So I have quite a few IM's asking about the RAPTAR since I got it, and after spending most of last week in the mountains with it on a Mk12Mod1 shooting a lot of high angle shots, I think I'm ready to give this a basic review that will answer most of the questions.
I think for night time shooting and hunting under any kind of time constraint on UKD targets that you may not have taken a shot on because you weren't able to use a LRF at night or didn't have enough time to come off the gun, range the target and get back on the gun; the RAPTAR fills that requirement with only the discontinued (I think?) Radius in the same category. Until using the RAPTAR, I was always limited on ranging UKD targets via someone on a spotter equipped with nightvision and a reticle slaved LRF; this works very well on a PLRF15+Trimble+FFS setup, but requires 2 people and a lot of equipment to do. You could also rig a PVS14 to various LRF via a monoloc or other hardware, but coming off the gun to locate a target at night, range it and then reacquire it through the optic is less than ideal, especially in the dark with a moving target that can easily obscure itself.
For 'fixing' the above, the RAPTAR does exactly that. But, after using it, I did come across quite a few limitations and quirks that just made me shake my head as to who thought (or the total lack of thought) certain things were a good idea.
Random initial impressions
- So the ES version is tauted as a LRF capable of 1500m that is weapon mounted. It also includes a Class 1 laser and a Class 1 illuminator. This struck me as weird; why put a 1500m capable range finder, on a unit that would only illuminate a target for a very short distance? It's like putting racing slicks on a Datsun. So short of someone with a regular power illuminator lighting a target up for you for PID and ranging, I'm really confused as to why they'd even bother with the illuminator (more on this below) as you wouldn't have time/nor the need to range a target for carbine engagment distances where the illuminator MIGHT actually help yet the illimunator won't work for 97% of the range of the range finder. Figure out what the fuck you want here; a weapon mounted range finder out to 1500m or a civi tier illuminator; one of these things does not belong.
- All of the 'action shots' you see of the RAPTAR are on front of some guy's carbine up front at 12 o clock. Mind you that if you plan to use a clip on, the RAPTAR at 12 o clock will eat up quite a bit of real estate and depending on the height of your optic and clip on, will obscure it. I couldn't mount the RAPTAR at 12 o clock with a PVS24 and Nightforce 2.5-10x24 in NF rings setup due to height and instead had to put it on the 9 o clock rail.
- If you have a bipod as well as any other equipment on the rail, the footprint of the RAPTAR is larger than a PEQ15 as far as width. There was basically one spot where I could get it on the forward 9 o clock rail where it wasn't running into some piece of either the PVS24 on top or the Harris 6-9 bipod in a KAC mount on the bottom. There was 1 position where it cleared everything, just barely. The only other alternative would have been to have it WAY back on the 9 o clock rail which is a problem in itself.
- Whoever layed out the menu and menu 'terms' for what means what, needs to be shot in the face at close range. The unit does come with a quick reference card for the plethora of terms for both settings and configuration, but you end up with a list of random things that no one will remember or make sense of like 'di5d' somehow means brightness adjustment and 'Lsto' means laser timeout, etc.
The Good
- It ranges. After having it zero'd, we took it out and shot at steel at distances out to 800 where we knew we were aiming at the same thing with both the RAPTAR and PLRF15. Both were within +- 2 yards every time. We didn't go further because the terrain behind was a mountain ridge and there was no way to ensure we'd be aiming at the same spot in the distance; but out to 800 leaves me with absolutely no doubt it will keep up to its stated 1500m. I did range random things and got a reading out to almost 1700, so it does work, but just wasn't able to confirm that range versus the PLRF15.
- Sighting the unit in is easy. You need a bore sighter to do this the easiest way and you can even do it in a hallway at your house assuming its long enough. Use the sight in target thats included (no shooting necessary), turn on the visable laser on the RAPTAR, put your bore sighter in centered on the 'bore' target and just walk the RAPTAR into its circle on the target. Done. Did this at 35 yards and it held out to 800+.
- All of the lasers and LRF are slaved. This also allows you while using night vision to verify at distance that your LRF is 'looking' at your target by hitting the IR laser to see what its hitting while you're on target with your reticle.
- The IR laser on high doesn't suck. It's not the full power death star ray that the high setting on a PEQ15 gives you (which we dont use a lot anyways other than designating targets at range and/or having a brighter laser to differentiate who is designating) and it will give you a solid point out to 800+. There is a high/low setting for the laser and we only used the high setting as the low setting seemed really weak and we didn't bother with it past that.
