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New Sight Options For AR15 Carbines

Carbines were originally a means of defense for troops whose job was not to engage the enemy directly with a personal weapon or who had to travel on horseback. The classic example is the World War Two M1 carbine and its variants the M1A1 and M2. The M1 gave artillerymen, sappers and corpsmen serious firepower, enabling them to beat off attacks from up to 300 meters. 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 adopted 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 great choice in this barrel lenght.

The military heritage of the AR15 gives it an undeniable appeal, but they’re put to a plethora of uses including self defence, action shooting, hunting and pest control. You can bolt almost anything on to an AR15 platform, but that in itself can become problematic. Why take a wonderful sleek, compact, well-balanced firearm and bolt all sorts of junk all over it? Keep this up and before long you can end up with something as light and handy as an outboard motor.

There is an undeniable appeal in the AR’s sheer modularity. A flashlight handgrip in particular adds a lot to the functionality and ergonomics of a carbine. Tactical slings are a great investment in ergonomics and add little to the weight of your system. Your next choice is a sighting system. You may think reflex sights are heavy, bulky things that take up lots of space on your rail. That may once have been the case, but no more.

Aimpoint’s Micro H-1 and T-1 weigh 3.7 ounces inclusive of Picatinny mount and take up all of 2.4 inches of rail. To save you cash Aimpoint deleted the night vision capability found in the T-1 to make a less expensive Micro H-1 model for hunters and sports shooters. 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. Powered by a CR2032 3v lithium battery these models can be left on for 50,000 hours or 5 years and are submersible to 25 meters/80ft. 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. A whole range of mounts are available from Aimpoint and third parties that add height, quick release and cantilever design to mount these ultra compact sights.

Eotech recently introduced a whole range of miniature holographic weapon sights using a single CR123 battery transversely mounted to save space and banish recoil caused electrical connection problems forever. The battery compartment is sealed with a simple tethered cap with an O-ring that is utterly secure from unintentional opening/detachment. 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.

Which do you choose? The Aimpoint is somewhat more expensive and offers slightly less flexibility in head/eye placement but it is tiny, utterly rugged and has vastly longer battery life. Eotech have the edge in longer range engagements with a smaller dot and you can adopt more radical shooting positions due to their totally parallax free HUD. Aimpoint and Eotech represent the state of the art in combat optic technology and you will have bought units that soldiers and law enforcement professionals stake their lives on on a day to day basis.

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