Interesting Device I Saw in a Gun Rag...

A month or two ago, I went to Barnes and Noble. Aside from checking out the latest fiction novels, computer and art guides, I also went to the magazine racks to check out gun magazines.
One particular magazine seemed to be centered around the AR-15. I can't remember the name of the magazine, but on its cover it had a nicely customized rifle. It had full-length rails, a foregip, adjustable stock, etc...
But what really caught my eye were the optics. On a short riser, I believe, was an ACOG sight. There were flip-up irons as well, but there was also a secondary sight, a reflex sight. It was mounted next to the ACOG, at an angle. Intrigued, I opened the magazine and found that it was a back-up sight. You're supposed to cant the rifle about 30-35 degrees to use it.
That seemed like a very interesting idea to me. The problem is that since I've forgotten the name of the magazine I saw, I can't look up more about this sight system, and I don't know what it's called anyway.
If anyone can point me in the right direction, I'd be grateful.
Thanks in advance.

There are a few ways to do it. Ive seen ACOGs with a Burris red dot on the back like this...

http://www.nightvisionsales.com/imag...A01ECOSweb.jpg

And heres the 1 o'clock mount you probably saw.

http://www.ar15armory.com/forums/o-c...burris+red+dot

I'm pretty sure it was the Daniel's Defense mount. Thanks for the help. Do you think it's a wise accessory? The cool factor was what hit me, but I'm not sure how functional it is. Just looks like another tacticool thing, now that I come to think of it.

I know of a few people who are three gun masters who use them. USed properly they can be great. When I get a new lower to make a short barrel rifle, I plan on doing something like that to my current AR.

Yeah, the only place I have ever really seen them used is in three-gun matches. Since speed is important in a three-gun match, you may be at a serious disadvantage if your optic has a problem and you have to manually flip up BUIS's. This type of setup means you won't suffer that kind of delay if you need to go to backup sights. Can't say I really see much other use for it.

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Originally Posted by Syme

Yeah, the only place I have ever really seen them used is in three-gun matches. Since speed is important in a three-gun match, you may be at a serious disadvantage if your optic has a problem and you have to manually flip up BUIS's. This type of setup means you won't suffer that kind of delay if you need to go to backup sights. Can't say I really see much other use for it.

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It would be great for a SPR (Special Purpose Rifle)

I plan on doing this to mine once I get y registered SBR.

http://img296.imageshack.us/img296/1...14largeds0.jpg

Except Ill use some rings that have a small rail on the top, and use a Burris Fast Fire. That way you can go from sniping with a 3-9 scope, to CQB, and take the scope off with a QD mount if you need to go to the BUIS.

These seem nice for urban operations as well. The ACOG is all but useless in room clearing, and the option of using the reflex sight is a good alternative Then again, at short ranges looking down the barrel is accurate enough for a double tap.

Related question: is it common or feasible to mount a magnifier (assuming such a thing exists) in front of a reflex sight, like an EO Tech? EO Tech's dot is 1 MOA, right, so, I imagine that mounting a magnifier in front of one will make a nifty medium-long range sight.

Magnifiers go behind the red dot. They magnify the reticule too.


http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i1...T/DSC00263.jpg

But wouldn't that make the dot larger than 1 MOA?

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Originally Posted by crunker

But wouldn't that make the dot larger than 1 MOA?

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Nope. It magnifies down range too.

1 MOA = 1 inch at 100 yards. Wehter its magnified or not, its still an inch. Just looks bigger. Now if you magnified JUST whats downrange, then the dot would be like a 1/4 MOA.

I think.

But I do know its still 1 MOA.

And this is what I plan to do to my gun.

http://www.burrisoptics.com/xtrtactical1.html

Id like to find a scop like that that will magnify to 9 though.

Wouldn't it make more sense to put the magnifier after the scope then, so that the dot is smaller? Wouldn't that facilitate accurate shooting at long range more than putting the magnifier before the scope?

We trained to cant the rifle while wearing a gas mask.

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Originally Posted by crunker

Wouldn't it make more sense to put the magnifier after the scope then, so that the dot is smaller? Wouldn't that facilitate accurate shooting at long range more than putting the magnifier before the scope?

