I have been arranging some of my accessories on one of my AR’s and got to thinking about something that is not yet offered. I have a tango down vfg and a knight as well, I prefer the knight as it is a little slimmer and fits my hand better. If I try to run a light and a laser at the same time, I run into problems, especially if I try to use my IR illuminator Da Torch with the laser. SO what I was wondering is why doesn’t someone, Surefire, Knights… make a VFG with three or four built in pressure pads or buttons, placed offset on one side or the other for righties or lefties, so that you could attach your accessories to one central switch station?
I also got to thinking, there would be a lot of cords run to that one switch, so would it be possible for one of the rail manufacturers to make a rail and leave a little bit more metal under the actual picatinny part, so that a small channel could be cut down the center of the picatinny rail to allow for light/laser cables going to the switch to be protected inside the rail and would not interfere with mounting of accessories?
I think it would be nice to have a VFG where you could operate all your add-ons from one location. What do you guys think?
I do not like to run more than one tape switch, and I prefer it on the HG.
One problem is that there are only so many places to put the switches that are easily accessable by the support hand. The best place is generally under or near either the thumb or fingertips, and depending on how you grip with your support hand. Little movements with fingers are ususally not going to be the way you will want to control illumination and especially aiming capability in a gunfight. Think less Star-Trek and more Braveheart. Though technologically we have come far, the basic motor skills that allowed our ancestors to win a battle with axes and swords are very much ingrained in our stress response.
I think we all go through the innovative stage thinking that we have a good solution, only to realize that someone else already tried it and it didn’t work.
For example: Napoleon wound up deep in Russia during the winter. He lost.
Hitler learned from Napoloen’s mistakes and created a “new” plan.
Hitler wound up deep in Russia during the winter.
Apparently the “new” plan wasn’t quite as innovative as he had hoped.
Arms holds a patend for an “electric rail” and I have seen one that Wilcox builds as well. We (KAC)have built some prototypes that relocate a sinlgle battery in the stock. The trick would be for electronic accessory manufactures to adopt a standard.
what i did was have my flashlight at the 9 o’clock and my green laser at the 3 o’clock . i ran the pressure pad behind the forward grip and taped it to the 3 oclock side of the grip. i then ran the laser pressure pad also behind the forward grip to the 9 o’clock side - but what i did was rig up some heavy duty velcro to the rail cover just forward of the grip and put the laser pad on that so i can activate both separately . i use the trigger finger of my left (weak) hand to cue the laser ,and or squeeze the light pad with the remaining fingers . i ran the cords behind the grip to play out the slack in each cord and they dont get snagged on anything . the grip of my weak hand is also comfortable . just my .02 $
Not sure if this helps, but just thought Id put my $.02 in. Pentagonlight makes a light/laser combo, with a pressure switch to mount on the vfg, and the laser is engaged by the thumb of the support hand (button on the back of the laser). If you’re having a problem utilizing a light and a laser at the same time, this could be a possibility. Its a little pricy, but who wants cheap anyway? If you’re going to do it, do it right the first time so you don’t have to go back and do it all over again.
My only thought was having a “standard” switching system, so that multiple accessories from different manufacturers could all be run from one switching location. Not having several pressure pads at different places on the fore end and wires run all over the place. The size of the pressure pads I had in mind would not be much smaller than what is on the market today for other switches. Similar to Surefire’s VFG/light combo, except maybe having one switch where the average thumb rest, then two or so on the actual grip for maybe the index/ring finger. I understand what people say about loosing fine motor skills durina stressful events, but pulling the trigger is a fine motor skill, I guess it would have a lot to do with how you trained and how much you trained? It was just an idea. I was surprised to see that Knights had a patient on a rail system similar to what I was talking about and that about A.R.M.S.
You are right. If I could get ahold of a PEQ-2 that would solve a lot of my issues, as it is now I run a IWAL-2, Vic’s Da Torch and a light. It would be nice to have the IR laser and illuminator combined to cut down on my mess.
Though technologically we have come far, the basic motor skills that allowed our ancestors to win a battle with axes and swords are very much ingrained in our stress response.