I’m curious as to why every single one of BE Meyers’ promotional photos of the MAWL include a white light mounted at the 3 o’clock position directly underneath it. I get that the idea is to obstruct the shooter’s view on the left side as little as possible, but it seems as though the cost of that is a lower mounting position for the white light, which will cause more splash when shooting prone, as well as a right-side-heavy front end.
Wouldn’t an alternative solution be to mount your white light at 10:30, which would raise it up 22.5 degrees and better balance out the rifle? Would that really obstruct your view downrange significantly? Another benefit of this would be presenting less of yourself around barriers, since the light would be closer to the top of your bore.
Also: If integrating both lights with the TAPS Pro, would it be possible to program one button to activate both your white light AND the MAWL’s visible laser, and have the other button activate your IR laser/illuminator?
Damn. Thats a lot of thinking in regards to a weapon setup… 22.5 degrees? Did you pull out a protractor?
I am just kidding. I have a lot of respect for someone that puts that much thought into a life saving platform. I’m a lefty so my MAWL goes on the left side of the platform. I run my weapon light on the right side so I can activate it with my support hand thumb. I typically (again platform/accessory dependent) run a touchpad at the 12 o’clock position for ambidextrous use, something the MAWL could be slightly better at. I do not run a touch pad on the MAWL, I use the integrated buttons. The biggest thing is being a lefty, I run an offset aim point at 45 degrees. The MAWL does obstruct the aim point’s view to an extent, but nothing that would cause concern as far as a rapid engagement scenario. As far as making a weapon one side heavier than the other… the only time I’ve ever experienced that is running a underbarrel grenade launcher with a big bulky offset sight. The MAWL and a well-made light aren’t going to create enough of a heavy-sided front end to truly make a difference that you’d notice. At least I don’t think you would.
The MAWL is designed integrate the device controls into the users support hand grip. If you put a light at 10:30 you put a huge obstacle in the way of the grip and as a result eliminate the handiness of the low mounted controls on the 12 o’clock rail.
I don’t know if we’re using different terminology, but I in no way see how a Scout using a tail cap switch mounted in what you describe as 10:30 position would interfere with the operation of a MAWL. For a right handed shooter, the MAWL’s controls would be on the top rail, with the body of the device on the right (3 o’clock) side of the rifle. If a Scout is mounted on the left (9 o’clock) rail offset to be in that 10:30 position, all you would have to move is your thumb to activate either device. Best part? No cables.
Ok. Some prefer to maintain thumb over bore. If you don’t, rock on.
Dependjng in handguard length, you might not have enough real estate to hold behind the light and laser. Hence my thought of the 9-1030 mount hindering the grip.
I would think if you’re going thumb over bore, you’re in the 12" handguard game. Standard practice for these types of rifles now seems to be a side (palm on the 9 o’clock rail) grip on the handguard so the barrel is more or less in the middle of your palm. Dare I call it META in the parlance of our times.
The only way I see this as being awkward is if you’re on a carbine length handguard, which if you can afford a MAWL why is that a problem? Maybe for a .gov or alphabet agency/group, but I think if they’re on the MAWL they already have been down that longer handguard path.
I personally have my mawl at 1:30 and scout light at 10:30. I can activate both mawl buttons and the light with my left thumb.
I don’t see the point in adding a taps or dual surefire switch right behind the mawl on the top rail. Sure, you gain ambi, but you lose half the functionality of the mawl since the two switches do different things. You also lose a lot of top rail space, and the taps ends up fairly far back.
I hate remote switches and wires. The 1:30/10:30 setup with mawl/scout is super clean, minimal, and has less failure points.
At least for me, the use of a tailcap switch has always been easier to actuate with my thumb as opposed to squeezing a rail mounted remote switch. If you set up your placement of the light and mawl correctly, then your thumb can go back and forth without altering your grip. You’re also less likely to have an illumination ND with this setup as opposed to a dual switch because the mawl switches are completely different than the tailcap on the light, and require different manipulations to activate.
In real world use, you will rarely need to rapidly switch from IR to white light. You use one or the other, not both, because white light will bloom out your nvgs. An assault team is not going to bust down doors and clear rooms with nvgs if they can help it. It’s far safer to use nvgs to get into position, then flip them up and go white light. Even with panos your peripheral vision is compromised, along with the inability to quickly adjust focus.
I can active both the light and laser with my thumb comfortably. Due to how you make changes to the M.A.W.L.s various options its easier to do everything manually instead of a push tape. I also own a T.A.P.S. and still preferred running it manually just works better for so again this is user preference. Any photos I can supply to help you out let me know. Its a fantastic piece of equipment.
Thanks, that looks like a great setup. My only question is when you’re running around in low-light conditions and you only want to activate your white light when engaging a target, does using the tailcap button suffice? Do you use momentary or constant on? My fear would be momentary on would be difficult when the rifle is recoiling, and constant would prove difficult to activate quickly and then resume support hand control.
Depends. Light tap is momentary, and a full click is constant. But if im wearing NVG’s I stay away from white light all together. Especially indoors. As for shooting and recoil management its very easy to do a suppressed 5.56 ive shot using the momentary on while shooting and never had the light go into constant or move my thumb due to recoil.