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One thing you arent thinking about though. Eye releif. The magnifier I have only has like 3-4 in of eye releif.

And plus if it has a 1.23 in eye peice, its gonna be awfully small when its 6-7 inches away from your face.

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Originally Posted by Anonymous D

One thing you arent thinking about though. Eye releif. The magnifier I have only has like 3-4 in of eye releif.

And plus if it has a 1.23 in eye peice, its gonna be awfully small when its 6-7 inches away from your face.

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I doubt eyepiece size would be a real problem; most IER and LER scopes don't have eyepieces much bigger than that, and are often used with a lot more than 6-7 inches of eye relief. I have a rifle with an FX-II IER mounted with ~9" of eye relief, and it has a 1.4" eyepiece, and it's fine; most other "scout"-type setups are similar. Handgun scopes have like 18" or 20" of eye relief and usually have about the same eyepiece diameter. But it is true that magnifiers don't tend to have the eye relief to be mounted in front of the red-dot.

Crunker, aside from the eye relief issue, the main reason people don't mount the magnifier forward of the red-dot is that there's not much point. For the roles in which this type of optics setup might be used, a 1 MOA reticule is not going to meaningfully inhibit accuracy. We aren't talking about police sniper rifles here. If you want to shoot with high precision at long range, you'd be using a proper scope to begin with, rather than a red-dot and magnifier.

I was more trying to say that the magnifiers are made with short eye releif, so putting them up front would make it impossible to see. I have a friend with a Mosin that has a scop way up front, so I know what you are talking about though.

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Originally Posted by Syme

Crunker, aside from the eye relief issue, the main reason people don't mount the magnifier forward of the red-dot is that there's not much point. For the roles in which this type of optics setup might be used, a 1 MOA reticule is not going to meaningfully inhibit accuracy. We aren't talking about police sniper rifles here. If you want to shoot with high precision at long range, you'd be using a proper scope to begin with, rather than a red-dot and magnifier.

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Fair point, but supposing you wanted to switch from a close-medium setup to a medium-long range setup quickly? Wouldn't it be faster to put a magnifier on, instead of taking off the reflex sight and then putting on a more powerful scope? For that matter, wouldn't that require re-zeroing?

Also... I have absolutely no idea what eye relief means. :(

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Originally Posted by crunker

Fair point, but supposing you wanted to switch from a close-medium setup to a medium-long range setup quickly? Wouldn't it be faster to put a magnifier on, instead of taking off the reflex sight and then putting on a more powerful scope? For that matter, wouldn't that require re-zeroing?

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But what I'm saying is that for the type of rifle that you'd put a reflex sight on in the first place, a 1 MOA reticule will allow the rifle to still be accurate enough even at medium to long range. Again, we aren't talking about police sniper rifles here. The type of rifle that people put reflex sights on are very rarely, if ever, used for the kind of precision shooting where a 1 MOA dot would be unacceptable. Remember that even at 500 yards (which is approaching maximum effective range for a 5.56mm rifle), a 1 MOA dot only covers a 5" wide patch on the target, which is perfectly fine for tactical shooting, including head shots.

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Originally Posted by crunker

Also... I have absolutely no idea what eye relief means. :(

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Eye relief is the distance you have to have between the scope's eyepiece and your eye in order to get a good image. The longer a scope's eye relief, the farther your eye can be from the scope's eyepiece. So handgun scopes have long eye relief (since you are holding the handgun out at arm's length, putting about 18" between it and your face), while most rifle scopes have much shorter eye relief, since they are going to be mounted on top of a rifle receiver no more than several inches from the shooter's face. Some rifle scopes, intended for "scout"-type mountings in which the scope is mounted farther forward than normal, have longer eye relief to allow this (such as the FX-II I mentioned above; IER stands for "intermediate eye relief").

It took me an embassarssingly long time to figure out what "gun rag" meant.

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Originally Posted by gwahir

It took me an embassarssingly long time to figure out what "gun rag" meant.

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It's a shoulder thing that goes up.