts.  I’ll test that.  It does have auto shut off.  Dot brightness is manually adjustable from very dim to very bright.  Easily bright enough for a bright California day.

Whatever voodoo Leica did with the aspherical lens worked.  The dot is very well defined, distortion is virtually non-existent and, at 50 yards, it has the least visible parallax I have ever seen on a reflex sight.

Like with all red dot sights, there is a little bit of a color cast, but it is not bothersome.

Doctersight III and Leica Tempus ASPH

The mounting pattern is the same as for the Doctersight, but the footprint is different since the aluminum body of the Tempus is larger.  ADM Doctersight mount worked fine, but the plate on my Unity Tactical slide, wouldn’t.

The Tempus works off of the rather common 2032 battery, which I like.  I try to stay away from sights that use strange batteries.

To give you an idea of the difference in window size, here is the Tempus side by side with Shield SIS:

Shield SIS and Leica Tempus

With the Shield SIS, the body of the sight is my coarse aiming tool: at very close distance, whatever is visible through the window is toast if all I want is a center of mass shot.  I do not even have to look for the dot when I go fast.

With the Tempus, when you speed up, the body of the sight almost disappears and all you see is that bright dot on the target.  Both methods work.  When I get a production Tempus, I’ll take it to a carbine class with me and see how it holds up and how I get along with it on a longer term basis.

One last thign to mention is that the Tempus comes with a protective cover that snaps on and makes it look a little more like an Aimpoint style tube-type sight. Illumination control buttons are accessible with the cover on. It might help with glare in bright light and, in general, is not a bad thing from the standpoint of protecting the sight. It barely adds any weight and gives just a little more protection from the elements.

In a nutshell, my “one day impression” of the Tempus is very positive.  Stay tuned for more.

 Posted by at 6:40 pm

Shield announces RMS-C Red Dot for narrow slide guns

 New products, Reflex Sights  Comments Off on Shield announces RMS-C Red Dot for narrow slide guns
Jan 162018
 

written on January 16, 2018

I do not usually post much about new product introductions, but this one addresses something I was just discussing, so I figured I should.

I wrote a little bit about Shield red dot sights lately and I just so an announcement that they are introducing an even smaller version of their diminutive RMS reflex sight.

This one is called RMS-C and it is basically a narrower version of the RMS (all pictures are from the press release, not something I took):

I liked the RMS so much that I cut my Glock 43 for it.  It does overhang a little, but my options were limited and it does work well.  Now, as soon as it is available, I will get the RMS-C for my Glock 43.  Anything cut for the RMS will work with RMS-C (same screw locations), so this should be a painless transition.

Kudos to Shield, for quickly reacting to the market.

Now, I need to decide what gun I should put the regular RMS onto…  Don’t tell my wife, but I think I need a new gun.

It is already available for sale directly from Shield in the UK:

RMSc – Reflex Mini Sight Compact 8MOA

As soon as I see it for sale by a US-based distributor, I’ll add some links.

 Posted by at 11:51 am
Dec 292017
 

written by ILya Koshkin, December 2017

I started talking about Shield Sights here.

Earlier I mostly focused on Shield’s RMS, which I primarily used on handguns.  Here, I will switch gears a bit and talk about Shield SIS, which is designed for use as a carbine optic.

Until I ran into the Shield SIS, for me, with reflex sights, the choice has been really between Aimpoint Micro and Trijicon MRO.  Now, of course, there are a few other worthy competitors, like Leupold LCO and Steiner R1X (I have tested the LCO, but I am yet to look at the Steiner), but my interest for carbine use has been with sights roughly the size of the Aimpoint Micro.  For people on the budget, there is a bunch of different Chinese made reflex sights all made by the same OEM.  They are marketed under a bunch of brands: Holosun, Sig Romeo5, Hi-Lux MM-2, Vortex Sparc AR, etc.  There are some variations, but these are all fundamentally decent sights, with Hi-Lux MM-2 probably being my favourite at the moment. These retail in the $200 range.

However, higher priced sights like Aimpoint, Trijicon, Shield, Steiner, etc, do offer some advantages in ruggedness, color cast, parallax, distortion, etc.  For my personal use, I’ve got the Shield SIS on the carbine that I have designated for defensive purposes, while HiLux MM2 is on a a 10mm plinker.  Now, mind you, the MM2 has given me exactly zero problems, but the Shield is better, as it should be being twice more expensive.  Vortex Sparc AR performs very similarly to the MM2 and I had an opportunity to beat up three of them at the same time.  It performs very similarly to the MM2, but the mount is specific to ARs, while MM2 can be mounted low for non-AR applications.  With that out of the way, I am going to get back to Shield SIS.



Compared to most reflex sights, the SIS looks a little unvonventional, but not all that weird.  It looks a little blocky, but it is small and light at a bit under three ounces.  Mine came with a riser (for two heights) and Picatinny mount.  Most of the construction is from a combination of some sort of a heavy duty polymer and aluminum (I think) that is proving to be just about indestructible so far.  The top of the sight has a somewhat odd shape.  I do not know exactly the reason for the shape, but I have a suspicion it helps with shock absorption.  It is possible that the top of the housing can be used as a rudimentary sight alignment aid, but I have not messed with that.  The window, best I can tell is not glass, but rather some sort of a high density plastic, probably similar to what my very expensive eyeglass lenses are made out of.  I know a little bit about optical qualities of similar plastics, and the basic tradeoff with glass is that plastic is more shock resistant, but easier to scratch.  In terms of light transmission and color cast, glass is usually a little better, but for a reflex sight, I can’t easily tell the difference: not enough optical elements to really matter.  Scratch resistance is greatly improved with modern coatings and despite some rather pointed efforts the protective windows of the SIS I have are still in excellent shape.  I am not a mechanical engineer, so I will stay away from a discussion on frame stiffness and all.  Let’s just say that using plastic windows/optics is a pretty good way to prevent shattering.  With glass windows, people prevent shattering just fine as well, but it introduces more stringent requirements for the housing.  From what I understand British SAS switched to the similar looking Shield CQS/CQB to a significant degree because it proved more durable than the Aimpoints they used to use.  I think Shield products are also in use by some other countries’ militaries (Asutralia and a few others), but I do not know the quantities or the units.  Suffice to say that the reliability pedigree is pretty good.

