canadian vs. us infantry rifle optic

My buddy in the forces is a LMG and he uses an Elcan C79 optic. It's nice and clear, tritium illuminated, and he says it has so far been more than reliable and hardy. He doesn't like the reticle though. I'm not sure what other units use.

From what I've seen from my buddies in the States the optics tend to be either an Eotech 552 for regular infantry or an ACOG for dedicated marksmen. The DMR ACOG is the TA31 RCO-M4CP, which has BAC and probably my favorite reticle. You can't get this in Canada as there is some sort of import restriction, but you can get something close like the TA31G in Canada which I've been using.
 
I prefer the canadian Elcan over the acog in afghanistan. I have used both, just found the Elcan gave more view of the object
 
I never liked the C79

heavy, low magnification, poor reticle and I have never used one that would not fog up within 1500km of water.

Shawn
 
I have no experience with the ACOG but my experience with the Elcan C79 optic is that it loses zero pretty regularly if jostled a bit even with the newer A2 mount and it has rather low magnification which may or may not be a disadvantage depending on the situation. Otherwise, the C79 has clear glass and I've never had fogging issues.
 
The old C79: It blows goats.
The 4x32 Acog: Great reticle, eye relief is not great.
The 3.5X35 Acog: Awesome optic, Good eye relief.
 
I never liked the C79, too unreliable. the new A2's are better but I dislike it for the following reasons
- issues with holding zero, when you put pressure on the top of the sight it moved your zero point. Due primarily to the crap mount, this may not seem like an issue for many, try shooting prone with a helmet on.
- complete lack of back up sights. There are some poopy battle sights on top of the rubber armour of the sight but they are easily broken off and are not reliable. BUIS are an absolute requirement, especially in the current operational environment where IED's remain the largest threat. Having a sight fragged is a very real possibility to which the CF has not developed an answer.
- the c79 causes serious tunnel vision in troops. A variable power optic (1-4X) would be far superior, if I remember correctly the C79 is 3.4X. A surprisingly high percentage of the Canadian Forces have never fired with iron sights. Or any other sight for that matter, having a zero magnification sight or a variable magnification sight would be far preferable to a fixed magnification sight.
- the Tritium that everyone is a fan of degrades over time to the point where it doesn't glow whatsoever. something that is a problem in low light situations,
- Eye relief can be extremely finnicky in the C79. it can be very frustrating to get the sight in the perfect location

I've shot an m4 and m16 with an ACOG overseas and it is a significantly more robust sight. it has some similar issues with tunnel vision and such. it has some pretty serious built in BUIS, but using them required me to break cheek weld to fire them, not ideal but workable. On a side note the 2 designated marksmen in our platoon were issued with Schmidt and Bender variable power scopes that worked like a charm.
 
Not much to add about the C79 that hasn't already been said. I once got issued a C9A1 from the Infantry School in Gagetown that had a C79 sight on it that was missing the rubber overcoating and the windage screw (!). If you treat the newer C79s (ie the green ones) gently, they hold zero pretty well.

Because our C7s come with accu-wedges now, some soldiers lack the grip strength to squeeze the receivers together to push the take-down pin out. I've seen people lean on the scope with their upper body in order to get the pin out, with predictable results to the scope's ability to hold zero. I could go on for a while about the negatives of the scope...

bottom line? Nice glass quality, decent reticle. Crappy mount. WTF-worthy rubber 'iron sights'
 
I have used them all and we both have good optics ( CSOR gets issued the spectre DR which is my fav optic) I just got back from England where i was using their issued SA80 with a SUSAT sight and i HAATTTTEEEE ITTTTTTT!!!!! that is the worst sight i have ever used on a service type rifle.
 
1) Accu-wedges were the stupidest idea ever devised for the C7. I suspect they were used to improve soldier confidence i nthe weapon by eliminating the obvious (but irrelevant) movement between upper and lower.

2) The C79 HAS a BUIS system avaialble for concurrent issue. The Diemaco BUIS and ARMS40L are both NSN'd and available, though for some unfathomable reason they are rarely drawn and issued. The 40L is, I believe, intended issue with the Eotech and the Diemaco with the C79. They both work reasonably well.
 
I use a TA31F and I find it to be a very robust sight that can take a licking and still hold zero. The only thing I don't like about it is that the field of view is very small. The optic is designed for shooting at 200-600m. Anything closer and the fixed 4x magnification starts to become a hinderance with moving objects. I've never owned an Elcan, but I've used them a couple times. The field of view is a bit bigger than the ACOGs, but the list of complaints I hear from Elcan owners tends to be longer than those of ACOG owners.
 
We shoudl all go back to this:

DSCN3615.jpg


:) :) :)
 
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