[ Laser Products Corp Model LPC-16 ]
Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and today courtesy of
a very generous loan from Wraith Defence,
we are taking a look at an LPC Model 16.
This is the first commercially ... marketed
laser aiming system on a rifle in the US.
This was produced by a company called
Laser Products Corporation, which is better known today
as SureFire, still in business doing all sorts of laser, and flashlight and suppressor sorts of things.
So Laser Products dates back to 1979 when their founder, a scientist, decided,
"You know what? I bet I can fit one of these lasers to a firearm and make it a viable sighting device."
Now, this was originally intended to be used at night.
During the day you had iron sights, and this laser is
nowhere near powerful enough to be actually visible during the daylight.
I know, I've tried.
You can see it here inside on a wall, and it works fine at very short ranges and inside.
And it works great in the dark. But outside in direct sunlight - forget it.
So let's get that expectation correct from the beginning.
Now the first [laser equipped] gun that Laser Products came out with ...
was a Colt .357 Magnum Trooper.
And this was their LPC Model 7 and it had a laser [over] the barrel,
and the battery assembly was basically grafted onto the bottom of the grip.
So it has kind of a weirdly long looking grip on it.
That wasn't a huge commercial success,
but it's the first product, it sets the standard.
And LPC would come out with in 1981 a number of other options for laser integrated firearms.
Specifically the Ruger Mini-14, the Remington 870
(both in a full length traditional shotgun style and also a pistol grip only style),
where they used the same laser system that they'd put on that Colt Trooper,
and then they grafted a small battery pack onto the bottom of the pistol grip of the shotgun.
And of course the LPC Model 16 for the M16 / AR-15.
These were very much targeted at law enforcement.
The idea was you would have a way to actually aim the firearm in the dark.
Now there's a rumour that these ... M16 or AR-15 pattern ones
that they were manufactured specifically for the LA Police for security at the 1984 Olympics.
And that, as best I can tell, is not actually true.
But there is a grain of truth to it, because the LAPD did in fact purchase Remington 870s
with laser sights from LPC for the 1984 Olympics, for the security arrangements for the Olympics.
So they didn't actually get these, but they did get something from the same company.
And that of course went a long way in sort of raising the profile of the company,
and making their products look like something that might be worth
a second glance if you're a law enforcement agency.
Once LAPD decides to adopt it, well maybe there's something really there.
The other thing that of course boosted their company profile
was their use in the Terminator movies.
Where Arnold the Terminator picks out a 1911
with a Laser Products Corporation laser grafted onto it.
Anyway.
I don't have good numbers on exactly how many of these were made,
but it appears to have only been a couple of dozen.
This particular one was made in 1982.
And well, let's go ahead and take a closer look at it,
and how it differs fundamentally from today's laser equipped firearms.
This thing is super cool and super huge.
By the way, it comes out at 10.25 pounds unloaded.
Add on a bit more if you actually had a loaded magazine in it.
The lower receiver here is nothing special, this is just a Colt semi-auto AR-15,
what they called an AR-15 A2 commercial lower receiver.
It's the upper receiver here that has all of the special ... construction to it.
Now ... I want to point out there are advertisements you can find
from old gun magazines that show these.
But they show a slightly different version of this
where it's more of a traditional carry handle up here
with the whole laser assembly mounted in front of the carry handle.
And as best I can tell, those advertisements are all showing
basically a mock-up build that was done for advertising.
All the ones that were actually produced are designed like this
where really the laser had to be longer.
So you can see the laser is coming all the way out here to the standard front sight block
on a 20 inch A2 pattern, or A1 pattern, full length M16 or AR-15 rifle.
Zoom out a bit there: this is all laser, and this is all battery.
And that's a really long assembly.
And so you had to come up with some way to actually fit it in,
and the way to do that was to put the sights up on top of the battery.
They added another carry handle up there, so you could in fact put a carry handle style optic
on top of this if you really wanted to go ... sight overboard.
This is a helium-neon gas laser.
And the reason we don't have this sort of thing still today is because we have solid state lasers
that don't require an actual sealed gas tube to run. This did.
It's funny ... I tried to pick this up on camera, and you really can't get it,
but when it's running (I don't have a battery in it right now),
but when it's running you can actually hear this thing buzzing, which is kind of cool.
So I've got my battery here,
a rechargeable NiCad 14.4 volt battery from Laser Products Corporation.
It's got a little handle on it there so you can get it in and out of the gun, and two contact points.
The gun itself has a little trapdoor at the back.
We've got a little plunger right in there, push that down,
and I can open that lever, which allows me to open this trapdoor on the back of the gun.
And then I want the contacts facing up, and I can slide that right in.
And then close the door, snap it shut.
The laser is now ready to go. You can see there is a cable connection coming out of it here ...
to a pressure pad that turns it on and off.
And ... there it is.
I don't know if you guys can hear it, it does actually buzz when it's running.
[Audio recorded separately up close to mic]
But that's all there is to it. When you hold pressure on the pad, the laser is activated.
Now this was assembled in cooperation with Colt,
because you can see obviously there are some fundamental changes
made to some of the castings
like the ... gas block and front sight tower to incorporate our laser in.
And this would have been zeroed at the factory.
So in theory there is no modification necessary,
there's no obvious way to change the zero.
Obviously you can by taking the thing apart, or by shimming it as it's attached to the upper.
But ... from a user's perspective, this came from the factory zeroed and ready to use.
And of course you can see they've got original A1 style iron sights up here on top.
So during the daytime you would use your iron sights, and at night you have the laser
for when you can't see the irons.
Naturally of course you need to be able to recharge the battery,
so we have our charger box here, Laser Aimed Weapons.
With some instructions on the back there for both charging and reconditioning the battery.
Plugs into a wall socket.
A bit of a cautionary note there, this is for 110 volt, 60 hertz.
And to charge it you simply ...
plug that guy in and let it charge.
When you do, you've got condition and charge lights that will come on there,
and instructions on the back explain how that all works, but that's it.
These batteries do still function, but they don't hold a charge any more, unfortunately.
Again, a big thanks to Wraith Defence for loaning me this to film for you guys.
These are obviously really quite scarce today,
and it's really cool to get to take a look at one, not just that still exists,
but one that actually still functions. Because of the two batteries with this,
this battery mostly works.
I should point out, let's see, let me get my reader here.
I took this out to the range, and it was basically dead at the range.
When I charged this ...
yeah, so this battery is old and is not holding its own.
When I pulled this off the charger it was reading like 18.5 volts
(it is nominally a 14.4 volt battery).
It is now, less than an hour later, reading like 14.5 volts.
So this battery is toast because it is frankly 41 years old. Can't really blame it.
So it would have been fun to try actually doing some shooting with this,
but the batteries are dead.
Anyway, again a big thanks to Wraith Defence for the loan, hopefully you guys enjoyed the video.
Definitely not a typical sort of thing to get to take a look at.
Thanks for watching.