Shield SIS is, I think, the latest development from Shield and SIS stands for “Switchable Interface Sight”.  In the picture above, you see two semi-circular buttons on the left of the housing.  All of the control functions are administered via those two buttons.  The options are as follows: auto or manual (12 levels) reticle brightness and reticle selection.

There are two different SIS models that offer different reticles.  Each model has four reticles you can switch between (picture shamelessly stolen from Shield website):

The version I have has the reticle selection in the bottom row.  For my purposes, I found that I really prefer the “2MOA drop and ring” reticle.   The center portion of the reticle has three dots: 2MOA primary aiming dot and two 1 MOA dots below it that are 5MOA and 9MOA down from the primary (center-to-center).  I do not typically use reflex sights to shoot far enough for these additional dots to be terribly useful, but they are handy when I need to make an accurate shot (think headbox shot) from close range.  It is more consistent than just holding above the target.  I typically sight in my reflex sights to be dead on at 50 yards, so this reticle arrangement is working out very well for me.  I have slight astigmatism, so the dots do not look perfectly round to me, but for the distances I intend these for that is inconsequential.  The furthest I shot with the Shield SIS was a metal plate at 400 yards, which I hit quite comfortably.  However, my primary interest with the SIS is use at closer ranges.

The only prominent thing on the right of the sight housing is the battery cover (see above), which has all sorts of ridges on it so you can spin it open with a screwdriver, back of the knife and a variety of other field expedient tools.  Windage and elevation adjustments are exposed.  The slots in them are kinda wide and shallow, so I am not sure what specific tool they were designed for, but they seem to be easy enough to engage with a bunch of things.  Most importantly, they stay put.  Once I got the SIS sighted in on my AR, it has not budged.

The SIS has really impressed more than I thought it would.  There is an interesting (to me) aspect of it that I hadn’t really thought about earlier.  Everyone is trying to make red dot sights with minimal visible housing, so that all you see is a bright red dot surrounded by as little as possible.  That is a good approach and it works well, especially considering how long the battery life of modern reflex sights is.  However, that is not the only approach.

Here is a picture I took through the SIS with my cell phone.  In this photo, the phone is comparatively closer to the sight than my eye would normally be, in order to emphasize what I am talking about.  WIth the more normal eye position, you do not see the inside of the housing much at all.

With the SIS, at first blush, the window is comparatively small, while the housing is pretty prominent.  However, it does not seem to have slowed me down in the slightest.  When I did some house clearing drills, I realized that at these close ranges, that housing is really helpful.  I do not have to worry about the red dot at all.  The moment I see something that needs to be shot through that window, I can pull the trigger and hit it.  Mind you, I messed with this at typical “across-the-room” distances.  Generally, the way the sight picture looks with the housing turned out to be quite natural to me and I vaguely recall that I heard people used EOTechs the same way (perhaps still do), although the EOTech window is considerably larger.  Since I like the dot-and-ring reticle, the way I set up the sight on my AR is so that the outer ring (the ring is made up of 1MOA dots) fits neatly inside the housing with just a little room to spare.  The way it works with reflex sights, the further you move it from your eye, the smaller the housing looks with respect to the reticle, i.e. the reticle subtends the same, but the housing looks smaller.  Since I want a fairly particular sight picture, I experiment a little with how I want to mount it.  Fortunately, the sight picture I like the most positions the SIS sufficiently far forward to easily use the magnifier if I am so inclined.

To summarize it all, I like the SIS immensely and it has taken the spot on my rifle that would have been otherwise occupied by Aimpoint Micro or Trijicon MRO.

In the US, Shield sights seem to be distributed by Brownells (I do not see them for sale by anyone else, so I assume it is exclusive).  I like Shield sights enough that I signed up for an affiliate account with Brownells just because of them.

If my recommendation impacts your purchasing decision, I would really appreciate it if you use the link below.  It costs you nothing and helps me maintain this website.

 

 Posted by at 1:41 am

Revisited in December 2017: If I could Have Only One, Alternate Scenario

 Handguns, Random Stuff, Reflex Sights, Rifle Scopes, Rifles, Shotguns, Uncategorized  Comments Off on Revisited in December 2017: If I could Have Only One, Alternate Scenario
Dec 112017
 

Written by ILya Koshkin

 

Revisited in December 2017: If I could Have Only One, Alternate Scenario

 

This is a follow up to the post I wrote earlier where I think my way through three weapons (handgun, rifle and shotgun) that are all supposed to do a bit of everything.

Now, I am going to change my boundary conditions a bit: this time around I am not looking to have everything do everything.  I like having some crossover, but I am not going to mandate maximum versatility for every weapon system.  Also, I am going to open the door to potential carry, concealed or otherwise, for the handgun.



When I was looking for maximum versatility for everything I settled on Remington 870 with ghost ring sights, AR-15 in 6.5 Grendel and long slide 10mm Glock.

I will leave my choice of a shotgun alone since I am not a shotgun guy and a pump gun with ghost ring sights covers defensive scenarios and hunting within a reasonably close range well enough for my needs.

The selections for handgun and rifle, however, change.

A handgun for me is primarily a defensive and plinking weapon.  Hunting with a handgun, while interesting, is not much of a priority, so if I have a different weapon system for hunting I can compromise on that.  Also, once you need to carry a handgun, a longslide Glock is less than ideal, and a 10mm cartridge in a smaller gun is a bit more pop than I am looking for.  I have experimented with it a little and the after shot recovery is slower than I like.

