Thread: rifle upgrades

Oh look, they had bespoke mounts made up for the SA80 rail. How much did they cost?

I am betting that it would have been cheaper to have replaced that crap rail with a picatinny and bought the sights off the shelf, particularly if the MoD had had a little foresight and had it done as part of the A2 upgrade...

I agree with you there stoatman.

What happened to the reflex sight on top of the ACOG?

Originally Posted by stoatman

Oh look, they had bespoke mounts made up for the SA80 rail. How much did they cost?

I am betting that it would have been cheaper to have replaced that crap rail with a picatinny and bought the sights off the shelf, particularly if the MoD had had a little foresight and had it done as part of the A2 upgrade...

Chuckle :D

Surely an angle grinder would remove the existing rail, then just screw a picatinny whatsaname on to the top. Jobs a good 'un.

How do you zero acog again? Is it by firing and figuring out where your zero is, or by actually movement of the sight?

It's not like the SUSAT where you move the mount to zero, the optics inside move when you turn the dials on the side and top of the sight, much better for keeping the zero apparently.

The zeroing is internal, just like on commercial hunting and target scopes for the last, oh I don't know, 50 years or so.

My experience of SUSAT was that it was very quick to lose zero with even the slightest knock, and that this was wholly to do with the adjustments being external.

Angle grinder? a bit of rain should do it!

Originally Posted by chocolate_frog

Originally Posted by stoatman

Oh look, they had bespoke mounts made up for the SA80 rail. How much did they cost?

I am betting that it would have been cheaper to have replaced that crap rail with a picatinny and bought the sights off the shelf, particularly if the MoD had had a little foresight and had it done as part of the A2 upgrade...

Surely an angle grinder would remove the existing rail, then just screw a picatinny whatsaname on to the top. Jobs a good 'un.

How do you zero acog again? Is it by firing and figuring out where your zero is, or by actually movement of the sight?

The SUSAT has been a reliable and robust sight for a number of years, simple to use and easy to maintain, now technology has caught up with the MOD (Along with the backhanders.) and a new sight is on the cards.

As for the sight rail, again, it's simple; a dovetail spot-welded on. If, as suggested we have a picatinny mounting every Ally/Walt star will be on eBay purchasing laser range finders, sights, night vision scopes, kitchen blenders and Ipods (Navy/Royals) that will all get binned for being useless, illegal or just plain gay!

At the end of the day a sight is just a sight, it's usefulness all depends on the skills and care of the user, the only difference will be the NSN on the 1043 when it falls of the shelf, just fell apart, it's not my sight or it was like it when I signed for it.

The full-blown upgrade includes a quad-picatinny forend anyway, which makes the nonreplacement of the unique "NATO" rail even more baffling.

Originally Posted by Bisley_Bob

I agree with you there stoatman.

What happened to the reflex sight on top of the ACOG?

The red dot sight is right there in the picture, but it has the dust cover fitted.

As for the decision to buy the ACOGs with a STANAG bracket, it does make sense in a bizarre kind of way. You are forgetting that we also hold huge stocks of KITE and VIPIR sights - all with NATO brackets.

The argument from the beancounters goes: 'When we buy a new weapon, it makes sense to make it rearwards compatible with all our existing optics. And when, we buy a new optic, we must make it compatible with our existing weapons.'

The only people who benefit from this bizarre reasoning are the weapon and optic manufacturers, who are of course are only too happy to charge us extra for STANAG brackets and rails. Unfortunately, the UK has never replaced both its smallarms and optics at the same time! If we did, we would certainly end up with the Picatinny rail.

I saw a video on youtube about a year ago of some trials lads testing SA80 with a Acog and a Holographic eotech thing on the UGL site.

Originally Posted by Gun_Nut

Originally Posted by Bisley_Bob

I agree with you there stoatman.

What happened to the reflex sight on top of the ACOG?

The red dot sight is right there in the picture, but it has the dust cover fitted.

As for the decision to buy the ACOGs with a STANAG bracket, it does make sense in a bizarre kind of way. You are forgetting that we also hold huge stocks of KITE and VIPIR sights - all with NATO brackets.