- Even though there is a setting via the knob on the unit to select the ranging function, both the button on the actual unit to range as well as the provided cable will have the unit range regardless of what setting its on. You don't need to fuck around with laser/range settings this way; I eventually just left the unit knob setting on the IR laser and never moved it again until I turned the unit off as the rest of the settings are either the visible laser, configuration or the useless IR illuminator.
- The display brightness settings (once you actually figure them out) are both legit daylight bright and can be dimmed for night time.
- Worked fine in both 100 degrees and dusty during the day and mid 40s at night.
The Bad
- The IR illuminator is absolute Tier 1 fucking dogshit. To say its useless is an understatment. I'm positive that you can buy some IR flashlight from China off of ebay for $4 and get a better illuminator than this farce. If you were in the market for an IR illuminator that will bloom off of EVERYTHING in front of you for 10 yards and then not light anything up at all after 20 yards, you're in for a treat. The ATPIAL 'C' versions sold as civilian models are garbage and I get the whole Class 1 and III thing and all this fantastic safety bullshit; but whatever they have in this is the unit that the garbage civilian units outperformed. This unit is a range finder with a working/useable IR laser, and thats it. The better option would have been to remove this completely and lower the price and/or add some other useful function; a Hula girl taped on top of the unit would have been an improvment over this. The best option would have been to throw whoever thought this was a good idea off a fucking railbridge.
- The mount that attaches to a mount that attaches to a pic rail is retarded. I'm sure this had something to do with someone thinking these units could be directly mounted to a STANAG 4694 hole that no one on the planet uses; but that just makes it even more retarded. I will admit that it did not move over the coarse of 3 days humping this around in the mountains, but put a fucking QD locking mount on the thing like people managed to figure out forever ago on even the PEQ2A and stop trying to overengineer failure; mind you, this is coming from a German.
- There is no cosign/angle from 0 feature. I would have taken this in a heartbeat over the shitshow of an illuminator. While this may not be an issue for shooting done on relative flat ground, high angle shooting, especially at night where the weapon mounted LRF solves a lot of problems still requires you to adjust ballistic range. This would have been a fantastic feature to really make this an all-in-one unit as far as providing range, while still on the gun. Now I still need to do math even if the unit tells me the range, and I have a range card for the local DA set up on a glowing arm board that I can see while on the gun. Swing and a miss. But hey, it has a shitty illuminator though!
- It seems to really drink the battery. After the first night I managed to use the battery strength function (which apparently makes total sense being named 'bfft' in the configuration menu) and got that it was down to 53% already. The only functions that were used were an occassional IR laser and using the range finder. Obviously I didn't waste any battery on leaving that illuminator on and there's nothing else that its doing to drain power, but its down to 53%. Bring spare batteries or you're gonna have a bad time.
- Not sure who is really 'at fault' with this, but another big miss for the RAPTAR is its inability to communicate with any ballistics software. As far as I know (correct me here if I'm missing something) is that this unit does not have Bluetooth (something else that should have been put in instead of that dumb fucking illuminator) and will only connect to AB Ballistics via a cable, that cannot connect to anything directly because it needs to connect to the "Hud" that then connects to the ballistics software unit. This makes for a real clunky arrangment that is an obvious afterthought. There is another tier above this with the included ballistics suite, but is several thousand more and improves on nothing else.
- It has an insane MSRP and list price on sites that sell it. The MSRP and most posted prices are significantly (2-3x) over what you can get them for. Not sure if this has something to do with the fantastically retarded DoD procurement pricing matrix or Wilcox being under the impression that this thing can cure cancer; but either way, its VASTLY overpriced for what it is. Even at the 'street price' we've kind of figured out, I'm still on the fence as to if its worth it or not. So if you're seriously looking at one of these at the 6k+ sites are listing them for, consider that at 1/3 the price I'm still kind of 'meh' with it.
Overall its a well built unit that ranges well and negates some of the issues you have with shooting at night. While some of the features are nice (primarily the LRF IR laser and display) other features are a total waste and should have been replaced with useful improvements (cosine, bluetooth/serial connection) that could have really made this shine as an indespensible piece of equipment. A solid range finder and laser designator, I see the company that manages to integrate the missing aspects of the RAPTAR along with its positive features as being the ones that introduce something that will see a much more widespread demand.
