Optical Delusions

Someone asked to hear my thoughts (thots, lol)on the evolution of the many optics that my 16" SR-15 has worn. Shortly prior to getting my SR-15 I had been competing a lot in 2-gun matches and had just completed a close combat carbine class with Independence Training and I was torn between lightweight builds and functional reticals. I had run an Aimpoint for the class on a lightweight Aero build that worked very well, but the usefulness of the EOTEC design fascinated me, so I picked one up as soon as I could.

It did not even spend enough time on the SR-15 to get a picture, so there it is on the LWRCA5 (The EOTEC is gone now, and the Ldub has a Halosun circledot reticle that has been flawless, amazing thing for a $200 dot) I found the EOTECH reticle way to distracting, not the design, but the graininess or fuzziness was really distracting for my astigmatism.  And I did not like the fact that it would shut off after 4 hours or its (relative to the Aimpoint) abysmal battery life.   

So, the Aimpoint came off the Aero build and went on the SR-15...

The problem with the Aimpoint, while lightweight and always on, was that my astigmatism made it really difficult for me to squeeze the inherent accuracy out of this carbine that I knew was there. 

So, I experimented a bit with a cheap PA mil dot scope to see if it would be worthwhile in pursuing the route of higher power optics... 

I found this to be pretty slow on this gun, again, this was my go too blaster at the time, and I needed something that I could use in multiple roles...  In comes the ELCAN...

I had had the ELCAN SPECTER DR on a lot of different guns, and it had impressed me with glass quality, but not weight or usefulness of the reticle.  But it was better than the other options I had at the time as it could be flipped to 1X and used effectively as a red dot, and not suffer from my astigmatimatic (did I make up a word?) eyes, or flipped to 4X and get some decent at least better than minute of bad guy type accuracy.  The BDC reticle on these is configured for 62grn M855 "Green Tip" firing out of a 14.5" barrel, so not ideal, but one could adjust to it...  The thing that was killing me most though, was the weight.  After running a lot of matches with a light-weigh build, the ELCAN seemed to add a ton of weigh to the rifle for very little benefit in the way of magnification....  So the hunt for a suitable replacement was underway, and I found the NX8 to be the best compact, lightweight, LPVO I could find, giving a more usable reticle than the ELCAN, twice the magnification, and a featherweigth coming in at 17 oz compared to the ELCANS 23oz (adding the Scalarworks mount it comes to 22oz, but ces't la vie) I saved an ounce and gained double the magnification range, And Nightfoce has a generous discount for vets, so I call that a win.

  

Shortly after that configuration, I started following Ash Hess.  If you don't know who that is, look him up.  Pretty cool guy who put a lot of effort into re-vamping the Army's marksmanship program, currently working in military sales for Knight's Armament, and running a side hustle called "Quantified Performance" that you can find on patreon here:https://www.patreon.com/QuantifiedPerformanceLLC

Well, Ash talks about something called the "Driveway Special."  A light weight compact, go to war gun that will last you throughout a war, zombie apocalypse,  alien invasion, global economic collapse, or what ever doom awaits us, or that you could hand down to your progeny. you can find details about the build here : What the hell is a driveway special but anyway I knew I had to have one, and that the NX8 was the right optic for the job...

 But then what goes on the 16"?

In comes another Nightforce...  So the Nigthforce discount goes a long way in making quality glass available to veterans, and following Ash Hess, I knew a 16" rifle could go out a lot farther then what I was getting out of it at the 2gun matches so I went big...  

Probably a little too big for this rifle, but I don't regret it because I got to learn the excellent Tremor3 and it is fantastic.   That glass made smacking a steel plate at 660 yards almost boringly easy.  But I feel like in order to stretch the legs of that glass, it needs something with a little more reach...  Unfortunately due to the gunpocolypse I'm not able to find exactly what I want right now, so that waits, but what did pop up as available after a long time of being unobtanium was the latest offering from Vortex, the Gen III Razor 1-10 MRAD   As of this post, I have it mounted, I'll be getting it out to the range tomorrow, and a range report will most likely be 140 characters or less, so my twitter feed @slowzen for that..  Until then, May you be well and happy~