Danish Army: Elcan Spectre DR to replace C79

[cancer]

I have an ACOG TA31F for my .223 rifles. It's a fantastic sight. I've really enjoyed using it for the last 12 years, but it has given me the occasional weird zero shift in the past. The issue seemed to be related to removing the optic from the rifle and putting it back on again. Would throw the POI by at least 20 MOA from time to time. If the optic stayed in place on a specific rifle, there was never an issue.

The C79s I use at work are great. Everything in our Unit is early 90s vintage and they're fine. Never seen a problem crop up that wouldn't be considered a statistical coincidence due to the sheer volume of C79s I've seen in action. Personally, I don't think the juice is worth the squeeze if we're talking about changing the C79 as the standard issue optic. Would I take an ACOG over an ELCAN? Maybe.. I dunno. The distance dial vs bullet drop etchings on the glass is a futile debate. There are pros and cons to both.

I did just buy a Spectre DR for my FAMAE rifle. Seems like a solid scope. Will be interested to see if the zero wanders on it, but I'm skeptical.

 

[DT741]

If you had experience with other models you would know that some of the published figures are inaccurate. The TA33 has well over 2.5 inches as does the TA11. The TA44 I can still use while holding my rifle like a pistol.

I’ve used the TA11 for almost a year on an issued rifle overseas and it was great. The image was clearer, colors were sharper and the BDC reticle was useful at marked distance with canadian ammo fired with C8s.

The optic is not as big as the C79 so you have less view blocked off to maintain a good SA when looking in your optic. And you don’t have the huge post in the sight blocking a lot of elements in your sight picture as well as having to achieve a near perfect cheek weld in order to avoid the black ring all around the tube. This issue is due in big part to our outdated helmet’s design...

 

[greentips]

I am not defending the C79. It was cutting edge 80s tech and needed to be retired a decade ago. I would make the OS3 the general purpose/ issue optic (with an improved reticle) the fact that it never caught on leaves me puzzled.

The issues with C79 and OS3 have to deal with the choices they made on design characteristics. Even with the DR, Elcan tends to make sight with huge eye piece and wide FOV, knowing that they can only make short eye relief format due to fix prism design.

The problem with huge eye piece and wide FOV in short eye format means the sight picture is blocking out a lot of peripheral vision. In C79 and to certain extent in the OS3, they further worsen the peripheral vision issue with thick rubber outer shell around the eye piece. When looking through these sights, evenwith the DR, the sight picture is bounded by thick black rings. It is an advantage in a fixed position to have more FOV, but it is not great to get out of the tunnel vision in a short eye relief format or moving in the somewhat transient distance within 100m. You don't really want to add things to these sight to make the situation even worse, like in C79 and the OS3.

So this is kind of a common issue with Elcan's system, they have less peripheral vision and it is way more difficult to execute the "bindon aiminng concept". That's why ACOG ( and traditional low power rifle scope) can work in close range somewhat but C79 really cannot. OS3 did not fix this issue and in fact carried the same mistake over. The DR shredded some of these issue to make it less worse, and all countries that field the fixed 4X version of DR has mini red dot on top or use the 1-4X version.

The good thing about these short eye relief sight is that the shooter can get away with relatively lousy head position, traditional scope is not as forgiving in parallax.

 

[rugbydave]

The issues with C79 and OS3 have to deal with the choices they made on design characteristics. Even with the DR, Elcan tends to make sight with huge eye piece and wide FOV, knowing that they can only make short eye relief format due to fix prism design.

The problem with huge eye piece and wide FOV in short eye format means the sight picture is blocking out a lot of peripheral vision. In C79 and to certain extent in the OS3, they further worsen the peripheral vision issue with thick rubber outer shell around the eye piece. When looking through these sights, evenwith the DR, the sight picture is bounded by thick black rings. It is an advantage in a fixed position to have more FOV, but it is not great to get out of the tunnel vision in a short eye relief format or moving in the somewhat transient distance within 100m. You don't really want to add things to these sight to make the situation even worse, like in C79 and the OS3.

So this is kind of a common issue with Elcan's system, they have less peripheral vision and it is way more difficult to execute the "bindon aiminng concept". That's why ACOG ( and traditional low power rifle scope) can work in close range somewhat but C79 really cannot. OS3 did not fix this issue and in fact carried the same mistake over. The DR shredded some of these issue to make it less worse, and all countries that field the fixed 4X version of DR has mini red dot on top or use the 1-4X version.

The good thing about these short eye relief sight is that the shooter can get away with relatively lousy head position, traditional scope is not as forgiving in parallax.

On the topic of mounting a RDS piggy-backed on an Elcan, did anyone ever make replacements for the rubber pic rails on the OS3X (or specific mounting plates for different RDS) so you could mount a piggy-backed RDS on top? Why on earth the factory pic rails are rubber is just beyond me...

 

[Ar180shooter]

If you had experience with other models you would know that some of the published figures are inaccurate. The TA33 has well over 2.5 inches as does the TA11. The TA44 I can still use while holding my rifle like a pistol.

I tend to agree. I've owned 4 models of ACOG, the TA01, TA31, TA33 and TA11, and the only one I had issues with in terms of eye relief is the TA31, even though the specs on the TA01 list the eye relief at 1.5" the eyebox was much more forgiving than the TA31. I really regret selling my TA33 now as well, quite possibly one of the best lightweight optics for a carbine. I tend to prefer the versatility of 1-6x and 1-8x LPVO's, but you pay for that in weight and bulk.