What’s to fail? This a training course, not a contest, right? You will learn how you, your rife, and your optic perform at 300 yards. So you shoot poorly win it. You will have accomplished the goal of the class…to uncover your weak points and show you what you need to work on.
You answered your own question .
Update:
I’ve been shooting the AR-15 with the Aimpoint H-1 a little bit this week to try and establish a solid 200 yard zero for my upcoming course. I decided I would buy a used aimpoint magnifier and purchased a larue LT755 pivot mount. I put it on my rifle and went to the range.
What I’ve discovered is that the unmagnified 2 MOA dot looks OK outdoors in bright light. However I think I have an astigmatism, even though I always shoot with prescription glasses which correct my 20/25 left and 20/40 right vision to 20/20 both eyes. This causes me to sometimes see a cluster of grapes, comma, or comet shape instead of a dot in the H1, especially in low light conditions. At close range, unmagnified, it doesn’t really matter. Out past 100 yards or when the magnifier comes down, it starts to be problematic.
Unfortunately, when using the magnifier, the H-1’s 2 MOA dot looks like a 5 MOA diagonal line, or a backslash if you prefer, stretching across the target from roughly 10 oclock to 4 oclock. Using XM193, I get 6" groups at 100 yards and cannot keep all the rounds on an 8.5x11" sheet of paper at 200 yards (75% hits). I’d estimate I get 12" groups at 200 yards. At 100 yards accuracy is about the same with or without the magnifier. At 200 I get a few more hits with the magnifier. I just don’t think this level of accuracy is going to work for me especially when we start doing things like shooting movers at 300 yards for the class, granted I should probably try shooting with some of my black hills mk262 as well. It’s pretty confusing because I never know if I should aim with the middle of the diagonal line, or with one end of it.
To sum it up, I think I’m going to ditch the aimpoint in favor or a 1-4x scope. I already ordered a Burris XTR 1-4 scope and Larue LT-104 mount. I hope it gets here by friday so I can use it for my class. If not I guess I will power through with the aimpoint and see what happens.
A magnifier is more useful as an identification and discrimination aid than as a marksmanship enhancer, as you are finding out.
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Yeah, you’re definitely right about that F2S. Another thing I found interesting is that when I flipped up my rear BUIS and looked at the Aimpoint dot through the aperture, it was a nice, tight little dot, as I imagine it is designed to look. It would be interesting if I could look through the rear sight and the magnifier simultaneously but there’s now way I could set that up and still get proper eye relief on the magnifier.
At the end of the day I think the 1-4x scope will probably be the best option given my eyesight issues, even though it will add another pound to my carbine over the H1 alone, bringing the total weight up to approximately 8 pounds 4 oz.
A couple of weeks ago I shot a carbine course with my G23 magnifier for the first time. Using with an EXPS3 Eotech (1 MOA dot), accuracy from 50 yards was noticeably improved. It’s still usable with my 2 MOA PRO, not really usable at all with my 4 MOA T-1.
Ok, I just finished the course. It was a lot of fun and my carbine performed very well. We used a 50 yard zero.
My scope didn’t get here in time so I ended up shooting it with just the Micro H-1. The dot with magnifier didn’t look right so I didn’t use the magnifier. I had 4 other people including an instructor look through my magnifier and they all saw the slash (not a dot) and said it was definitely not normal, so I’m thinking it’s not just me or my vision, something is wrong, either with the magnifier itself or the way I have it set up. Another student was using a Vortex Magnifier on an aimpoint pro and he said his looked much better and more normal than mine. The dot on the H-1 by itself looked perfectly fine for me outside in daylight.
Anyway, I was getting about 90% hits on IPSC size steel targets at 300 yards with the H-1 alone. 200 it was 100% all day long, even on movers. Granted that’s a pretty big target, but it’s still satisfying to put about 1 shot per second down at 200 and hear the metal continuously ringing. At 400 I started to drop off to about 50% hits and at 500 about 10%. This is from prone with a bipod. I was shooting XM193 (which is probably 3 MOA ammo?) so I’m OK with the accuracy. Maybe next time I can afford to take the class with Mk 262 and see what happens.
In conclusion the H-1 works pretty well by itself for me out to 300. Beyond that it gets pretty iffy.
The only thing I can think of is that there is about a 1" gap between the magnifier’s front lense and the H1’s rear lense since I’m using larue QD mounts and that’s the closest I can get them. The other guy’s vortex was on some kind of siveling mount that allowed the magnifier to get much closer to the aimpoint, probably within 1/2".
