Originally Posted by
mcmillanman5
I agree 100% with Titleist as far as the switches go.
So I see alot of guys that have their peq's and such mounted back near the sights and the switch is up in front of it on the top rail.
So my question, does your thumb/hand get in the way of the ir illuminator on the unit and do you get alot of bloom from the rifle /hand when using nv?
Going to copy/pasta from another forum where this question, here's my response:
There's two schools of thought. Pushing the laser back, or keeping it up front. We'll start with it back.
I used to run things up front, but as my reaction hand moved further up near the end of the rail I found that it forced me to run my thumb down on the rail, so I was losing positive control on the front of the gun while transitioning to different targets. I could roll my thumb over the PEQ to the FIRE button, but it was awkward and resulted in me losing a strong grip of the rail.
So I moved the PEQ (later DBAL) back towards the optic and used the SF SR-D-IT switch which let me keep control of light and laser just by moving my thumb an inch forward or back.
Now, here's the concerns as you mentioned; beam interruption and bounce. There's a big deal breaker to the argument I'll point out in a minute. But first:
My grip is NOT the same at night when it is during the day. During the evening I'll engage the IR laser, then roll my thumb down along the channel between left and top rails. Typically I'll be a bit more measured and methodical in my finger placement in the dark. Even operation, i.e no light press checks, etc. Everything just slows down to get safer. Because the IR designator is on the right side my thumb does NOT interrupt the beam. It WILL interrupt the illuminator beam for a split second turning it on or off however. The bezel of the light only catches the smallest amount of designator splash, but frankly even with no light installed the laser creates some splash along the barrel just from how lasers create ambient illuminator from their diodes.
So here's that rub I mentioned. I'm not shooting at people with NODs who can shoot back. My usage of IR and NOD tools comes from banging steel at 400-500yds on a 1 way range, or going out to SE Oregon to shoot Coyotes on a friend's ranch. So any back splash is MINOR, it's not enough to affect me, or shooting partners. I can't speak to how much NOD capabilities our enemies have, but it's questionable how much a threat any back-splash would be in combat either (I don't know, feel free to jump in on that one).
If you want to minimize splash moving the PEQ/DBAL up to the front is the surefire way to reduce it. So that's definitely a PLUS for that setup method.
The big advantage of running it further back is that you run the IR systems in parallel with the barrel, reducing deviance in your zero. Imagine setting up two really straight sticks parallel to each-other. It's easier to align them if they're pivot point is at the very back, rather then closer up towards the middle. The way I usually set up my zero is that I know my mechanical offset is about 2.5" high, and 1.5" right from the bore line to the IR emitter. I'll bench the rifle, and set the visible laser so that it's the same offset on the target, i.e higher and righter. I'll do a few groups and massage that zero so my strikes are low and left, therefore confirming the beam and the bore are running in parallel. I'll do this at 50, then re-check at 100 and 200. Some minor tweaks, and I know generally for the flight path of the round that things are running straight.
Otherwise if I put the laser's dot on my 50yd impact I know that the bore line and the laser line are technically criss-crossing themselves past 50yds. Which means as distances go further out and I rely on that laser it may be showing the laser being on target at 300yds, but my bore-line is actually pointing higher and righter then it should be.
Last edited by Titleist; 05-15-11 at 23:40.
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