Know the color of your target and background
Recently I got into bow hunting and some of the bows they have out now are setup just like rifles are. The optics are as fancy as the stuff that Trijicon has out and I got a good crash course on green vs red reticles. Illumination is something that can bother me. I still have pretty good eyesight for my age and I really don’t like it when I have reticles that obscure my target or cause fuzz and haze. Many of the red dot optics just piss me off if I have to use them past 100yds. I do like my Eotech optics but am still looking for those skinny reticles.
The Trijicon TA01NSN is my favorite Trijicon ACOG and it is because it has nice skinny black lines and backup iron sights. The TA01 is the even simpliar version of the ACOG. These Trijicon Rifle Scopes have illumination when it is dark out but the bad thing about them is those nice thin black lines get lost on black clothing targets. How many bad guys wear black over in Iraq and Afghanistan? The vast majority of them. Not only can a red dot obscure your target your black lines will fade on a target too. A little bit of color contrast is a good thing for hunting and defense.
It 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.
One problem that any hunter already knew was using too much magnification meant slow target acquisition, especially at close ranges. Field of view is even more important in combat than in hunting. In Combat you may be looking at a bad guys face with your reticle right on him, but 6ft to his right is a guy with his sights right on you that you can’t see. I’d have to say that I belive that 3x-4x is probable the best of both worlds. Trijicon knew that even an optic with zero magnification like the Eotech had an edge in some situations so now they have Trijicon ECOS which has a red dot optic which sits on top of the scope. This will eliminate the problem of magnification in close quarters situations.
Trijicon has also diversified their optics for hunting and target shooting. The Accupoint optics are low-variable power optics that give operators some level of magnification, but still have the speed that Trijicon optics are known for. The Accupoint reticles come in red triangle, Amber dot, Green triangle, and green dot. These have started to show up on bolt action rifles and DMR used in the military. They are reasonable priced and all under $1000 dollars.
For decades, Trijicon’s Brilliant Aiming Solutions™ have been trusted by those who defend America; like the Marines, Army Special Forces, Navy Seals and FBI. Which is just another reason elite firearms manufacturers such as Glock, Smith & Wesson, Beretta and Springfield, among others, continue to offer Trijicon as original equipment on their firearms — more than any other illuminated system in the world.