I think for night time shooting and hunting under any kind of time constraint on UKD targets that you may not have taken a shot on because you weren't able to use a LRF at night or didn't have enough time to come off the gun, range the target and get back on the gun; the RAPTAR fills that requirement with only the discontinued (I think?) Radius in the same category. Until using the RAPTAR, I was always limited on ranging UKD targets via someone on a spotter equipped with nightvision and a reticle slaved LRF; this works very well on a PLRF15+Trimble+FFS setup, but requires 2 people and a lot of equipment to do. You could also rig a PVS14 to various LRF via a monoloc or other hardware, but coming off the gun to locate a target at night, range it and then reacquire it through the optic is less than ideal, especially in the dark with a moving target that can easily obscure itself.
For 'fixing' the above, the RAPTAR does exactly that. But, after using it, I did come across quite a few limitations and quirks that just made me shake my head as to who thought (or the total lack of thought) certain things were a good idea.
Random initial impressions
- So the ES version is tauted as a LRF capable of 1500m that is weapon mounted. It also includes a Class 1 laser and a Class 1 illuminator. This struck me as weird; why put a 1500m capable range finder, on a unit that would only illuminate a target for a very short distance? It's like putting racing slicks on a Datsun. So short of someone with a regular power illuminator lighting a target up for you for PID and ranging, I'm really confused as to why they'd even bother with the illuminator (more on this below) as you wouldn't have time/nor the need to range a target for carbine engagment distances where the illuminator MIGHT actually help yet the illimunator won't work for 97% of the range of the range finder. Figure out what the fuck you want here; a weapon mounted range finder out to 1500m or a civi tier illuminator; one of these things does not belong.
- All of the 'action shots' you see of the RAPTAR are on front of some guy's carbine up front at 12 o clock. Mind you that if you plan to use a clip on, the RAPTAR at 12 o clock will eat up quite a bit of real estate and depending on the height of your optic and clip on, will obscure it. I couldn't mount the RAPTAR at 12 o clock with a PVS24 and Nightforce 2.5-10x24 in NF rings setup due to height and instead had to put it on the 9 o clock rail.
- If you have a bipod as well as any other equipment on the rail, the footprint of the RAPTAR is larger than a PEQ15 as far as width. There was basically one spot where I could get it on the forward 9 o clock rail where it wasn't running into some piece of either the PVS24 on top or the Harris 6-9 bipod in a KAC mount on the bottom. There was 1 position where it cleared everything, just barely. The only other alternative would have been to have it WAY back on the 9 o clock rail which is a problem in itself.
- Whoever layed out the menu and menu 'terms' for what means what, needs to be shot in the face at close range. The unit does come with a quick reference card for the plethora of terms for both settings and configuration, but you end up with a list of random things that no one will remember or make sense of like 'di5d' somehow means brightness adjustment and 'Lsto' means laser timeout, etc.
The Good
- It ranges. After having it zero'd, we took it out and shot at steel at distances out to 800 where we knew we were aiming at the same thing with both the RAPTAR and PLRF15. Both were within +- 2 yards every time. We didn't go further because the terrain behind was a mountain ridge and there was no way to ensure we'd be aiming at the same spot in the distance; but out to 800 leaves me with absolutely no doubt it will keep up to its stated 1500m. I did range random things and got a reading out to almost 1700, so it does work, but just wasn't able to confirm that range versus the PLRF15.
- Sighting the unit in is easy. You need a bore sighter to do this the easiest way and you can even do it in a hallway at your house assuming its long enough. Use the sight in target thats included (no shooting necessary), turn on the visable laser on the RAPTAR, put your bore sighter in centered on the 'bore' target and just walk the RAPTAR into its circle on the target. Done. Did this at 35 yards and it held out to 800+.
- All of the lasers and LRF are slaved. This also allows you while using night vision to verify at distance that your LRF is 'looking' at your target by hitting the IR laser to see what its hitting while you're on target with your reticle.
- The IR laser on high doesn't suck. It's not the full power death star ray that the high setting on a PEQ15 gives you (which we dont use a lot anyways other than designating targets at range and/or having a brighter laser to differentiate who is designating) and it will give you a solid point out to 800+. There is a high/low setting for the laser and we only used the high setting as the low setting seemed really weak and we didn't bother with it past that.
