SR equipment discussion

C77

C77

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Moderator note:

This thread contains a discussion regarding SR equipment that begain in the Optics for Service Rifle thread. It is an informative discussion. However, it diverged considerably from the original intent of the thread. Therefore, that discussion has been moved here to continue without further divergence from the topic of the other thread.

This post was previously #212 in that thread.
http://www.canadiangunnutz.com/forum/showthread.php?695581-Optics-for-service-rifle

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pilot_dc said:
+1 for Elcan. Pricey, but lots of awesome feature and just really well built and thought-out in general. I have a Spectre OS4x, since I don't really have a use for the 1x mode (especially not for an extra $800). For that money I prefer to buy a holosight of some kind.

I agree with others that it would be nice to see a 4x magnification limit, or at least, particular recognition for those shooting with more tactically sound (for a svc rifle), lower magnification optics.
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How is a fixed 4 x scope more "tactically sound" than, say, a 2.5 - 10 x variable power scope?

The C79 was acquired during the cold war by the CF to enhance our ability to shoot in twilight conditions and to enable basic ranging capability and enhance our shoot/no shoot decision making in operations other than war. It has too much magnification for CQB work and not enough magnification for longer range work. The insufficient 70 mm eye relief means that most soldiers will have their helmet brim on the scope which causes a signifigant error.

The C79 and all of it's subsequent generations were NOT really well built. They have been constantly "upgraded" to repair serious design flaws. The original elevation dials were drilled and pinned by the CF to stop them from stripping. The current mounts required a spring to hold the scope to the lower mount to tension to relieve the slop. We are on the second modification to the second generation now. I would suggest that the CF has paid for each scope at least three times over. For years at CFSAC, the Elcan rep would show up, pay for his share of the beer at the MSP beer tent and immediately disappear or get lynched.

The current mounts are better, and the glass is clear, but they still have external adjustments and slightly greater than 1 MOA windage clicks. The BDC only roughly matches the nominal lot performance of C77 ammunition at a given temperature and barrel wear. Any match shooter will tell you they can't rely on the BDC adjustments and shoot with an open gate and mark their own range adjustments with paint.

I've seen rifle teams arrive with up to five Elcan scopes per shooter. I've examined dozens of sights from one unit in one sitting and found them all to be not serviceable.

The Dutch mounted them on their machine guns and ALL the mounts broke - from shooting.

I tested a Spectre 1-4 and after switching power it was out between 4 and 8 moa each time.
 
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Up until recently I was against any restrictions on rifles or optics and questioned the intelligence of anyone promoting them.
I did not want to see people getting excluded due to gear that fell outside the box.
I have done a full 180 in the last few months.
50 second run downs and the mention of 4.5lb triggers...............Give me my ELCAN and sold out competitions.
 
Gunnerlove said:
Up until recently I was against any restrictions on rifles or optics and questioned the intelligence of anyone promoting them.
I did not want to see people getting excluded due to gear that fell outside the box.
I have done a full 180 in the last few months.
50 second run downs and the mention of 4.5lb triggers...............Give me my ELCAN and sold out competitions.
Click to expand...

Ha, 50 second run down, I can live with an Elcan. Now all we need is for the CF to sell off all the good surplus optics. Oops missed the sale. ;)
 
The change of heart has come from talking to new Canadian shooters (mostly military) and American service rifle shooters and realizing that at NSCC my military team out numbered the civilian shooters at the competition.
It is about perception, look at who is winning matches and they are running space guns. Space guns are not needed to win, a decent rifle, good ammo and training are what is needed but shooters who want to win make the shift to a rifle optimized for the matches. Stainless match barrel, free float tube, big brake, and 2k in optics is a logical solution for shooting service rifle, and it works. New shooters look at good shooters winning with this gear and think that is what they need to win. Couple grand for the rifle, same for the optic and they are in the running. Now all they need is to throw $4000 to start and they have the chance of winning. That is a huge hurdle and a real one to new shooters. Why come out to play when you can't compete.

