Dot on

Submitted by Eric Daniel

In the realm of combat shooting the standard rule of thumb is, “he who hits first wins.”  Consequentially, for the last couple of hundred years, the focus in firearms training has been sight alignment -- the faster you can align the front and rear sights on your target, the faster you can put lethal fire on your target.

Unfortunately, until recently, darkness presented a significant challenge to this theory.  If it’s too dark to see your sights, you can pretty well guarantee that you aren’t going to be able to align them very well and your accuracy is going to suffer.  While there are a number of ways to overcome this condition (illuminate the battlefield with flares, illuminate your sights with tritium or similar material, or illuminate your fire by using tracers) none has been universally effective.

Electro-optical “reflex” sights have changed all of that.  These sights are battery powered, non-magnified, single sight optics that not only allow the shooter to rapidly acquire a good sight picture and alignment in all conditions (day or night) but also provide the shooter with better situational awareness since they need not be totally focused on aligning their sights, but rather need only put the dot on the target, literally.

The first of these sights was the Aimpoint M2 which the Army designated the M68 CCO (close combat optic.)  It was driven by a watch-type battery and had a single on/off rheostat on the side to adjust reticle brightness.

While the sight did perform as advertised, I had issues with it.  First, the on/off knob was easy to accidentally bump, which could either cause your sight to turn off or go to max power, which not only reduced your battery life, but also produced a visible red glow out of the back of the sight.  Furthermore, the aiming dot was visible, at high power, through the front of the sight, which could reveal your location to an NVG equipped enemy (I am told this has been addressed though I can’t confirm it.)

The sight I liked, and what in addition to the ACOG seems to be the one being currently issued, is the EOTech model 550.  The 550 is a non-magnified EO sight which displays a 1MOA (minute of angle) dot in the center of a 65MOA circle.  Reticle brightness is regulated by up/down buttons on the back of the sight, and the newer versions are equipped with a NVG direct button that automatically dims the reticle for use with night vision devices.  The 550 is powered by a pair of standard AA batteries, has a reticle life of 1100 hours, and is waterproof to 1 ATM (33 feet.)

What I liked about the 550 over the M68 was the battery choice (AAs are much easier to get) the fact that there is no forward projection of the beam, even on max power, and that there was more positive control of the reticle brightness.  The 550 is also mil-std 1913 rail compatable and works well with weapon mounted NVGs such as the AN/PVS-10.

While I’m sure that there are certainly more modern CCOs out there with many more bells and whistles, the 550 does everything I need it to and it didn’t cost an arm and a leg.

Check out the EOTech 550 here

Comments

[BWJones]

The 550 is nice and I own one myself for reasons you have illustrated, but it is a fair bit longer than the more compact models. So, if for instance you wanted to use the 550 on top of a short rail with the 3X magnifier, you might run into rail real-estate issues.

[Dave]

+1 for the Eotech. I like its field of view and the image is easier for me to acquire.

One plus for Aimpoint is that you can use it as a fairly accurate ghost-ring sight if it goes blank. It'll still work for CQB until you can withdraw and fix it.

[Oz]

Glad you like 'em.

-signed, a former member of the SOPMOD team

[Eric Daniel]

Mr. Jones,

You are correct regarding the length of the 550, and how that can cause a bind on a short rail system. At the time I purchased the 550 I was using an M16A2, and so I needed the needed the carrying handle adaptor for the sight, and lacking any sort of aftermarked railed armguards, that sight was going to be the only piece of hardware I was mounting.

The 550 also worked wonderfully on the M-14 for "relativly" short range work or in night time urban situations where local lighting washed out my AN/PVS-4. There again though, the 550 was the only device I was mounting.

If, though, in the future, I find myself armed with an M4, some tradeoffs may be required.

Thanks for your comment.

[John Williams]

Hey,
The best optic I have found is the Russian Pk-01 it takes standard watch batteries and has an automatic brightness control, no fancy controls just turn it on it will keep the correct dot brightness regardless of light conditions. Say you exit a vehicle, the dot is ready to go, say you enter a building that is very dark then go back outside into bright sunlight this dot is always ready. There is no screwing around with fancy reticles, a bunch of different brightness settings just on or off. Also it has a 1.5 MOA dot which works nicely on my AR 15

[John Williams]

oops it costs about $150.00 I Have had mine for 4 years and it works great I use it a lot.

[Scott G]

I had an EOTech and also liked the 550 for its overall ease of use and especially for zeroing. I used it on an M-4 and did run into one problem. In order to be able to use my iron sites, (since they don't run out of batteries, if needed) I had to place the 550 on the front rail as opposed to the carrying handle rail, which altered the balance of the rifle somewhat. But overall an excellent piece of equipment

[Randy M.]

I used the EOTech on my issued Para-SAW and M-4 (without carrying handle) in two deployments to Iraq. It worked really well with both. Awesome target acquisition.

[Whistler]

You might be interested to learn that this type of sight was invented in 1900 by Sir Howard Grubb, and was used inthe first World War. It certainly took the small arms industry a long time to catch onto it!

[MKC]

1 ATM (33 feet) should read:
2 ATA (Atmospheres Absolute)= 33 fsw (feet of salt water)