With that in mind, the choice of a handgun changes to a different Glock.  The ideal option would probably be Glock 19 with co-witnessed red dot and irons, but I do not own one of those (something I may rectify if I manage to get my hands onto a Gen 5 Glock).  So, in the spirit of trying to work with the guns that I actually own, I will settle on my Glock 17.  Mind you, it is a bit modified, which makes it very suitable for this.  The grip is made a bit smaller and shorter, so it can accept both Glock 19 and 17 length magazines.  It also prints quite a bit less when you carry (not that I can carry in public in California, but that does not prevent me from experimenting at my own house and where legal).  The slide is the Atom from Unity Tactical, which makes it fairly easy to mount a red dot, co-witnessed with iron sights.  At the moment, I have Insight MRDS on there, which is not an ideal choice.  It is a nice red dot, but it is bulkier than I like, uses a battery that noone else uses, and mine has a 3.5 MOA dot.  On a handgun, I use primarily for defensive purposes, I prefer a larger dot (7-8 MOA seems ideal).  With handgun mounted red dot sights, out of all I have seen, the two I like the most are Doctersight III and Shield RMS.  My Doctersight III also has a 3.5 MOA dot, but since it sits on a long slide 10mm that I built for hunting, I am OK with that.  Shield RMS sits on a Glock 43, which was one of my contenders for this and if concealed carry was the primary purpose, it would be my choice.  Hence, until such time as I get my hands onto another Doctersight or Shield, Insight MRDS it is.  I just took a class with it at Frontsight and it worked well enough, but eventually it will end up on a carbine of some sort.  I think it works better there.

The trigger is, again, Travis Haley’s excellent Skimmer design.  It is about as good as non-competition Glock triggers get.

A natural question, of course, is why I am going with a 9mm vs a host of other cartridges people like.  While cartridge discussions can go on forever, all data suggests that with modern bullets there is no practical difference between 9mm, 40S&W, 45ACP, etc for defensive use.  I’ll leave it at that.  I can shoot 9mm well, with rapid follow up shots and reasonable accuracy.  It does not hurt that it does not jam.  For basic defensive use, anything smaller than a 9mm seems to compromise effectiveness, while anything bigger compromises shot-to-shot speed.  With hunting out of the picture, 9mm seems to be the sweetspot.

With rifles, I am probably going to make the most radical change of all.  As much as I like my ARs, if I have a shotgun and a handgun aimed at home defense, my rifle becomes a bit more dedicated for hunting and precision shooting and that means “bolt action”.  Also, since the shotgun covers closer distances quite nicely when hunting is concerned, I want the rifle to be able to reach way out there.  If it was precision shooting only, the choice would be obvious: I have a DTA SRS bullpup precision gun that is freakishly accurate with both barrels I have (338LM and 6.5x47L).  It is, however, kinda heavy.  

My general purpose hunting rifle is an old Tikka M695 in 280Rem that sits in McMillan.  It is more accurate than any gun this inexpensive has any right to be, but the barrel is on a thin side.  While it is an absolutely superb hunting rifle (especially with the stunning Leica Magnus 1.8-12×50 scope on it), it is not the best fit for target shooting since the barrel heats up pretty quickly.  It maintains accuracy well enough, but I do not want to overheat it.

Enter The Fix.  It is a new bolt action rifle designed by a company called Q out of New Hampshire.  It appears to be a very new take on boltguns and with their design I get a 7lbs rifle with a 20” 6.5 Creedmoor Bartlein barrel, AR-style ergonomics, compatibility with AR-10 magazines, fully adjustable folding stock and an excellent two stage trigger.  With the Tangent Theta TT315M 3-15×50 scope in an Aadmount and a sling, it will weigh less than 10lbs.  That is something I can use for both hunting and target shooting, with 6.5 Creedmoor taking me out to 1200 yards on targets and further than I need to on game.

 

The Fix has a very short lift bolt ( 45 degrees), so it remains to be seen how quickly I can manipulate it.  Another nice feature is that the barrels are easily user replaceable, so I plan to take advantage of that and add a 300WSM barrel/bolt combination to it for hunting purposes (and a wider, softer recoil pad…).  Unfortunately, at the time of this writing, The Fix is still sitting at my FFL, so I can not make any pronouncements on how well it really works.

Until I spend some time with it, my choice is the DTA SRS.  It is a bit on a heavy side, but the bullpup configuration makes it surprisingly well balanced.  Besides, I do a hell of a lot more target shooting than hunting anyway.  I have two barrels for it: 338LM and 6.5x47L.  While the  6.5x47L is a very pleasant cartridge to shoot, the 338LM is a bit of a handful, while still manageable.  The reach, power and stability at distance with the 338LM though is something you simply do not get with smaller calibers.  With a If I can see it, I can hit it.  With a 250gr Bulldozer bullet from Badlands Precision moving out at close to 3000fps, if I can hit it, I can destroy it.  Here is a picture of the DTA with the excellent VORTEX Razor HD AMG 6-24×50 on it:

 

While with a smaller caliber, I would default to the Tangent Theta TT315M 3-15×50, with the 338LM, I want a bit more magnification.  On a rifle where weight did not matter, I would just step up to the Tangent Theta TT525T 5-25×56.  This is where the AMG 6-24×50 comes in.  It is barely an ounce heavier than the TT315M, while offering excellent optics and turrets.  On a gun where I want more than 20x of magnification and that might be carried into the field, the AMG is an easy choice.

 Posted by at 5:08 pm

Firearms: If I could have only one, First Scenario

 Handguns, Random Stuff, Reflex Sights, Rifle Scopes, Rifles, Shotguns  Comments Off on Firearms: If I could have only one, First Scenario
Dec 102017
 

Written by ILya Koshkin

Revisited in December 2017: If I could Have Only One

I revisit this topic fairly regularly, usually inspired by a conversation with someone. Somewhere through the conversation, I get asked (usually by someone who thinks that he can buy one gun and not have the urge to buy any more) “what if you could only have one gun?” At that point, I ask for boundary conditions: are we talking handgun or rifle or shotgun? Are we talking home defense? or hunting? or armed resistance to an overbearing government? Do I have my own ammo supply or do I have to count on foraging for ammo? Etc.

Also, I update my choice of “Only One” when it comes to different optics categories once a year, which I did a few days ago. Now, it is time to think about guns.



First, I am going to set the boundary conditions (I am likely to go through a couple of different sets of these in follow-up posts, so bear with me).