Now in the US they have an appearance rule and iron sights across the board. You can buy an RRA National Match rifle and you look the same in the winners circle as the guy who shops at Compass Lake or the AMU. Decent rifle, decent sights, decent ammo you are in the running. David Tubbs runs what he runs but it still fits into the box, and it looks like everyone else's rifle. The playing field seems flatter and their matches are well attended.

If new shooters think they can win if they practice and train we have them. If they think they need to throw a pile of cash into the fight they will walk. It has everything to do with perception. Cap the optics at 4x, no brakes and 20" max for barrels. Make the exposures and run downs shorter. Require movement before all shots, if you push the shooter people will feel like they have a chance compared to watching 2 guys with space guns punch a dozen VBulls in a row at a tie shoot. Impressive shooting but a really good way to show the new guys they have no chance.

There are no good surplus Elcans.
 
I find the irony of those points amusing. You've slammed 4.5 lbs trigger weight, yet have managed to bring American Service Rifle into the argument when it has that very limit. The RRA rifle you list is built to that specification, as are a number of other rifles marketed as being for SR matches. You've also managed to cite a tie shoot at NSCC where one of the shooters was a new shooter (tyro) and won the shoot-off against the match winner.

You praised the ORA for having sold out matches in the sticky at the top of the forum when ORA has no limits on equipment. Even though it doesn't, the majority of the matches are being won by military shooters (your two NSCC winners don't shoot in these). So, there isn't any appearance of needing a certain type of equipment to win. And even though the matches are held in an area of the province that is in commuting distance of more major cities (read >10x the population of around Ottawa), the civilian attendance at the SR shoots is the same as it is at NSCC. CQB has a huge civilian turn out, far greater than SR. But, I suspect that has more to do with the fact that, like your American Service Rifle matches, there isn't any running involved. Being out of shape won't put you at the bottom of the pile if you're a decent shot...

The one thing I notice when looking at the standings in the ORA SR matches or at the NCSS results over the years, is that the you see the same PEOPLE at the top. Doesn't seem to matter what rifles they were shooting, or whether they were competing as CF or as a civilian. The good shooters, the one who have trained and practiced, always end up at the top of the pile.
 
A commercial US "service rifle" may look like a M-16, but that is where the similarity ends. The rifle is completely reworked for competition. US military competitors tend to use rifles developed by their marksmanship units which have the external appearance of an M-16, bt have all the refinements of a commercial target rifle. For generations, US National Match competitors have been using rifles that have the appearance of standard service rifles, but have been refined for competition. David Tubbs' rifle has little in common with a US service rifle, apart from appearance; the resemblance is only skin deep.
There is no financial advantage for a civilian competitor to purchase a C-7 appearing rifle and install an Elcan on it. Neither the rifle nor the sight are less expensive than a simpler rifle with a tubular handguard and a decent optic.
I've never compared the rusults at the ORA SR Matches with those from NSCC or CFSAC. Where are the ORA resuylts, so that comparisons may be made.
 
ORA only distributes the results to match participants. Reason being that many participants don't want their names published since they are using restricted firearms and feel that would make them more of a target for theft. The antis in the GTA love to portray theft of legal firearms as the main source of guns used in crime... Unlike CQB, not everyone shooting SR is on CGN and has a handle that allows them to maintain anonymity.

No, there is no advantage to a civilian purchasing a rifle that looks like a C7. To the new civilian shooter, the emphasis is not on winning, but on just being able to go out, participate and have fun. Most would rather try it for the first time with something they already have in the safe, that was probably not purchased with SR in mind. They don't want to buy something new or have to modify what they already have. Their fear is showing up and being turned away because their equipment does not meeting a specification.
 
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ORA results could be easily published with initials rather than names, to protect the identity of the shooters, if folks are concerned as being publicly identified as owners of restricted firearms. There is absolutely no reason to keep the scores secret, even if published without actual names attached. Seems rather secret squirrelish.
 
Other organizations, such as the OSA, don't publish scores either. They're only sent out within the organization or a selected mailing list, and not displayed on a public site.
 
