All posts in Bushnell Rifle Scopes

Combat rifle scopes and a backup plan

When you mount your rifle scope, please do some research on how to properly level and mount it.  A properly mounted combat optic should not be over torqued and should have loctite on the screws.  I have yet to see a mount come loose on a gun that used loctite.   When you go out an spend $1000 on a combat rifle scope, ask yourself, what will you do and how will you remove the scope and aim it if the optic goes down.   If one your Trijicon rifle scopes takes a bullet, are you going to be able to see through it and still be able to lay down effective fire if you can’t see through it?  Even if you have a rifle scope that does not allow for co-witness, would it be a good idea to still attach flip up sights to the gun if there is room for them?  Always have a backup plan for your defensive carbine.

The vast majority of M4 Carbines I see at the range have optics that are top of the line.    Aimpoint and Eotech along with the Trijicon ACOG are probable the top 3.   All of these are good for a certain purpose which is mostly for close up fighting.   The Trijicon ACOG is more of a medium range combat optic depending on the type of reticle you choose.   They do have a line of red dot or even green dot optic options, also.   If you are are a weekend warrior and new to defensive shooting and tactical gear, I would suggest you think about this next statement, whenever you attach an accessory to your Carbine, think about what you would do if that accessory mount broke or the actual item failed.

 

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Looking for Zombie killing options

Do search for gun clubs and shooting ranges in your State to find out if anyone is holding a Zombie shoot.   They usually occur in the September to October months.   Having some good tactical clothing that will securely hold your gear.   The Eotac Style 201 pants are my favorite because they hold 6- 30rd PMAGS and they are easy to run in.   Tactical vests like the Style 101 are not heavy and don’t make you feel like you are wearing a flak jacket.   There is a time and a place for different types of tactical vests, but mobility is important.  You may want to try getting your magazines loaded up with all of your gear and then try running 100yds with it and see what it feels like and if stuff starts to fly out of your pockets.   Mobility is extremely important.

There seems to be a new craze in competition shooting in recent years.   I’ve seen more high school boys coming home from class with Zombie survival guides, the recent 28 Days later type movies and the doomsday virus outbreaks.    I guess IDPA has lost some traction to the present generation, but I’ve attended a few Zombie survival competitions and they were very good training events.   The best thing about it was the amount of tactical gear that I watched fail, and the number of really novice mistakes people made.   Out of the 5 stages I attended, there was 1 stage that we saw about 18 firearms go down.   About half of those were AK variants and they were mostly magazine related.  Some guys never knew how hard it was to do a tactical reload on an AK if there was a round in the chamber and a fully loaded 30rd magazine.  People found out what happens after firing off the 1st round and the magazine falls out.

 

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Lights that don’t go out

I’ve been involved with several gun clubs that ran various competitions.  My favorites are always the Carbine events.   Every year we get to see who the best shooters are and almost every year, the guys that show up with the most expensive guns are not the ones with the highest scores.   If you got money to blow there’s no reason you can’t buy what you want, but operator caused malfunctions are the #1 reason I see guns go down.

I’ve had a love hate relationship with my Eotech rifle scopes.    I love how easy the reticle is to pick up when shooting, but I hate how hard it is to nail targets beyind 100yds in low light because of how the reticle obscures the targets.   I’ll never forget my first 100yd shooting experience with my Eotech where we were shooting steel plates.   I couldn’t see any of the 3 inch plates with my Eotech at 100yds.   The shade of the trees darkened the targets and when I shot with iron sights, I could clearly make out the plates.   Battery operated optics are something that will surely go extinct in the not too distant future.

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Hunting overkills this Fall

For most of the Northeast, hunting will start in about 6 weeks for archery and then small game begins.   Archery has gained a  lot of ground in this region because so much of the good hunting areas are populated and it’s hard to safely manage deer populations if areas where it’s not really safe to use a firearm.   I still don’t know why so many people go with monsterous optics that when put under any kind of realistic hunting test, will always slow you down.   Whenever I ask people what they are doing with a 50mm objective on a gun that is really meant for something that weights 800lbs and they are out hunting white tail, they usually say they are afraid of making bad shots.