The argument from the beancounters goes: 'When we buy a new weapon, it makes sense to make it rearwards compatible with all our existing optics. And when, we buy a new optic, we must make it compatible with our existing weapons.'

The only people who benefit from this bizarre reasoning are the weapon and optic manufacturers, who are of course are only too happy to charge us extra for STANAG brackets and rails. Unfortunately, the UK has never replaced both its smallarms and optics at the same time! If we did, we would certainly end up with the Picatinny rail.

Well we did in about 1987 but we ended up with the A1 and despite the Susat being a great improvement over the SUIT (I refused to use one after basic) it still had its problems. It was a good combination, small caliber high velocity optic sighted compact selective fire but we have moved on since then and there seems to be more and greener grass just past the beancounters fence!

I saw a chap the other evening in Kandahar carrying what was definately an SA80 but with what appeared to me to be a similar sight to the picture in the original post and with an odd looking handguard. His look was on the conservative side of ally with his cargo pants, fleecy top, long hair and non-regulation tash. One of 'them' I suspect.

Originally Posted by CC_TA

As for the sight rail, again, it's simple; a dovetail spot-welded on. If, as suggested we have a picatinny mounting every Ally/Walt star will be on eBay purchasing laser range finders, sights, night vision scopes, kitchen blenders and Ipods (Navy/Royals) that will all get binned for being useless, illegal or just plain gay!

Why not? I don't mean the lads buying htem, but we could buy cheaper kit for use on Ops, ie laser sights, nvgs, torches hand grips.

OK, let’s get things into perspective, and rather than do loads of quotes, hopefully this should put some minds at ease (not all I know, as some people just love to tick!)
The Quad rail. This has now been decided, and will be available for the dusty areas over the next six months. It is tough, and won a tender process against over 6 other quad rails. This is a quick win for the deployed troops, as it now allows fitting of LLMs, scoutlights, peq2a, downgrips, inline night optics, etc.. without loads of black nasty!
This is a HG that will bring the weapon into the realms of M4/C8s, 416, 552s etc... And yes, it looks ally!

OK, it's not perfect, but it’s better than what we have at the moment. If people don't like it, then I'm sure we can find spare plastic HG for them! I doubt there will be many takers!

Down Grip. This is a quick win, and a great simple addition. It takes seconds to fit or remove, and utilises the picatinny rails, so no screwing or jubilee clipping on LSW grips! If people don't want a down grip, they can whip it off in seconds. It comes with a bi pod, and does improve shooting greatly! Again, if troops would rather hold the weapon "old style", they can.

This project has been about giving the blokes options, and these two items do that.

Vortex flash hiders. This is the future, and when you have seen a weapon with a vortex fitted, fire at night (or rather, when you don't see it) you will understand what I mean. If funding can be secured for vortex, they will be UOR'd like the HG and DG. But the knock on effect is more than "why can't we just have them?". The powers that be need to thrash out if it's ops only, who fits them, when they are changed etc.. as the vortex doesn't take the SBFS. If we re-designed the SBFS it would cost millions, I’m sure. So that does complicate things slightly.

ACOG. This is a FIST project and will give a x4 modern optic, topped with a red dot CQB sight. Is this better than a SUSAT? Yes. First the SUSAT obliterates part of the sight picture under the pointer. The SUSAT's zero mechanism is on the bracket and not internal, and most importantly, it costs as much to refurbish a SUSAT as it does to buy an ACOG.

So, should the SA80 have a picatinny rail on the upper receiver? Yes probably, but if we are getting a decent bracket to take the ACOG that is STANAG, then why bother? The costs involved in changing "every" SA80 to picatinny is quite large. If the cost of an ACOG with Stanag bracket is the same as an ACOG with a picatinny bracket, it is common sense to keep it as it is. Then we can still use Kite etc...

If there was an A3 upgrade, them I am sure a fully picatinny'ed weapon is the end state. But that is a long way off, if it is even on the cards! What we have here is a quick win (under 6 months!) capability upgrade, which gives the blokes who need it a tool box of options.