Shooting with a C7 clone and an ELCAN is not a good way to get new shooters. Having an inconsistent scope with 1 MOA adjustments is not a good way to learn how to shoot better.

I hated learning to shoot SR with an ELCAN. It was so hard to tell if the mistakes were mine, or the scope.

As far as optics, the ELCAN is old school technology and OPEN class should push the technological envelope and embarrass the C79 as much as possible.

I would prefer to "engineer" the matches to include as close to real world "service" conditions as possible rather than say "you can't have a better scope than the trash can" by way of rules. In this way shooting from 500 down to CQB ranges would either validate or invalidate a scope choice. Can't find your target? FOV is too small. Can't calm down after a run down - magnification is too high. Wallet empty? Too much optic or had to buy several ELCANS at around $1k each to get one that works.

A float tube works. US SR competitors use float tubes - they just have to have ridiculous M16 looking hand guards on top. The latest generation of military rifles all have free floated barrels. The Danish and Dutch army both switched over to their entire force using a free floated barrel after seeing the proven results of testing and competition use. Float tubes cost less than $100.

The 50 year old trigger in the M16 family is just that - 50 years old. The CF has changed how the C7 trigger is ground because of known technical deficiencies identified by service shooters. The RCMP did not adopt it for their service rifle based on advantages identified by a very good NSCC service rifle shooter. There are safe and more effective triggers. The most you will spend is $250.

Brakes work. If we could shoot at night, most would disappear. DM rifles, sniper systems and other rifles in the military world are all adopting hybrid brake - hiders because of advantages identified by service shooters. $100.

An heavy barrel costs around $100 more than a Gov't profile barrel. The Gov't profile barrel is moronic. Thin in the wrong places, low in thermal mass and rigidity. It is a sad state that a C8A3 shoots better than a C7A2.

So I take a $1200 AR, add $450- $550 in gear and take an optic that cost no more than an ELCAN and I am still well below the cost of the (successful) shooter that was using a SAN rifle and an ELCAN which will cost near $4k with a rail.

At the end of the day the biggest advantages are still training and skill.

My two cents worth - OPEN class should allow and encourage features that make the rifle shoot more consistently (and therefore isolate and improve skill), and push the boundaries of technological advances in order to identify and evaluate them from a shooter's POV. The "conditions" should be designed to allow fair competition and exclude rifles and optics that are poor choices.
 
We should have a concrete block at the match. Everyone has to drop his/her rifle on the concrete block vertically from 1.5m before the match. We will drop the rifle top, bottom, left and right at the beginning of each of the stage. j/k

I learnt to shoot with Elcan and ACOG, and hold over for wind + range. In the last couple years I was forced to dial in for windage because of the movers. I actually felt that my field firing skill has degraded as I have lost my sense. If we see SR as a training vehicle for "general" infanteer" shooting, it needs to be a simple, quick and dirty competition to get the job done with simple equipment.

The problem, as I see, is that SR matches are getting so specialized it becomes the job description of a DM type of role, but it is advertised as a general "infanteer" training event. The shooting package of a general infanteer is comprised of shooting as part of a formation as well as the gunfighter stuff. These two types of shooting need to be combined together and trained as a one skill in a continuum with the same equipment - none of that nonsense of putting the plastic sight on the rifle just for that 30 minutes of "gunfighter" drills.

Like C77 said, the C7 and the C79 are inadequate for the SR matches because they are not designed to be DM setup. On the other hand, if we all use DM rifles in SR, it will be contrary to the stated training purpose of the SR competition, that is, to train for "general infanteer skill". This is like buying a Ferrari because we always practice driving on the highway, but we neglect the fact that when the SHTF, 50% of the time we have to drive off road and through swamp.
 
kombayotch said:
Other organizations, such as the OSA, don't publish scores either. They're only sent out within the organization or a selected mailing list, and not displayed on a public site.
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OSA results are available to every OSA member. ORA results for all other disciplines are posted, except for Service Rifle. ORA Service Rifle results are not available to ORA members. NSCC and CFSAC results are posted.
It would be interesting to compare civ. ORA results with CFSAC results, given the course of fire is essentially the same. Competitors in ORA matches are both civ. and CF. In light of the concerns about equipment, comparison of the results would be interesting.
As I said, it is secret squirrelery.
 