Sounds like you learned a bit about your capabilities with the RDS, and had a good time doing it.
i have a 4 MOA R1 and found it to be very useable out to 300 yds when shooting at the Army rifle qual course at West Point. Pop up, waist-up/torso-sized targets get to be a snap with the RDS although it helps with a spotter if the 300 yarder blends with the background. i really think it’s my favorite for multiple targets inside of 300 yards.
Thanks for posting the AAR as it’s always good to hear how people do after seeing all the advice on the topic…
Glad to hear you did well with the Aimpoint. Are you still going to give the 1-4x a go when you get it in?
I don’t mean to derail your thread too much, but I’d be really interested to hear about your experience with TJ’s course at Tiger Valley. I’m thinking about taking his Carbine I class this fall and would love some feedback. Feel free to PM me.
No problem, TJ is awesome, as is his counterpart Bruce. TJ is extremely knowledgeable and incredibly experienced (28 years in law enforcment, 23 years as a SWAT marksman, vice cop, and major department firearms instructor) while at the same time having the patience to work with everyone from the rawest beginner to the “tier 1” types.
The range they use at the LT Dillon shooting sports facility is truly phenomenal. I don’t know if you’re familiar with it, but you can shoot out to 1000 meters on a KD range with full service pits. TJ puts steel targets up for most of the drills so you get instant feedback on your accuracy. There is a 63 foot tower from which you look out on about 200 acres of land and take shots on steel targets at various unkown distances, up to 1000 meters in precision rifle classes (we did 500m max in carbine 1). There are something crazy like a dozen action bays that are set up for all kinds of drills, and there is a “shoot house” although I’ve never used it in any of the classes I’ve taken.
For someone like me it’s like a 5 year old visiting Santa’s workshop at the North Pole. I honestly want to take almost every course they offer. I’ve taken precision rifle 1, precision rifle 2, and carbine 1 so far.
The carbine course is outstanding, excellent, awesome (insert exalting adjective here). Ranges from contact (arm’s length) to 500 yards were covered. Most work is done at 25-100 yards. I think my first reload drill time was 10+ seconds? By the end I was down to 4.5 seconds (low ready, shoot 100 yard steel ipsc silhouette, reload, shoot 100 yard steel). Getting 2 100 yard hits on steel from the low ready went from 4+ seconds to < 1.5 seconds. Most drills were shot offhand, but we did a fair bit of kneeling, sitting, and prone shooting as well. We shot 18" wide, 1 mph, moving targets at 200 yards with great success. I’ve had no formal training on the AR-15 platform prior to this course. We shot about 900 rounds over the course of 2 days. At the end of the first day, TJ and Bruce watched us break down and clean our carbines and gave us tips and advice on cleaning and lubrication. On the second day we also worked transitions to handgun and even shot our handguns to 100 yards and got hits on an IPSC steel silhouette just demonstrate what a pistol is capable of with good trigger control. Shooting on the move and the importance of always using cover when available (and how to use it correctly) was also emphasized.
I’m a “learn by doing” type of guy, and this is how TJ’s classes are set up. You get out there and do the shooting. He demonstrates something once, then you do it 10, 20, 30, 40+ times and you get one on one feedback from the instructors as you go. When a problem with your technique is identified, it is systematically corrected.
On top of being first rate instructors, TJ and Bruce are both awesome guys and just plain fun to hang around with. I can’t recommend their courses enough. They are worth flying across the country for in my opinion, luckily I’m 90 minutes away. I’m no expert, but I’ve taken handgun/force on force courses run by a large government agency and a few defensive shotgun courses at various locations. What TJ and Bruce are so good at is making you recognize your deficiencies without being condescending, while always being sincere and honest in their desire to help you get better. To top it off, they run their classes in a very safe manner, and everyone there is very safety conscious without being jerks about it (transitions are done with only one round in the carbine, instructors are very conscious of muzzle direction, and downright tenacious about making sure every rifle and handgun is made safe before it leaves the line).
The combination of the great instructors and the awe inspiring range make Tiger Valley a no brainer - go early, go often, and tell everyone you know! We need to keep this place in business.
You know, I’m in the process of building an AR-15 for my dad and I think I might just put the scope on his since he lives in the country and has worse eyesight than I do. That’s not to say I won’t try it first, but the H-1 Aimpoint worked better than I thought it would at 300 yards.