Red dot sight (1 Viewer)

[jkingrph]

That is what I am trying to achieve , and from your picture in the other thread I think it will work, I think my adapter will be rather simple when I get it made. I now have all material in hand, a piece of aluminum angle which will work , a piece of pictnanny rail and the red dot or relief sight. With a couple of other jobs around the house it will be sometime in the next couple of weeks before I can get started on this., just some cutting, precise measuring, drilling and tapping for threads.

Even if this is as good as you say yours is in acquiring a snipe in flight, and I rather doubt that I will be doing that, I will be happy in being able to quickly acquire a stationary target.

 

[Hauksen]

Hi,

Even if this is as good as you say yours is in acquiring a snipe in flight, and I rather doubt that I will be doing that, I will be happy in being able to quickly acquire a stationary target.

I'll admit hat acquiring a snipe in flight was entirely a by-product of mounting a red dot sight for exactly the purpose you mentioned. It wouldn't be practical with standard-size scope anyway, but the small Nikon ED50 I used for testing lends itself to free-hand use.

A very nice practical benefit of the red dot sight is that you can "hand over" bird locations to other people by letting them look through the red dot sight to figure out where exactly the scope is pointed at in the landscape.

A fellow forum member pointed out that this even works if you use your binoculars to look through the sight, which I think is a really neat trick.

Regards,

Henning

 

[Ratal]

Cable Tie sight.

Easy, quick, works a dream, and did I say it was an ultra effective & stupidly inexpensive solution to your problem?

On an angled scope it works a dream.

 

[Hauksen]

Hi Ratal,

Cable Tie sight.

Certainly a great low tech solution, but an actual reflex sight has a lot of advantages over a cable tie sight, including much better ergonomics with regard to eye positioning.

Regards,

Henning

 

[jkingrph]

Cable Tie sight.

Easy, quick, works a dream, and did I say it was an ultra effective & stupidly inexpensive solution to your problem?

On an angled scope it works a dream.

I have my Kowa scope in one of the stay on cases. Honestly the cable tie will not stay in position well enough to be of a lot of use. I tried one and the case will move enough the require "re zeroing" of the cable ties every time I use it and very careful handling of the scope while in use so the cable ties would stay in a constant position.

I have all my materials for making the mount but have to cut some of the heavy aluminum. One of the tires on my bandsaw disintegrated the other day and I have to get a replacement and get that fixed before I can proceed.

 

[Ratal]

I have my Kowa scope in one of the stay on cases. Honestly the cable tie will not stay in position well enough to be of a lot of use. I tried one and the case will move enough the require "re zeroing" of the cable ties every time I use it and very careful handling of the scope while in use so the cable ties would stay in a constant position.

I have all my materials for making the mount but have to cut some of the heavy aluminum. One of the tires on my bandsaw disintegrated the other day and I have to get a replacement and get that fixed before I can proceed.

Tighten the cable. MY S2 has had no movement since day 1, not has my MM4 50. But then if you got the tools to rig up a gizmo? Well, I'll certainly be popping by the thread to have a look.

PS

Red dot sight battery would have died after the 4th hour at minus 20 in northern Norway - low tech it may be, but never runs out of juice

 

[jkingrph]

Red dot sight battery would have died after the 4th hour at minus 20 in northern Norway - low tech it may be, but never runs out of juice

No argument, but don't think I will have to be worried about temps like that here in E. Texas, USA. I would not be out playing with a scope at 35-40, much like minus 20. Humidity and moderately cold temps are extremely uncomfortable here. Our problem is temp swings. Early Nov we were mid teens, last week, early Jan we were 70, it's just hard to get acclimated to even what we call cold, then factor in the high humidity 80-95% a lot of the time.

 

[Hauksen]

Hi Ratal,

Red dot sight battery would have died after the 4th hour at minus 20 in northern Norway

Here's the specification sheet of the Aimpoint Comp M3:

https://www.aimpoint.com/product/aimpoint-compm3/#go-to-techspec

50,000 h battery life, operating range -45 °C to +71 °C.

(Aimpoint is a Swedish manufaturer who supplied the US military with reflex sights.)

If your red dot couldn't stand the cold, maybe it was a cheap Chinese toy you were operating outside its specified range?

Regards,

Henning

 

[Hauksen]

Hi,

No argument, but don't think I will have to be worried about temps like that here in E. Texas, USA. I would not be out playing with a scope at 35-40, much like minus 20.

I figure Ratal is talking about °C, while you're considering Fahrenheit

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[jkingrph]

Hi,



I figure Ratal is talking about °C, while you're considering Fahrenheit

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

Probably so, but - 20 Farenheit or Centigrade is cold to me -20 C is -4 F, rarely gets that cold here, maybe once every 50-60 years. I honesty wish we used Centigrade, along with all the other metric measurements here, things would be so much simpler. I'm a pharmacist and use metric exclusively for small weight and volume measures so am more familiar with metrics than most folks here, but temp I have to look up conversion formula, just don't use it enough to remember it.