Imagine that the government has really limited your 2nd Amendment rights. The whole country is subject to something akin to current California gun laws exacerbated by the fact that you are only allowed to have one item of each gun type: one handgun, one rifle and one shotgun. You have to be able to use them for anything and everything you may ever want to do. You have to be able to protect your home, hunt, etc. Since these are the only guns you have, they also serve to satisfy your hobbies (if firearms and shooting happen to be your hobby, as they are for me).  You are not expected to forage for ammo. Assume that the legal changes have been happening slowly enough, so you had time to stockpile enough ammo to last you for the rest of your life. The only time you have to carry your ammo is when you decide to go hunting. The rest of the time you can safely assume you are operating near your house or car, so there are means of ammo re-supply. You do not get to pick multiple sighting devices you can swap around. You can have a secondary sighting system on your gun, if you so choose, but you can not have eight different scopes pre-sighted in and ready to be swapped out in QD mounts. Since we are talking about California style gun laws, concealed carry is not a concern. My chances of getting a concealed carry license in Los Angeles are about as good as my chances of becoming a professional salsa dancer (for the record: I am big, fat and tone deaf).

Shotguns are not my field of expertise, but since I just took a shotgun class with a Remington 870, I’ll stick with that. My 870 is a very simple weapon with an upgraded recoil pad and Trijicon Front And Ghost Ring Rear Sights I installed years ago (they are a little crooked, but they don’t seem to be falling off). If I had to do it all over again, I would probably come up with some sort of a co-witnessed red dot/irons set-up, and I still might.  For the time being, I will simply say that my 870 as is, with ghost ring sights and a cylinder bore, is good enough for me. I spent some time shooting slugs, buckshot and birdshot through it to know at which distances I am comfortable with it. To my great surprise, slugs are accurate enough for me to take off-hand headshots on steel at 40-50 yards and center-of-mass shots at 75-100 yards.  Birdshot patterns adequately out to 20 yards and buckshot seems alright out to 35-40 yards. I am not a clay shooter, so this is good enough for me. Since I am not really a shotgun guy, I basically treat my shotgun as a very powerful short range rifle and use rifle style ghost ring sights on it.


With rifles and handguns, I have a bit more mileage and a little bit more training, so I am fairly specific with what I like and what works for me.  I re-iterate: for me.  YMMV

Obviously, there are many different rifle/handgun combinations that would satisfy these conditions, and practical differences between them come down to personal preference and training.  I am viewing this particular set of boundary conditions as requiring maximum versatility from each weapon system and caliber.  Since I removed any ammo commonality requirement out of the equation, the two calibers I converge on are 6.5 Grendel for a rifle and 10mm for a handgun.

As an aside, I have discussions like this with my friends once in a while as a thought exercise.  I recall that once a while back, we were having this discussion at my house with an American-born friend of mince.  Rather than go into a lengthy explanation, I walked him over to my gunsafe and explained that, me being a somewhat paranoid Jew with great appreciation of history and vivid recollections of Soviet Union where I grew up, I have thought about this before and have such a situation covered. In triplicate. And then some. I do not think he took my concerns particularly seriously (my American-born friends often don’t), but then again, he did ask the question.  I did not start that conversation.

Had I been forced to rely on external ammo sources, my choices would have been different: I would have a reflex sight capable 9mm handgun and a SPR-type AR chambered for 5.56×45. However, since I get to prepare my own ammo supply, I can diverge from that a little (besides, I am well covered with those firearms as well; naturally, in triplicate; and then some)

I am still going to go with a reflex sight capable semi-automatic handgun and a AR-type rifle. However, I am going to bump up the chamberings a bit.

Let’s start with the handgun. Fairly recently, I built myself a long slide 10mm Glock, ostensibly for hunting. I originally set it up to be able to accept a variety of red dot sights using a rear sight mount form www.sight-mount.com. After some experimentation, I decided that approach works well for testing different red dots, but for my personal use, I want a set up with co-witnessed red dot/iron sight arrangement.  So I have a second slide for it, milled for DOCTER sight III, Dot size 3.5moa.  In principle, if I lived in a civilized state, I would have simply bought a Glock 40 MOS and be done with it.  However, Gen 4 Glocks are not for sale in California (for reasons sufficiently idiotic I’d rather not get into them). When I decided to build this gun, I headed over to the store, and bought Glock 21SF chambered for 45ACP. As un-American as it sounds, I no longer shoot 45 (I sold my last 45, a Sig P220 a while back), so I took the whole slide assembly off and sold it on Gunbroker.  Then, I took most of the internal parts from the frame and removed them, since I wanted to build this gun exactly the way I like it. Then I headed off to Lone Wolf and GlockTriggers.com websites and did some shopping: 6” long solid top slide, 6” long barrel, and the rest of the parts I needed to build this thing.  The milled slide was done exceedingly well by a friend of mine who specializes on custom slide mods like this.  I highly recommend his work.  The trigger is Haley Skimmer which, to me, remains the best Glock trigger on the market. The iron sights I am going to put on are from Suarez International and they are still on their way.  WHat I am going for here is lower 1/3 co-witnessing.

Longslide 10mm Glock with Doctersight III. 6

Longslide 10mm Glock with Doctersight III. 6″ barrel and heavy slide do an excellent job of taming recoil

I am not a particularly good handgun shot, but I usually hit what I am aiming at. It also helps that I actually practice. With typical iron sights, longer shots become a bit of an issue due to the need for holdover. Even with a comparatively narrow front sight and a long sighting radius, proper holdover is hard for me. Well, that is where a reflex sight really makes a difference. Since everything around the aiming point is open, it is much easier for me to do simple trajectory compensation. Don’t get me wrong, I do not advocate taking unnecessary long distance shots with a handgun. However, it is nice to have that capability and it is a good idea to practice these shots even if you will never take them in the field. My 25 yard shooting seems to have gotten a fair bit better ever since I started practicing at 100 yards with my 10mm. In terms of terminal ballistics, a full power 200gr load out of a 6” barrel has about as much pop at 100 yards as 40S&W has at the muzzle.  It is not the equal of a proper longarm, but it is nothing to scoff at either.  I am also planning to experiment a little with ENDO Tactical TSA-G adapter and forearm brace.  Perhaps that will give me more stability for longer shots.