From my own personal experience in the military and law enforcement community, I think hunting with a red dot is probable more practical than any optic that magnifies more than 5xs.   For small game I’d recommend against using a red dot, but there have been times I’ve been tempted to just bring a Mini 14 with an Eotech out for while tails just because the speed I get with that configuration is better than any lever action or 7mm bolt action.   Whenever you are thinking about doing long range shooting, go ahead with magnification, but wheneve you are thinking about rifle scopes for hunting applications, do a realistic gauge of how good your eyes are and what kind of opportunities you may expect when out in the field, and don’t slow yourself down with too much magnification or an optic that has an eye relief inhibits your mobility.

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When optics go down

rifle scopesThe Trijicon NSN has iron sights mounted on the top of the rifle scope which can come in handy in closer situations and are a less expensive alternative to mounted a red dot on your ACOG.    That is worth the money if you are in the line of work that calls for it, but for general blasting and plinky, I think that $1800 optics is a bit much.   The Eotech 512 is probable my recommended optic for an M4.  I think people can get carried away with optics on the M4 because even though the rifle is pretty accurate, it really is not very powerful or effective past 200yds.    With a growing selection of combat optics you can put on the AR15 type rifles, one other suggestion I have for shooters is to always keep your iron sights on the rifle.   I’ve seen a few people show up at classes with just an Eotech mounted and they complained the front sight blocked their FOV.   Well,  taking a 200yd shot with an Eotech that has a dead battery is like parking a mini van from the furthest back seat.

There are numerous reasons that your rock solid rifle optics will go down.   Some optics use batteries which will always go down at some point.   Your tough Trijicon ACOG will hold zero under most combat conditions, but a 30 caliber bullet can still dismount it.     Reticles can come loose, rings can fail, glass can break and numerous other things occur in a fight that don’t normally happen with occassional hunting trips.   Most rifle optics won’t handle real big drops, but having the ability to have a backup just incase the glass goes down.  Co-witnessing your sights is a simple answer for those using rifle scopes and quick detach mounts in my opinion are worth considering.   It has never happened to me in a hostile situation, but having a MOA rifle with broken glass that is solidly mounted on my rifle has got to be a nightmare sceneario.

 

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range estimations and value estimations

rifle scopesI remember the days when I would stare at rifle scopes and ask shooters how much they cost, and when they told me how the rifle scopes cost, I’d calculate that whichever rifle I was thinking about putting the scope on, the cost of the rifle was less than the cost of the optic.   I have no idea how much money companies are making off of some optics, but there is a certain point that I really don’t care how good people think  they are, 90% of people spending that kind of money on optics probable could get the job done with something that cost 50%-75% less.   In all of my years of target shooting and plinking, I have only had scope mount issues and 2 rifle scopes that ever broke.   Every rifle scope  that broke cost less than $100.   I have a few Leupolds that have been on bolt actions and semi-autos and they all hold zero and have excellent clarity.

If you do research on rifle scope manufacturers and there warranties, then put some thought into what kind of objective lense you think  you want and get the reticle that applies to your shooting purposes.  There are a lot of really interesting reticles being sold by various manufacturers and they work very well.   Mil-Dot reticles still have their place, but some of the range estimation reticles for varmint and big game work very fast.   Once you’ve determined which rifle scopes you want then get the best rifle mounts you can afford to get and remember to use loctite on every screw.   I have had scope mounts fail on me, but never when I used loctite.  For hard use optics I strongly recommend marking the heads of the screws so you can do visual checks to see if they are turning.

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Possibilities with the Mini 14

rifle scopesOne of my more accurate and flat shooting rounds I use is the military 62gr SCBT round, but I absolutely advise against ever using this for hunting.  My favorite hunting round is a 60gr HP from Sierra that has allowed me to put 3 shot groups in 3 inches out to 300yds.   I’m sure there are some readers saying BS on that one, but its true and I have pictures to prove it.   The Mini 14s best advantage is that it is much lighter weight that most AR15 style weapons and that it feels more like a traditional rifle.   The stainless steel Mini 14 also holds up very well in damp environments and I’ve seen better resistance against moisture than the standard blued Mini 14.

My all time favorite semi-auto for hauling around is an possible always will be the Ruger Mini 14.   I started out with these long before i stepped into the world of tactical accessories and long range shooting.   My favorite setup for the Mini 14 is a 3.9×40 rifle scope and in my humble opinion, this is probable the proper setup for what the gun was originally intended to be used for.   If a user pays attention to the barrel twist and the bullet weight they are using, this lightweight carbine which fires a bullet as powerful as an M16 is capable of varmint hunting and medium size game.   Many States do not allow the use of AR 15 style rifles for hunting, but you can still get the accuracy and power from the .223 round in a Carbine that doesn’t look as threatening while beating down the sticks.

