"There was some recommendation at first that we turn them on at the start of each shift, then off again at the end, but most never do that."
Adrian here... Your rifle and optic is a piece of mission critical equipment. Do people do a press check on their pistol at the beginning of every shift? Check squad lights? Check body camera? Check the oil on your squad? (ok yeah none of us do that) but you MUST check your firearms guys.... leaving it sit for three months without checking it... I don't know how else to say it, but that's not a good idea. The optic selection is irrelevant, it needs to be checked at the beginning of every shift on the street.
If you work inside - I get it. You're not going to check it everyday. Then try to check it weekly, or at LEAST once a month. Set a reminder on your calendar or phone. You should probably be adding some lube sometime within those three months too.
Most electronics draw current when off. I'm not sure if the AMGs do, I'm not an engineer. I can look into it. It could also be batteries. What batteries are you using? I've seen agencies buy low-bid CR123s to save a few bucks which crap out really fast.
My recommendation for patrol guys running the UH-1 (or actually Razor 1-6s or anything else that doesn't have a battery life measured in years):
Check it at the beginning of your shift, then shut it off. You could leave it on all shift if you really want, but you'll eat through a battery in less than a month. Even if you have an optic that runs 50,000 hours, you still need to check it at the beginning of your shift to make sure it works. I'd check my weapon light too, ensure my mag is inserted, chamber is empty and the rifle is good to go. That's a basic pre-shift inspection that takes ten seconds.
If you keep the optic shut off like I recommend for the UH-1 on patrol, then just make turning on your optic part of your deployment proceedure. You need to check the brightness of your optic anyways, even if it's already on, right? Lighting conditions change throughout a shift. So deploy the rifle, push pull on your mag, chamber a round, presscheck, tap the FA, adjust your stock, adjust your optic, sling up and you're good to go. Every time you use the rifle, it takes five seconds and you should be doing it the same way every single time.
That's my advice. If you want to chat with me more about it you can always email me
aalan@vortexoptics.com - but this is an operator issue, and you guys need to train your officers to do it right - the optic you run is really irrelevant to the process.
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