Elcan Specter DR- Watcha think 'bout it?

MGO, ooohhh. Should have known. : lol

My brain is currently full of acronyms and it's meanings. So It will reside in my STM storage banks until I see it again.

The last time I messed around with MGO's was that contraption used on M60 and M2HB (50 cal MG) that attached that PVS4 and TVS4 (The big mothers of all NVS's). They were attached using a pair of steel plates sandwich held together with battery holddown type of rods and perspective wing nuts.

Optics and their mounts have sure come a long way.

Yeah, the Specter DR has the external thingymajigs. I know they look like a weak point. However I believe my days of scaling 10 foot concrete walls are over. Well......with a full combat load that is. As soon as I say shit like that the next thing I know I'm doing it saying to myself "WTF am I doing?" as I 'plop' over a wall and on the other side head first (hey thats why God gave us arms-to stop our falls) usually onto a pile of dog crap in someone's back yard. Butt!....that's another story.

But I do see how it is an issue of Elcan's funky chicken mounts not being totally grunt (i.e. me) proof. But I don't think I will be doing it with my personal weapons. They get used hard but at the end of the day they go into a nice padded case and I give them foot massages and put them away in a nice comfy, dry, and warm safe and not strapped/dropped into to the inside of a 32 ton tracked vehicle where every thing that sticks out is called a "G dammit, m-f'ing (insert hard object name)" as it thunks your skull or smash a finger. M113's TC seats are notorious to inventing new cuss words.

Well I'm getting it anyways. I will post what I really think about it when I try it out. And no, I don't base "It's the best EEVVARRR, because it cost me $XXXX. If I hate it, there is always a sucker on e-bay to buy it, and it may just be me not necessarily the item. Such is my marriage to the AR/M16 platform. I don't love with her anymore but she's been with me for 25 years. Just though she needs some new lingerie. However it will look hot on my girlfriend the XCR. LOL

BTW looks aren't in any of my top 5 requirements. Otherwise why would I have so many AK's in non-modern form.

I also can't pass this price up. Still spendy but I've made a friend with a pretty good connection. Sorry, I can only get one.

The problem with the ARMS throw levers isn't that there is something out there new and more sexy.

The problem is that the ARMS rings F-A-I-L.

Trust me on this one, I've had it happen first hand. About tore my hair out trying to figure out why I couldn't hit anymore - it turned out to be the ARMS rings!

I sent them back to ARMS, they verified that I'd used the rings too much - it comes from the fact you've got an aluminum base, a steel ring, and a rollpin connecting them. Over time - and enough shooting - you'll use that rollpin as a lever and destroy the fit.

Wobble-city.

There's a certain special forces school, where a certain living legend teaches. He's got -literally- a big bag of ruined ARMS rings, all from student's rifles that have had the rings go T-U in the course. He wants to donate the bag, or at least pictures of it, to Mark LaRue. Mark wants it too - the way Mark put it to me is the picture would be used for an ad:

Guess how many broken ARMS rings are in this bag, and win a set of rings that WON'T fail.

That same instructor was the guy that turned me on to LaRue - because those were the rings he HAS NOT seen fail.

It has nothing to do about sexy, it has everything to do with not failing.

Well after much debating here about it, I'm still getting it.

I have a pair of ARMS lever mounts that I use with A Leuopold Vari-X. I often wondered by seeing how it clamps down how it would hold up to repeated use. I imagine it would wear out after sometime. But I didn't plan to take off and put back on that often. I don't buy into "zero guarantee" with any mount. You will loose something and if it is a sniper/precision rifle, I wouldn't put quick detachable mounts period. I've had those mounts long before La Rue or GG&G came out with theirs. I do like how LaRue's are set up, but I also hear of problems getting them on slighly off-spec rails. But so far my ARMS scope mounts are holding up fine.

The Elcan, apparently I don't have an option. If there were I'd take the other. I don't plan to take off and on the scope unless it is totally necessary. I have heard some gripe about the mounting and zero adjustments being outside of the scope. Elcans have the reticle etched onto the glass. Personally I don't care for all that adjustment devices being exposed. But they had them like that for some time on other scopes and I figure if there was a way to make it internal they would have done so already.

The ACOG is a good day scope for distance shooting at 100+ meters. Anything less take it off and go with sights, or put on an EO Tech or Aimpoint. And vice-versa.

This is where I see the Elcan outshines the others and I can't see how anyone can compare the ACOG, EOTech, or Aimpoint with the Elcan DR. What I do see is the others will copy what Elcan is doing.

I see the Elcan appeal is a reticle with BDC that can be a luminated point or luminated reticle, or nothing luminated. I know it was mentioned that the Elcan had 80 hrs battery, but the specs list 300 minimum to 2000 max. 300 is more than fine with me b/c I don't plan to turn it on unless necessary. The batteries are small and cheap enough to carry 2 to 6 spares. Compare that to an Aimpoint of 80,000 hours or over 9 years battery life. But it needs the dot to glow or it will be just a glass. Same with the EOTech, so longer batt life will be mandatory. 300 hours is 12 days constant use, and even if it's 80 that still is 3 days being on all the time. I would even figure the battery might outlast the Aimpoint scope that it's in.

Besides the reticle feature another key feature that I like about the Elcan, and it's something else if you are not familiar with, is the 1x to 4x flip of a swith. I'm only familiar with these on Bradley IFV ISU systems, same as M1 tanks, and Lowrance and other FLIR's. It's a bit goofy at first if all you've used are zoom devices. But instant mag power I think is better that zooming in and out. I mean how many of us use a 3 to 9 power scope on just 5? We either have it on 3 for a wide FOV or up close or on 9 when we want to hit a certain spot with precision. But it takes time to zoom back and forth. In this case flip a switch from one to another.

My only experience with Elcan was playing around with an older C79 model. I will post a complete report when I get it.

I'm aware of the bennies and neggies.

Also I discovered the reason this unit is going for that price is that it was rejected because it didn't spec out as per SOCOM color. It's more brown/tan and they spec'd them to be more 'bronze'. There is some skinny behind it so Elcan can get a few out to market. You will see others in the 1500 to 1700 range but Elcan sold them at 1360.