Thanks

Jeff

 

[pdsrms]

I wish an optics co. would make one of these

Kiron from the 80's

 

[Hauksen]

Hi,

Kiron from the 80's

Very cool, thanks for sharing! Glad the sight units we have today are a lot smaller than those

Regards,

Henning

 

[jkingrph]

I had a lot of things going on this year, eye surgery for my wife on both eyes at different times, scheduled then postponed due to the COVID, really one thing after another and never got around to my idea of the angle plate mount. Last night I had a brainstorm and started playing with a piece of Picatinny rail and my little red dot. I zip tied it to my straight eyepiece scope and it worked well, due to taper of scope body it did not register extremely close, but close enough to help get the scope aligned quicker. It was also closer to the scope body than I would like, so I ordered a 20MOA Picatinny rail and a 1" riser block . The tapered MOA rail will help offset the taper in the scope body and the height will help move it up for a better look through the red dot sight. I also ordered some large stainless hose clamps to use instead off zip ties. I plan on making a similar set up on my TSN 82SV. I also inserted a piece of 3/8 close cell foam material between my scope body and the stay on case to take out some of the slack and slipping of the case, should make the mount a little sturdier. The parts ordered should be in later this week so I can try it out.

 

[jkingrph]

My 1" Picatinny riser block came in today and I attached the red dot on it which was on a 5"long rail and loosely zip tied it over the stay on case on my TSN82sv. It point quite a bit high. I do have a 20MOA rail coming in tomorrow and will try it. That is a rail that has a taper that is normally used to adjust the impact of a riflescope up 20MOA or approx 20 inches at 100 yards. It should get me somewhat closer, and then I can use some smaller shims to get them close, a couple of 6" stainless screw tightened pipe clamps should snug things down so it does not move or very little.

 

[GeorgeL]

The only instances in which I wish I had an aiming device on my spotting scope were during astronomical use as the sky is black and there is no reference to judge where I am.
For terrestrial use with a wide AFOV eyepiece, even at 70x, I feel no need for it. I pretty much now where I am.

 

[Hauksen]

Hi,

My 1" Picatinny riser block came in today and I attached the red dot on it which was on a 5"long rail and loosely zip tied it over the stay on case on my TSN82sv. It point quite a bit high. I do have a 20MOA rail coming in tomorrow and will try it.

I'd love to see photographs of your solution!

Regards,

Henning

 

[jkingrph]

Hi,



I'd love to see photographs of your solution!

Regards,

Henning

It did not work out as I had hoped. I wanted to attach it over my stay on case, and the case material would bunch up so getting the red dot, with the reticule centered was nowhere close to the field of view of the scope, I could wiggle it around and get it to a point where it was useable, but to carry it somewhere and stay adjusted to the scope just will not work long run, also clamping it down pulled the cover over my focus knob so another problem.

I think I have arrived at another solution. My scope is on a Manfrotto 500ah fluid head, onto which I have a 1/2" thick homemade adapter block for a Manfrotto QD adapter using the smaller 200pl plates on my scope. There is room on the long 500ah plate to attach a piece of aluminum bar sticking out to the side onto which I will attach a piece of Picatinny rail, a riser block and my red dot. It will be rigid and if I lay everything out properly will always align with the scope.

 

[Hauksen]

Hi,

It did not work out as I had hoped. I wanted to attach it over my stay on case, and the case material would bunch up so getting the red dot, with the reticule centered was nowhere close to the field of view of the scope, I could wiggle it around and get it to a point where it was useable, but to carry it somewhere and stay adjusted to the scope just will not work long run, also clamping it down pulled the cover over my focus knob so another problem.

I have to admit that's my experience, too - coming up with somethat that works with the existing stay-on case is much harder than something that just works!

I think I have arrived at another solution. My scope is on a Manfrotto 500ah fluid head, onto which I have a 1/2" thick homemade adapter block for a Manfrotto QD adapter using the smaller 200pl plates on my scope. There is room on the long 500ah plate to attach a piece of aluminum bar sticking out to the side onto which I will attach a piece of Picatinny rail, a riser block and my red dot. It will be rigid and if I lay everything out properly will always align with the scope.

Sounds quite good, and in fact baseplate integration" is the approach I currently consider most promising, too.

(My other favoured approach basically amounts to cutting off the forward half of the stay-on case so that it attaches to the clamp, while covering the objective end of the scope with a 3D printed hardshell that's basically a closed-front tube just a little larger than the dew cap. This would connect by means of a bayonet attachment or a simple thread into the clamping ring. However, baseplate integration is a lot simpler than that!)

Regards,

Henning

 

[jkingrph]

Good morning Henning.

Not being an engineer I have had several projects that have evolved over time through multiple solutions. I honestly think integrating the baseplate mount will be the best, at least it will be oriented in one axis from the start, the vertical axis. With some careful measure and drilling of mounting holes in the side extending bar I should be able to get the horizontal axis very, very close if not right on. I thought about how to raise the red dot to have it close to the scope centerline or eyepiece level and have decided to get several of the little Picatinny riser bases, which are about 25mm high and 35-40mm long and simply stack them. I have a couple on a some firearms, and took them off to see if it would work and that approach will be quicker, although a little more expensive than fabricating and attaching a riser.d

I saw some of the 3-D printed clamps like you mention and like the idea. I don't have a 3-D printer and am not planning on acquiring one, basically no place to locate it and no real desire to learn all the programing to get to the end point. I find at my age I just do not have the patience to learn all the more advanced computer stuff, it simply frustrates me. I did see a small red dot device that has a base shoe that can be glued to the dew shield, but don't want to do anything to possibly mar the scope body, in case of a future sale I would rather try and keep it pristine. I do think attached in that manner it would slide back into the stay on cover as there is enough slack and room in the case for something no larger than that base, A mount printed for the correct size of the scope, and made with a clamping system, simplest could be a thumbscrew to clamp it down, but the ones I have seen pictured look like they might require a screwdriver or small socket wrench, the whole thing being beautifully streamlined where a square shoulder for a thumbscrew would help on the bottom clamping area. That way it could be quickly and easily installed for use and removed for storage.

Regards

Jeff