Sight Mounts

The Four Ounce Carbine Sight

Carbines were originally a means of defense for troops whose job was not to engage the enemy directly with a personal firearm or who had to fight on horseback. One of the best recent examples of such a carbine is the US M1 and its variants the M1A1 and M2. The M1 gave engineers, signallers and corpsmen the capability to lay down a high volume of effecive fire on enemies up to 300 meters distant. It’s only limitations were its lack of penetration and killing power. Like most militaries, the US Army concluded that future wars would be fought at much closer ranges and eventually ended up with a carbine as its standard weapon. Whilst current operations in Afghanistan have called into question the employment of a short barrelled carbine, under most circumstances, something capable of aimed fire out to 400 metres is perfectly adequate. Civilian shooters have very much jumped on the band wagon and, although the military 14.5″ barrel is awkward and in some cases illegal to possess in the US, 16″ barrels are becoming very popular, the AR15 making an excellent choice in this barrel lenght.

AR15 carbines are purchased for a whole raft of reasons including defence, action shooting, hunting, predator control or because they’re just plain cool. AR15s lend themselves having all sorts of accessories bolted on. 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 can make the weapon much less onerous to carry and keep it ready for action. Now you come to mount a sight on your carbine. Does a sighting system have to be bulky and cumbersome to be effective?  Fortunately the answer is no.

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. The H-1 red dot sight is a T-1 without the night vision settings which most civilian users will never need. The Micro T-1 and Micro H-1 both feature a 4 MOA red dot for rapid target acquisition. Both models are barely larger than a flip up rearsight. Unbelievably, Aimpoint’s ACET technology means a single CR2032 battery can last 5 years with the unit operating continuously. The sights will survive continuous immersion under 25 meters of sea water. 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. Aimpoint and a quite a few quality aftermarket accessory makers like La Rue Tactical and GG&G make mounts for these excellent units that increase their height, move them backward or forward and add quick detachable capabilities.

Eotech’s new XPS and EXPS ranges employ a single CR123 transverse mounted battery to cut down their length and prevent any chance of electrical connection problems caused by recoil. The battery is held in by a tethered cap with an O-ring which is far more secure than a latch. Cantilevered battery housings on these units clear the D-rings of AR15 style rifles. 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 iron sights 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. These sights all take up 2.75″ of rail space and have battery lives in the order of 600 hours. 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.

How do the sights compare? Aimpoint’s Micro T-1 and H-1 are a tad more expensive than the Eotechs and offer slightly less flexibility in shooting position but they are incredibly rugged and boast incredible battery life. On the other hand the sheer user friendliness of the completely parallax free Eotech HWS make them a superb choice – especially when longer range engagements are a consideration and the smaller 1 MoA dot comes into play. 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.

Comp M3 Red Dot Sight w/ Cantilever Mount (Airsoft-Club.com)

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