I originally built the 10mm as a hunting semi-auto, but once I got it finished up, I realized that I can still draw it pretty quickly and the recoil of the full house 10mm rounds is nicely soaked up by the long and heavy slide. Another useful characteristic is that it shoots 40S&W just fine without any modifications: same magazines and everything. That adds versatility (and I also have a 357Sig barrel for it).

In practical terms, I am a bit faster with the 9mm, but since I am requiring maximum versatility with this set-up, 10mm it is. A revolver in a larger caliber would undoubtedly be a better hunting handgun, but with slower recovery and slower reloading it would be not be nearly as good for defensive use.  10mm is neatly capable of both uses and, keep in mind that with a 6” barrel I get pretty good velocities out of it. This is pretty much the best semi-auto compromise I could think of between hunting, plinking and defensive use.

Anyhow, with the handgun selection out of the way, let’s talk about the rifle. A couple of things were apparent from the start. Since this rifle has to cover home defense situations, this requirement can not be compromised a whole lot. For example, for long range target practice that I enjoy and for hunting I might want to pick a fairly peppy cartridge, but for home defense situations, I want to keep rifle weight and recoil down while maintaining the ability to make quick follow-up shots. That basically narrows the choice of the rifle and of the caliber down to intermediate cartridges: 7.62×39, 300AAC Blackout, 6.8SPC, 6.5 Grendel and a few others. All of them work equally well for home defense situations, with a suppressed Blackout likely taking the cake. However, in my post apocalyptic California nightmare suppressors are likely going to be illegal anyway. For hunting purposes, all of these work about equally well at distances at which I am likely to take a shot. However, for target shooting, the Grendel is an obvious choice (I happen to own rifles in all of these calibers aside from the 6.8SPC, so I’ve exercised them pretty well). Now, many people I know prefer a larger frame AR or similar gun chambered for 308Win or some other similarly sixed or bigger cartridge. I think they are wrong and these guns give up too much, in terms of shot recovery, weight (with ammo), handling and muzzle blast. Then again, to each his own.

The rifle type would likely be either an AR or AK variant of some sort. I am very partial to bullpup rifles, so I’ve got my sights set one exploring Desert Tech’s MDR, and Keltec’s RDB-C which forgoes the pistol grip (and is weirdly comfortable that way while complying to California’s lunatic laws). It is on my list of guns to get and test once it becomes available, but as of now, I stick with the AR platform. For most uses there isn’t really any practical reliability difference between AK and AR, but a well built AR is usually more accurate and can be configured for the Grendel. My version of this gun, sports a medium weight 18” barrel that is accurate enough to take me out to 800-900 yards in a pinch, while keeping the weight manageable for everything else. I took this rifle hunting with me and, while I am not a huge fan of humping up and down the hill out of general principle, the rifle weight was manageable. That is where I think it has a pretty notable advantage over large frame ARs. I have a similarly configured AR10 chambered for 308Win, and it is notably less maneuverable. It is not just the weight, but also the balance. That balance is really the reason I am so interested in bullpup rifles. My precision bolt gun is a bullpup Desert Tech SRS and it handles far better than a gun that weight ever should.

In terms of terminal ballistics, despite all sorts of fanboy commentary out there, the Grendel is not a match to 308 and larger cartridges, but with reasonable shot placement it is sufficient for typical big game in North America: pigs, deer, etc. Once distances start opening up, 6.5 Grendel is closer to 308Win than it is to 5.56.

Let look at drop velocity and energy for three bullets that I regularly shoot: 77gr in 5.56, 123gr in 6.5 Grendel, 175gr 308Win. I am going to look at drop in mrad, velocity in fps and energy ft-lbs. All data is from Shooter app on my phone. I am assuming 2000ft altitude, 60F, 50% humidity (which is very different from where I live, but clsoe enouhg for everyone else).

I am assuming that the 308 has a 16” barrel, while the other cartridges have 18” barrel. This keeps overall length of the gun about the same, although in terms of weight the large frame AR will likely still be a bit heavier. I am also assuming that the velocities are 2700fps for 5.56, 2525 for 6.5 Grendel and 2500 for the 308Win. These are the velocities I have actually chrono’ed. All barrels vary, so yours might be doing something different. Personally, I think I am being a little generous to the 308 since most 16” barrels I have seen were slower, but I like round numbers.

Also, keep in mind that I am only looking at one particular bullet for each caliber and these are not really hunting bullets. However, I like looking at SMKs for cross-caliber consistency reasons. With 308Win, I need to explore a little bit how well modern 155gr bullets do out of a 16” barrel. They are fairly efficient and go faster.

Drop, mrad

Distance, yards 5.56:

77gr SMK @ 2700fps

6.5 Grendel:

123gr SMK @ 2525 fps

308Win:

175gr SMK @ 2500fps

200 0 0 0
300 0.8 0.8 0.9
400 1.7 1.8 1.9
500 2.8 2.9 3
600 4.1 4.1 4.4
700 5.7 5.5 5.8
800 7.5 7.0 7.5
900 9.6 8.8 9.4
1000 12.2 10.7 11.6

 

Velocity, fps

Distance, yards 5.56:

77gr SMK @ 2700fps

6.5 Grendel:

123gr SMK @ 2525 fps

308Win:

175gr SMK @ 2500fps

200 2269 2217 2174
300 2069 2073 2021
400 1879 1933 1873
500 1698 1798 1731
600 1525 1668 1594
700 1360 1541 1462
800 1206 1420 1335
900 1078 1303 1215
1000 1017 1192 1106

 

Energy, ft-lbs

Distance, yards 5.56:

77gr SMK @ 2700fps

6.5 Grendel:

123gr SMK @ 2525 fps

308Win:

175gr SMK @ 2500fps

200 880 1343 1837
300 732 1173 1587
400 603 1020 1363
500 493 883 1164
600 398 760 987
700 316 649 831
800 249 550 693
900 199 464 574
1000 177 388 476

Simply looking at the numbers a few things are apparent. In terms of energy and stopping power, 308WIn is undoubtedly the better cartridge. However, in this case, I am mostly preoccupied with good enough within a certain weight/size envelope. Otherwise, there is no limit to how far you can go. 300 WinMag is better than 308Win, and 338LM is better than 300WM and so on.