- Even though there is a setting via the knob on the unit to select the ranging function, both the button on the actual unit to range as well as the provided cable will have the unit range regardless of what setting its on. You don't need to fuck around with laser/range settings this way; I eventually just left the unit knob setting on the IR laser and never moved it again until I turned the unit off as the rest of the settings are either the visible laser, configuration or the useless IR illuminator.
- The display brightness settings (once you actually figure them out) are both legit daylight bright and can be dimmed for night time.
- Worked fine in both 100 degrees and dusty during the day and mid 40s at night.
The Bad
- The IR illuminator is absolute Tier 1 fucking dogshit. To say its useless is an understatment. I'm positive that you can buy some IR flashlight from China off of ebay for $4 and get a better illuminator than this farce. If you were in the market for an IR illuminator that will bloom off of EVERYTHING in front of you for 10 yards and then not light anything up at all after 20 yards, you're in for a treat. The ATPIAL 'C' versions sold as civilian models are garbage and I get the whole Class 1 and III thing and all this fantastic safety bullshit; but whatever they have in this is the unit that the garbage civilian units outperformed. This unit is a range finder with a working/useable IR laser, and thats it. The better option would have been to remove this completely and lower the price and/or add some other useful function; a Hula girl taped on top of the unit would have been an improvment over this. The best option would have been to throw whoever thought this was a good idea off a fucking railbridge.
- The mount that attaches to a mount that attaches to a pic rail is retarded. I'm sure this had something to do with someone thinking these units could be directly mounted to a STANAG 4694 hole that no one on the planet uses; but that just makes it even more retarded. I will admit that it did not move over the coarse of 3 days humping this around in the mountains, but put a fucking QD locking mount on the thing like people managed to figure out forever ago on even the PEQ2A and stop trying to overengineer failure; mind you, this is coming from a German.
- There is no cosign/angle from 0 feature. I would have taken this in a heartbeat over the shitshow of an illuminator. While this may not be an issue for shooting done on relative flat ground, high angle shooting, especially at night where the weapon mounted LRF solves a lot of problems still requires you to adjust ballistic range. This would have been a fantastic feature to really make this an all-in-one unit as far as providing range, while still on the gun. Now I still need to do math even if the unit tells me the range, and I have a range card for the local DA set up on a glowing arm board that I can see while on the gun. Swing and a miss. But hey, it has a shitty illuminator though!
- It seems to really drink the battery. After the first night I managed to use the battery strength function (which apparently makes total sense being named 'bfft' in the configuration menu) and got that it was down to 53% already. The only functions that were used were an occassional IR laser and using the range finder. Obviously I didn't waste any battery on leaving that illuminator on and there's nothing else that its doing to drain power, but its down to 53%. Bring spare batteries or you're gonna have a bad time.
- Not sure who is really 'at fault' with this, but another big miss for the RAPTAR is its inability to communicate with any ballistics software. As far as I know (correct me here if I'm missing something) is that this unit does not have Bluetooth (something else that should have been put in instead of that dumb fucking illuminator) and will only connect to AB Ballistics via a cable, that cannot connect to anything directly because it needs to connect to the "Hud" that then connects to the ballistics software unit. This makes for a real clunky arrangment that is an obvious afterthought. There is another tier above this with the included ballistics suite, but is several thousand more and improves on nothing else.
- It has an insane MSRP and list price on sites that sell it. The MSRP and most posted prices are significantly (2-3x) over what you can get them for. Not sure if this has something to do with the fantastically retarded DoD procurement pricing matrix or Wilcox being under the impression that this thing can cure cancer; but either way, its VASTLY overpriced for what it is. Even at the 'street price' we've kind of figured out, I'm still on the fence as to if its worth it or not. So if you're seriously looking at one of these at the 6k+ sites are listing them for, consider that at 1/3 the price I'm still kind of 'meh' with it.
Overall its a well built unit that ranges well and negates some of the issues you have with shooting at night. While some of the features are nice (primarily the LRF IR laser and display) other features are a total waste and should have been replaced with useful improvements (cosine, bluetooth/serial connection) that could have really made this shine as an indespensible piece of equipment. A solid range finder and laser designator, I see the company that manages to integrate the missing aspects of the RAPTAR along with its positive features as being the ones that introduce something that will see a much more widespread demand.
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