I’d still like to see what you have to say.
1: All of the work grade clip-on units leave the factory after getting signed off on a battery of inspections. This includes PVS-22,24,26,27 and 30.
One of those inspections that must meet a set criteria is the POI shift.
It may or may not be called that in their manuals but that is what it amounts to.
Almost all of them have an acceptable max of 1 M.O.A. shift when they leave the factory.
If you are lucky, have a sturdy unit and manage to keep the banging around to a minimum most of those units will retain their collimation and still stay inside 1 MOA max shift years after they ship.
If your unit currently has a 2MOA shift or an 8MOA shift, that means something moved internally with the prisms or some other alien tech at some point between receipt of the new unit and now. That something was not supposed to move but it did.
Did the shift occur in single event that accounts for the total POI shift you are currently experiencing or is it the cumulative error from 2 or 3 events that caused the total POI shift you now have?
It could be from recoil during use even if the unit is supposed to be rated up to 50BMG. If something is loose that shouldn't be, then recoil rating is a moot point.
The "event" could also be from banging the gun around with the unit mounted or even transporting the unit when it is not even mounted.
If it moved at least once. . . . , something is already loose or out of alignment internally and could very likely move again. So are you going to take a unit with a known POI issue to a potential use of deadly force with the last known POI shift "dialed out"? That is very unprofessional and actually negligent in my opinion.
"It does hold that 7.8 off so it can be dialed out ". How long can you guarantee that unit will "hold" 7.8?
It sure as heck didn't get from =/< 1 MOA to 7.8 by design. How can you in good faith ask your team and/or a non-hostile to count on a round tracking straight when it is pointed by an optical tool that is out of spec?
So my point is that it moved at least once when it was not supposed to. To assume that it will not move/shift again would be foolish. It is only going to "hold" the current offset until it decides on its on that it didn't like the way it was handled or bumped.
L.E. that actually has deployable NV, should be using it for live fire and documenting the ability of that unit to stay inside the factory 1 MOA window once a quarter or at a bare minimum of twice a year. That documentation should go into the current logbook for that shooter/gun. It is so easy, even our dumb asses teach it to all of our classes.
Question for you..... You are checking zero of your work gun at the range during lunch one day. You notice that you suddenly have a 7 MOA shift in your day scope from the zero you have retained since the rifle was issued to you. Now you re-zero and re-set your turrets.....shoot a group or couple of dots but it is "holding" just fine now.........
Are you good with putting it back in the cruiser and counting on it to save your 12yr old niece an hour later in a tight hostage event?
I hope the answer would be a solid No. That bitch would get wrote up and somebody would tear it down systematically to find out what the hell happened to shove 7MOA up my ass for no reason. Once it is returned to me and supposedly corrected, I am going to put some time and rounds on it and me so that my brain is once again confident of the package so I can concentrate on the radio and what is happening in front of the gun.
As a professional, you are trusted to be familiar with your equipment, know its performance limits, keep everything serviceable and know when something is not right. If something is not right, you document it in writing and CC at least 2 of your TLs or commanders. That something is pulled from service and corrected before you rotate it back into an available status.
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Besides the above, I have at least one additional reason for L.E. to
not dial in the offset.
2: We consistently see shooter induced errors with the rifle and peripherals double (at least that much) once operations extend into night hours. Even when the shooter does everything correctly the time line for gun handling, target acquisition, PID and proper engagement is substantially longer than the same chain of events performed in daylight.
With performance degradation already an issue at night due mostly to poorly programmed equipment and gun handling skills, it is a fact that if you add stress/duress/time compression to the equation there are increased frequencies that some tasks are inadvertently skipped or performed incorrectly. If I was expecting one of my PMOs to get it done while remembering to dial in 7 or 10 MOA in the correct directions or at all, I am absolutely setting him up for failure.
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Both of the above are recipes for disaster.
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