Looking at the energy, the 6.5 Grendel should be good enough for me to use for hunting out to 400 yards, which is further than I have any business shooting at an anumal from field positions. Hunting is where 5.56 is obviously very marginal. 308Win would give me extra couple of hundred yeards over the Grendel in terms of energy, but to be honest, if I ever take a shot at an animal at 600 yards, it will not be with either one of these cartridges.

For target shooting, with these fairly short barrels, the Grendel is actually a little flatter than the 308Win and drifts a little less (this would change with longer barrels as 308Win benefits mroe from a longer tube).

There are of course other cartridges to look at that are in between like the 6.5Creedmoor and others, but after looking at a bunch I have basically concluded that for me, 6.5 Grendel is what I judge to be good enough. YMMV.

As far as the actual rifle goes, to each his own. The bulk of my training has been with an AR paltform, so I choose to stick with that. Since I tend to follow what I preach, I own an AR-15 chambered for the 6.5 Grendel, built on VC Defense upper and lower receivers, BHW 18” barrel, 15” Lancer carbon fiber handguard and, CA-compliant FRS-15 stock (which is fugly, but comfortable enough). I have a rather excellent Geissele DMR trigger in that gun, and I often use it to test scopes since despite reasonaby light weight (7lbs without optics) it is very shootable and sufficiently accurate with both factory ammo and handloads.

Since in my scenario this is a rifle that might be used for self defense, I must have the ability to run it 1x or similar with a very visible aiming point. If I could have only one sighting system for it, it would have a Tangent Theta TT315M on it with a compact red dot sight mounted at a 45 degree angle.  Another interesting scope option that is even lighter than TT315M is Leupold’s new Mark 5HD 3.6-18×44 although I have some issues with the reticle options there.  As it is right now, I am messing with Elcan Spectre TR on it. Spectre TR gives 1x, 3x and 9x and the ability to switch between them extremely rapidly. I took it to a carbine class and at 1x it functions virtually like a red dot sight. Switching magnifications with Spectre TR is faster than with any other riflescope I have seen to date. However, at 9x, while very serviceable, it is not a match to a proper precision scope at distance. On the other, it is not too shabby either. The reticle is set-up with BDC holds for 7.62×51 and they work exceedingly well for the Grendel. Also, if you are looking for a riflescope that is sturdy enough to club baby seals with any of the Elcans should be on your list.

Elcan Spectre TR on a similar AR-15 (this is not on my Grendel, but this is the only picture I can find right now).

Elcan Spectre TR on a similar AR-15 (this is not on my Grendel, but this is the only picture I can find right now).

 Posted by at 11:59 am

Shield Red Dot Sights: RMS

 Reflex Sights  Comments Off on Shield Red Dot Sights: RMS
Nov 242017
 

I have been looking at many red dot sights in the last couple of years both for handgun and carbine use. Honestly, there are several excellent ones that proved durable and well designed. I developed some personal preferences in terms of control methods, dot sizes, etc.

I will have another longer piece on that some time next month, but the two brands whose red dot sights really jive well with me are Docter and Shield. I have written about Doctersight III that I use rather extensively before, but I have not talked about Shield all that much. Since the brand was new to me, I wanted to make sure I spend enough time with their products before I start getting into details. Well, I have spent enough time and they are absolutely superb from what I have seen.




I have been beating up two of them: RMS on handguns and SIS on a carbine for the better part of the year.  I did put the SIS on a handgun briefly as a durability test of sorts (sitting on a reciprocating slide of a 10mm handgun puts a fair amount of stress on a red dot sight):

Shiled SIS on a 10mm Glock.

Shield SIS on a 10mm Glock.

The RMS is absolutely tiny.  To give you an idea, here is a picture that shows RMS mounted on my Glock 43 (on the right) next to Insight MRDS mounted on my Glock 17:

Shield RMS on Glock 43 (on the right)

Shield RMS on Glock 43 (on the right)

Despite RMS’s low profile, the battery can be replaced without removing the sight.  There are no external controls of any sort: illumination adjust automatically based on the ambient and is bright enough to be easily visible under any conditions I have tried to date.  Because of how low profile it is, it can co-witness with standard sights.  Front sight is from Heinie and rear is from Suarez.  I did not have to put tall suppressor sights which is good for a compact gun like the G43 ( for the record, on my G17 on the left, those tall suppressor sights are still not tall enough to co-witness with the MRDS on an Atom slide).

I will get back to talking about SIS a little more later, but for the time being it is my single favourite carbine red dot sight.

RMS has been absolutely rock solid on my Glock and I had it in a dovetail mount on my 1911 before that.  8 MOA dot is quickly becoming my preferred size for handgun use.

Testing the RMS has been boringly uneventful.  Once zeroed, it stayed zeroed.  I have not had to change the battery yet.  There is no dot flicker that I have seen.  I have a slight astigmatism in my eye, so a large dot looks rounder than a small dot to me.  With a largish dot of the RMS I can use the edge for a little more precision if I am so inclined, which is a nice option for slow fire.

I’ll keep beating it up and let you know how it goes (and stay tuned for a separate piece on the SIS).

Best I can tell, Shield Sights are distributed in the US by Brownells.  I havn’t the foggiest idea if the arrangement Brownells has with Shield is exclusive, but here are the links for the RMS and SIS sights that I have been testing.

