Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and today I want to show you guys this thing.
This is, and we'll take a closer look at it in a moment, this is the best answer
I've come up ... with for a question that I've been pondering for a little while.
And that is, what's the best sort of optic to put on a machine gun? Because
sighting systems on machine guns kind of work a little differently than on rifles.
On a rifle you're firing one shot at a time. So you acquire a target, get a good sight picture,
make a good trigger press, good follow through, and the cycle is complete.
You fire a shot and presumably you hit.
Machine guns, light machine guns, squad automatic weapons, are designed for burst fire.
And as much for suppression as for a specific actual hit,
but of course the closer you manage to hit to your target the better your suppression effect is.
And the problem you would run into with a traditional magnified telescopic scope
is that when you pull the trigger, the recoil from the first round is going to start
jarring, vibrating, moving the gun and you typically lose your sight picture.
The greater the magnification, the smaller the eye box, which is to say the smaller
the area you have where your eye can stay in and retain a sight picture.
You typically with a scope have a relatively fine crosshair or other reticle,
and when that starts bouncing around you lose the ability to really track exactly where the gun is impacting.
So with a magnified optic with a machine gun, and I've tried this,
you kind of have the effect of you can aim the first shot.
And you know where the first shot hits, and then the rest of the burst is thataway.
And you release the trigger and then you reacquire the sight picture, and then you can fire again if you want to.
But the purpose of a light machine gun is as much suppression as it is hitting a particular pinpoint target.
Both are valid in different circumstances.
But if you're trying to suppress something,
it's going to work better the closer your impacts are to the thing you're trying to suppress.
So accuracy is still a valid concern, you can't just say, "Well it's suppression, so it doesn't really matter where I hit."
You know, I think it does matter where you hit.
So the question is, you're ... let me go back a step. You're also
able to engage targets beyond where you can see them with the naked eye.
So the effective range of a light machine gun is 400, 500, 600 yards or metres.
But you can't identify a target at that sort of range without some sort of magnification.
And that puts you in this interesting dilemma of, do I want magnification
so that I can extend the effective range of the gun, be able to identify targets,
but I can't really keep a sight picture very well.
Like, I lose my ability to aim the subsequent rounds fired.
Or do I want something like maybe iron sights, or maybe just a red dot optic with no magnification, with no eye box,
... and a bright red aiming point, that is a lot easier to keep ... in focus while you're actually firing.
If you have a red dot on a machine gun you can actually track and adjust where you're hitting
while you are firing. As opposed to with a magnified optic you can really only aim the first shot.
So is there some sort of middle ground where you can do both?
And that is what I think I have here, so let me show you this up close.
So what I have here is actually three separate components.
We've got an Aimpoint CompM4, which is a high-end Swedish made red dot.
Actually this entire thing is Swedish made, but I'll get to that in a moment.
We have an Aimpoint 3x power magnifier, and we have a Spuhr B.A.M. or Ballistic Adjustable Mount.
And what the Spuhr mount does is basically lock the Aimpoint and the magnifier together on a single unit.
So this is a quick detach lever that allows me to clamp the whole thing onto a Picatinny rail.
And then I have a ... BDC cam basically, a bullet drop compensator,
that cams the back end of this up for different ranges.
So you zero it at 250 metres, and then you can crank it up to 400, 500 and 600.
Note that, kind of cool, there is a little luminous dot there at 250.
So in the dark ... if you can't feel the thing, you can see if you're on the shortest range.
So that's the ... Spuhr B.A.M.
Spuhr is also Swedish, so it kind of makes sense that he would design this to fit Swedish Aimpoint products.
Now the other cool thing here is you might not always want the magnifier.
With the magnifier, if you start shooting you probably are going to lose your sight picture,
because the magnifier ... has an eye box.
And you have to have your eye in just the right place, the right eye relief, or else you lose the sight picture.
So this is a system that works with Aimpoint's flip over and swivel mount.
It's this cool new mount that they've come out with.