Posting of results is not something I have any control over.

CoF is identical to CFSAC. Of the 7 SR matches shot last year, 5 of them were won by CF shooters with C7s. Three of those by the same CF shooter. The two non-CF wins were by the same civilian shooter. CF teams took 6 of the 7 team aggragates.

Standing, kneeling and movers are where the matches were won and lost...
 
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greentips said:
The problem, as I see, is that SR matches are getting so specialized it becomes the job description of a DM type of role, but it is advertised as a general "infanteer" training event. The shooting package of a general infanteer is comprised of shooting as part of a formation as well as the gunfighter stuff. These two types of shooting need to be combined together and trained as a one skill in a continuum with the same equipment - none of that nonsense of putting the plastic sight on the rifle just for that 30 minutes of "gunfighter" drills.
Click to expand...

Yes they need to be combined - and that is the job of the CF training and doctrine system. That is why there is levels (from individual to collective) of training and new shooters are not supposed to be exposed to the gunfighter program. Learning how to shoot accurately and consistently is the important first step. Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast. A marksman can become a good CQB shooter and an instructor of new shooters. A CQB specialist cannot, by those skills alone, teach new shooters or read wind well enough to shoot at distance.

We need to train for all operations, and even our last war was fought at the section level, from bayonet distance to DM ranges.


greentips said:
Like C77 said, the C7 and the C79 are inadequate for the SR matches because they are not designed to be DM setup. On the other hand, if we all use DM rifles in SR, it will be contrary to the stated training purpose of the SR competition, that is, to train for "general infanteer skill". This is like buying a Ferrari because we always practice driving on the highway, but we neglect the fact that when the SHTF, 50% of the time we have to drive off road and through swamp.
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That is NOT the purpose:

"The aim of the DCRA, through its associated PRA programs and the
National Matches it sponsors, is to encourage and develop marksmanship
within the DCRA membership and to assist with the promotion of
marksmanship excellence within the Canadian Forces and the RCMP."

I think that marksmanship is the foundation for all of the shooting skills required, and should not be limited to the Infantry. I have done the continuum from section member to section commander, from long range to CQB and as an instructor. I would prefer to keep holy the skills of a marksman and test them in competition. A good marksman can be a DM and this will be included in CF doctrine.

A good infantry soldier should have all the other skills but IMHO those should be cumulative and subordinate to marksmanship excellence.

The Elcan is not suitable because it is a bad scope. It is neither durable, nor reliable, and suffers from a whole range of ailments - needing to remove it for CQB is just one symptom.
 
As a civilian shooter with some interest in SR and specifically NSCC, I'm more likely to compete with a more open set of equipment rules. For the same or less money than a C7 copy and an Elcan (which I have no interest in owning or shooting), I've purchased a mid-level competition oriented AR-15 and a decent scope (2.5-16x Bushnell) which I am interested in shooting outside of SR competition.

The decision to compete will be based on available time to practice and level of fitness.
 
jgraves said:
As a civilian shooter with some interest in SR and specifically NSCC, I'm more likely to compete with a more open set of equipment rules. For the same or less money than a C7 copy and an Elcan (which I have no interest in owning or shooting), I've purchased a mid-level competition oriented AR-15 and a decent scope (2.5-16x Bushnell) which I am interested in shooting outside of SR competition.

The decision to compete will be based on available time to practice and level of fitness.
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Welcome! Come on out anyway. We have shooters from teens up to older than the hills at all levels of fitness.

Don't let our back and forth turn you off. We seem to get along much better on the range than on the inter web!
 
I guess the older than the hills comment was aimed at me, given that I was the oldest shooter last year.....
Plan on shuffling out again this year.
 
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