 Posted by at 3:00 am

Vortex UH-1: First Look

 Reflex Sights, Rifle Scopes  Comments Off on Vortex UH-1: First Look
Nov 122017
 

written in November, 2017

A couple of links to where you can buy this sight on Adorama and Amazon are at the bottom of this post

This will be brief: I finally got the UH-1 onto a rifle and headed to the range.  The rifle in question is a comparatively light weight carbine with an ARP SOCOM profile midweight 16″ barrel with matching bolt, Brigand Arms handguard, Voodoo integral bolt carrier, Ace UL stock and an excellent TriggerTech trigger.  Naturally, the whole thing was neutered with a finned grip to make it California legal.





Together with the UH-1, this combination weighs 7.2 lbs, which is handy enough for my purposes.  The UH-1 itself, together with the an adjustable QD mount weighs in right around 12 ounces, which, while heavier than small red dot sights, is perfectly manageable.  Still, if you are trying to build a 4 pound AR, this is not the sight for you.

If you are reading this, you have probably heard of UH-1, but for the sake of being thorough…

UH-1 is Vortex’ new holographic sight.  To he best of my knowledge, it is only the third holographic sight to hit the market.  For years, EOTech has been just about the only provider of holographic sights.  Bushnell had Holosight XLP for a little bit years ago.  Now, Vortex jumped into this holographic pond with the UH-1.  Vortex’ timing is quite good since EOTech is going through all sorts of PR problems with their weapon sights and Vortex is likely to be a beneficiary of that.

I’ve owned a few EOTechs over the years and also owned Bushnell’s Holosight XLP some years ago.  I’ve always had some reservations about the way the optical system of the EOTech worked, but they have clearly done well enough with that.  Still, I have been sort of on the fence about the whole holosight business.

Compared to the more ubiquitous reflex red dot sights, holosights have some advantages in terms of reticle patterns and parallax correction, while reflex sights have a substantial advantage with battery life and size.  For combat purposes, one important feature of the UH-1 is that it has effectively zero forward light signature.  By definition, none of the red dot sights can match that.

At the heart of reflex sights is an efficient LED.  At the heart of a holographic sight is a laser.  Lasers need a lot more energy, so the battery life of the UH-1 is a few hundred hours, while battery life of a modern red dot sight like the Shield SIS, that I consider to be the best of the breed, is thousands of hours.

With that out of the way, my initial impressions of the UH-1 are very positive.  I mounted it on the rifle, set up on the bench and sighted it in at 100 yards.  To be more exact, I sighted it in to be about two inches high at 100 yards, which gave me a chance to make sure that the adjustments are reasonably accurate and the sight stays zeroed.  They are and it does.

The rest of my first shooting session with the UH-1 was spent shooting off-hand.  Since I absolutely stink at offhand shooting, I make it a point to practice.   UH-1, in this role was absolutely spectacular.  I shot at paper at 100 yards and steel plates at 200 yards.  The sight picture was extremely easy to acquire and, the fairly classic at this stage, circle/dot reticle is very quick.  Vortex added a secondary CQB aiming point to the reticle in the form of a triangle at the bottom of the circle.  Here is what the reticle looks likes (image shamelessly stolen from Vortex’ website):

I have not yet had a chance to speed up and shoot at anything closer, so I do not yet know how quick the triangle will be to pick up at speed.

I have slight astigmatism, so conventional red dot in reflex sights do not look round to me.  I’ve learned to deal with that, but the reticle in the UH-1 makes precision a little easier for me.  The reticle is slightly pixelated, but that has never bothered me before and doesn’t bother me here.  The 1 MOA (or rather, single pixel) dot allows for good precision.

I see no obvious forward light signature, so that claim seems to be true.  From what I can deduce of the internal design, it seems reasonably robust, but ultimate reliability can only be determined by time and multiple units in the field.

I will keep running the UH-1 side by side with Shield SIS and see if I can form some opinions on how what seems to be the best of the holosights compares to the best of the reflex sights.

Stay tuned.

Link to the UH-1 on Adorama

And on Amazon:

 Posted by at 1:10 am

Leupold D-EVO

 Reflex Sights, Rifle Scopes  Comments Off on Leupold D-EVO
Aug 292017
 

I looked at Leupold LCO and D-EVO 6×20 quite some time ago and talked about them here and there.  However, I never did a formal write-up and given my schedule, I won’t for a bit.

So, I talked into the camera for a few minutes and I will add some commentary to this post later.




Here are a couple of pictures:


And here is the video:

 Posted by at 11:29 am
Apr 222017
 

Written by ILya Koshkin, April 2017

I have been continuing to look at miniature red dot sights.  I started a while back with the original Leupold Deltapoint and Vortex Razor and continued on to a bunch of others, most recently DocterSight III and Meopta Meosight III.

Since then, DocterSight III has found a permanent place on my primary AR, mounted on top of the Elcan Spectre OS 4×32 as a close range/backup sight.  I took a rifle class with this combination at Frontsight and I am about to take another one in a week or so.




Spec table

Meopta MeoRed DocterSight III Meopta

MeoSight III

Leupold

Deltapoint Pro

Length, in 1.87 1.8 1.9 1.82
Width, in 1.07 1 1 1.31
Height, in 1.02 0.96 1.2 1.3
Weight, oz 1.05 0.88 oz 1.29 1.95 oz
Window Size, mm 23×17 21×15 23×17 25.7×17.5
Dot Size, MOA 3 MOA 3.5 or 7 MOA dot 3 or 5 MOA dot 2.5 MOA dot or 7.5 MOA triangle
Brightness Control Manual, side button Auto, 3 modes Auto and Manual modes, front button Manual, button on top of battery tray, MST
Parallax setting 50 yards 40m (44 yards) 50 yards 50 yards
Battery Life 1000 hours  not listed 1000 hours  not listed
Battery Type CR2032 Side slot CR2032 Bottom mount CR2032

Side tray

CR2032

Top mount

Price $500 $415 $400 $550

Looking at the specs, a couple of things stand out:

-Deltapoint Pro is notably larger than the others here and also sports the largest viewing window of the bunch

-DocterSight III is the only one without a manual adjustment mode

-They all use the same reasonably ubiquitous battery, but use different means of holding it

-They are all parallax free at more or less the same distance.