Where if I don't want to use the magnifier at the moment, I can just flip it out of the way.
Or I can actually take it completely off the ... optics mount
by dropping this little lever and then pivoting the whole thing off.
So if I don't see the need for the magnifier, if I'm just going to be shooting at closer range,
I can use just the Aimpoint.
And then this just locks back on like that when I do want it.
And I still have the option of flipping it out of the way if I don't need it,
or using it if I do want it.
So this would allow you to do something like, for example, say some squad leader with a binocular says,
"Hey, we've got a target at 500 metres ... by that tree there over on the hill."
And so you can click this thing out to 500,
and then use the magnifier to identify the target and see exactly where they are.
And then when you start shooting, since you know what ... terrain features you're aiming at,
you can then flip the magnifier out of the way and use just the red dot without magnification
so that you can maintain a sight picture while you're shooting.
That is the concept behind this. And this is something that has actually gotten some military adoption.
I believe it's the Dutch Marines have these mounted on ... FN MAG machine guns I should say.
And so I'm really curious to try this out.
The other options that I considered were primarily a low power variable optic.
So something like a 1-4x, or 1-6x or maybe 1-8x power scope.
But those kind of have the ... downsides that I've already discussed at length here in this video.
I also considered the Leupold D-EVO sight, which is an interesting concept.
It's a 6x power scope that mounts relatively low and is actually prismatic.
So you look in it here, but the lens that you're looking out is actually offset to the side.
And then directly in front of the D-EVO you mount a red dot that sits up above it.
So the idea is if you look through like the top of the system up here,
you have a red dot that is easy to track, has all the benefits of red dot.
And if you just then pivot your eye down, you're looking into a 6x power magnified scope
that allows you to do some target identification or observation.
Now the problem with the D-EVO, there are a couple of problems.
We actually, over on InRange, we tinkered with one of those a couple years ago when they came out,
found that they have a really tight eye box, they have a really quite small field of view.
And we actually had problems with the one that we got breaking.
... It's not the first Leupold product I've had break on me brand new out of the box.
So I'm a little leery of that, and I think this is probably the better setup.
So this isn't purely a thought experiment for me,
this is something that I actually want to experiment with and shoot with and see how it works.
I've been on the waiting list for, boy, a couple of years now for a Lage MAX-11/15A1,
which is a magazine-fed 5.56mm conversion for the MAC-11A1 machine pistol.
... It is that product that prompted me to go out and a couple years ago now,
purchase an NFA registered, legal, full-auto MAC-11A1 submachine gun or machine pistol,
just to have the registered lower to use with this product when it eventually comes out.
So we're still waiting on ATF to approve it. They have approved the MAX-11/15,
which is the version that fits an M11 Cobray or RPB or MAC machine pistol.
The M11A1 is the slightly shorter version. As a machine pistol it is in .380 instead of 9mm.
For the purposes of this, the mechanism is exactly the same,
but it's not an identical unit because it has to fit a differently sized lower receiver.
And so ATF requires a separate approval process for it, which hopefully will be done any time now, but isn't done yet.
So I've been tinkering and thinking about the optical system for that machine gun for a while now,
and this is what I've come up with. So I'm really excited about this thing.
I am looking forward to bringing you guys some video of the ...
whole gun package once I have all the components and put it all together.
A big thanks to Spuhr for sending me the mount here.
This whole thing is a just painfully expensive setup, it's like 2,800 dollars retail for everything contained here.
So, a big thanks to Spuhr for providing me with the mount,
and to OpticsPlanet for hooking me up with the Aimpoint CompM4 and the 3x power magnifier.
And I'm really looking forward to showing you guys how this stuff all actually works in practice.
So stick around, hopefully it will be sooner rather than later.
But I believe I am number one on the waiting list with Lage, so as soon as they're available
I'll have one, and this is all ready for it. And we'll take it out to the range and
see how the theory actually interfaces with reality at the range.
Thanks for watching.
[ sub by sk cn2 ]