 

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M4 Configurations and reticles

rifle scopesIt seems that the M4 AR15 variant is hands down the most popular carbine in existance in the United States.   There are plenty of AK and European military style rifles out there, but the accessorized M4 is king.    When I first stepped into the high speed tactical carbine school, I was going there from previously owning only Kalashnikov variant rifles.   The biggest promotion I heard from all of those owning an AR15 was how accurate they were.   It is true that the M4 and AR15 family of rifles ARE the most accurate combat rifles, but that doesn’t make them the most effective.   Ever since the Iraq invasion, the notion of just sending in a group of guys with M4 Carbines or M16s without a 7.62 DMR is not common.   There was a lot of hype about the military digging up M14s and giving them this role, but now that several years have passed, the military has been working with newer models of 7.62 rifles to eventually fill that role.
Along with the return of pistol driven guns, the 5.56 is being put in its place and other caliber rifles are being deployed.  The 5.56 and 50 Caliber rifles are doing their jobs quite well, but is some environments the 50 caliber is an over kill and something in between 7.62 and 50 Cal was needed.   The 338 Lapua seems to be filling that role very well.   The combat optic has also been evolving due to the fact that engaging enemies from 100-600yds is not very common and many of these rifle scopes are too much magnification for close quarters combat.    Eotech has a mangnification scope that allows you to go from 3x to zero magnification with the slip of a switch.    Trijicon ACOGs are hands down the #1 combat rifle optic, but red dots and various color and configurations of reticles are being used.   Each has it’s given purpose and it’s up to the operator to determine which application is best for them.

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LWRC Range Trip

rifle scopesToday I took my newest LWRC rifle to the range to break it in.   This is a combat rifle and I expect that it eventually get pretty beat up, but it’s always a  good idea to run through some firing drills before you rely on it.   Some of the biggest malfuntion problems I have seen on the firing line were with supposedely brand new out of the box rifles.   Sometimes there are bugs or issues that are easy to fix, but you really need to put some lead down range with your rifle or pistol before you rely on it.   I’ve mentioned before about a time when I saw a guy show up with a Beretta 92FS inox pistol and it jammed after every round.   The shooter was very frustrated because this was it’s first range trip.   Well, turns out that the pistol was bone dry and had absolutely zero lubrication on it and with one wipe down, the gun ran flawlessly.    The same should go for any firearm.   I strongly suggest cleaning guns every once in awhile, even if you haven’t shot them.    Lubrication can run off of guns or drain off, and I also highly recommend using a small level of grease on even pistols, especially if they may sit in a gun safe for long periods of time.

My LWRC defanitely runs on less lubrication that any direct impingement rifle, but I am going to use small amounts of Break Free CLP on it just to help reduce the amount of wear on the parts.   I have tested previous LWRC rifles out and they have all lived up to my expectations.   The product has been modified over the last 3yrs, but I’d have to say that they were big improvements, mostly on the bolt carrier and short stroke piston designs.   My favorite configuration is the shorter version that is close the militaries version of the M4 Carbine.   The M4 Carbine is the fastest CQB rifle, but it is possible to inhibit the speed of the rifle by putting too much optic on the rifle.   The rifle is meant for close range fighting and anything more than 4X is too much.   The lethality and ballistics of the M4 make it a very good close range fighting rifle, but even though the rifle is accurate out to 600yds, it is a very week round at those distances.   You may be better off with a longer barrel AR15 variant and mounting 4-10X rifle scopes if you aren’t looking for a close range fighting rifle.   I am starting to see a trend away from magnification on the M4 and even many of the Trijicon ACOGS are now mounting red dots because we know that even 3-4x magnifications will slow you down at pistol range distances.

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Use and purposes for rifle optics

Rifle ScopesOptics have multiple purposes.  They can be used for Astronomy, Scouting, birdwatching, target shooting, hunting and military purposes.   With the emergency of combat optics for close quarter combat, scopes used on rifles have gotten smaller, more compact and sometimes have zero magnification.   The point is to give you a good sight pictures and a reticle that is easy to follow.

Many combat optics like Trijicon and Eotech are 4X or less.   DMR or Designated Marksmen are using optics made from Trijicon, Zeiss and Leupold that are combat worth but higher magnification since shooting 300-600 meters is becoming the norm in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.  Rifle Scopes are no longer made with the standard crosshair reticles and may even come in range finding or illuminated reticles.

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