I have used all four rather extensively and all were with the smaller of the available dot sizes: 3MOA for the Meopta, 3.5 MOA for the Docter and 2.5MOA for the DeltaPoint Pro.  In principle, the triangle available in the Deltapoint is my preferred configuration.   I sight the top vertice in for more accurate shots at 100 yards or so (different for different bore to sightline offsets) and for speed I just use the whole triangle as if it was a dot.  It works great for center of mass hits.  That all worked wonderfully until I developed some astigmatism in my shooting eye.  As it always happens, when real life chimes in, principles fly out of the window.  A triangle works great when it looks like a triangle with clean lines and vertices.  When it no longer does, you go back to using a simple dot.  The dot does not look terribly round either, but you learn to deal with it.  A slightly distorted dot is easier for me to deal with than a slightly distorted triangle.  Generally, if you have astigmatism, a larger dot will usually look cleaner than a smaller dot.  I still lean toward smaller dot sizes, but my astigmatism is not very severe and I am a precision guy at heart.  With all that, when I am looking for a little more precision, I aim with the edge of the dot and that edge is cleaner looking with a larger dot.  I plan to experiment with that a little when an opportunity presents itself.

So far, all of the sights have spent time on both handguns (different Glocks) and rifles (AR15 and/or AR10).  All held zero admirably and did not give me any trouble whatsoever in terms of reliability.  I have not tried them on shotguns, but I suspect that the pounding they take mounted onto a slide of a semi-auto handgun is a more severe torture test of the sight than anything they get on a shotgun (and a much less severe torture test of my shoulder).

If I had to make a guess on which one seems most durable, I would lean toward the Leupold.  However, this is all conjecture since they have all worked fine for me.  The Deltapoint Pro does have a steel shield around the screen and is the beefiest of the three.  That beefiness does have a downside: it is heavier than the other three sights and getting it to co-witness on a handgun is not straightforward.

In the picture above, the Atom slide is equipped with pretty tall sights and they still do not co-witness.  On a handgun that I might use for defensive purposes, co-witnessing is a must.  After some research, I found that there is an even taller front sight out there.  Leupold offers a rear sight that attaches to the back of the Deltapoint (I did not test that), so you could set up cowitnessing, but options are limited.  Another thing, I did not like too much about the Deltapoint is the intensity control.

Dot brightness is controlled by a button integrated into the top of the battery cover.  In the picture above, you can see it marked by a large letter L.  It is right behind the lens.  To adjust dot brightness, you keep pressing the button.  Unfortunately, while you are pressing that button, you finger is blocking the lens and you can’t see the dot.  I found that awkward, at best.  The way I ended up using the DeltaPoint was to set the dot to a medium bright setting that worked adequately well across a range of lighting conditions and avoid messing with it.  However, that means it blooms and has a noticeable forward signature in low light (or if I adjust it too low, it is not easy to see in bright light).  That more or less wraps up with a negatives.  I liked everything else about the sight.  Honestly, if Leupold offered it with an optional auto-adjust mode, I would have purchased it.  One feature I really liked was the motion activated shut-off.  When the sight does not move for a while, the dot shuts off.  When it detects motion, it turns back on again.  In practical terms, what that meant was that I never bothered to turn it off.

When I set it up on my 10mm carbine, the DeltaPoint Pro was absolutely at home.  Of all of these compact sights, the Leupold transitions the best into a primary long arm sight.  A pistol caliber carbine is not exactly a long range weapon, but I was comfortably tagging steel plates at 200 yards with it and would be perfectly comfortable taking it hunting with me.  Leupold offers the DeltaPoint with a bunch of mounting options and with a riser that gets it up to perfect co-witness height on straight stock firearms (AR15s and the like).

Meopta MeoPro is a much smaller sight and is a further development of the MeoSight III I am well familiar with.  The MeoSight III had a control button on the housing, which I generally liked, although it made some mounting options complicated (on my Atom slide, the tall rear sight would have blocked that button).  However, the MeoSight III offered both manual dot intensity control and an auto-adjust mode.  Unfortunately, if you just turned the sight on, it defaulted to the manual adjust option which always seemed like a bad way of doing things.   I would have preferred a single press of the button to turn on the auto mode, with subsequent presses going into manual adjust.  The newer MeoRed does away with the auto mode entirely, which might be an indication that everyone except me prefers the manual adjustment.  The control button of the MeoRed is on the left side of the lens housing.  It sticks out a little and is very easy to engage.  What I do not know is how easy it is to engage accidentally.  It seems like it would be, but I have not done it.  I am having another 10mm slide machined to accomodate the MeoRed.  Once that is done, I’ll be able to do a better test of how well that button is positioned.

While on the outside the MeoRed looks to be about the same size as the earlier Meosight III, it has a slightly lower base, which make c0-witnessing easier.  The battery is inserted from the side, but there is no pull-out tray for the battery.  There is a covered slot.  The cover is held by two screws and seems to be a very secure way of holding a battery.

Up to now, I only tested the MeoRed on a picatinny bases, since I do not have a slide machined to accept it.  It has a similar footprint to Docter, but different screw locations.  I will set up a slide for it and continue testing.

As far as how these three sights compare to each other, that is not a simple answer.  The dot is slightly sharper on the Docter than on others, but since they are not of exactly the same size, it is not an apples-to-apples comparison.  The lens does look a little clearer on the Docter.  Leupold is the fastest on target simply because it has a larger lens.  Between Docter and MeoRed, I can not see any speed difference.  The lens size is about the same between these two despite what the specifications say.  The biggest difference is in the control method, with the Meopta and Leupold having manual intensity control, while the Docter has three auto modes.  For the way I use these sights, I prefer the way DocterSight III works.  What I do not like about the DocterSight III is the bottom mounted battery.  Since the sight has to be removed from the base to change the battery, I have to check and adjust zero every time the battery is replaced.

DeltaPoint is about to head back Leupold.  MeoRed is going to spend some time getting beat up by my 10mm Glock.  DocterSight remains on my AR15 as an accessory close range sight for my Elcan Spectre OS.  It has now survived two carbine classes and many months of practice without skipping a beat, so that is where it will stay.

 Posted by at 7:07 pm