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Posted: 2/9/2005 9:10:07 PM EDT
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OK, gang, since we all seem to enjoy beating one another up about our choices of optics, I have elected to "take one for the team" and give an ATN Digial Ultra a ride. Picked it up on ebay for $148 with shipping. Initial observation: looks like the other ATN product I had (no surprise there), not a really refined finish or super-sophisticated mount, but rugged and durable (I was showing the Missus how you could mount it on the rifle to get her feedback on likely mounting locations for the thing, and I dropped it onto the carpeted floor - It's OK). I am liking it's ability to change reticles w/o moving anything, and that its brightness settings are adjusted digitally as well. Putting it atop my rifle, I was surprised to discover that the mount system on the bottom of the sight causes the sight plane to be raised above the BUIS. Since there's no way to lower the sight, it means that absolute co-witness is an impossibility. Overall length appears to be a bit of a hindrance as well. The sight measures 5 1/4", meaning that if you mount it on the forward-most cross-slot on the rail there's still no room for a BUIS on the rear of the flat-top. I have a YHM light handguard, and see no apparent trouble from mounting the sight half on the receiver, and half on the handguard top-rail. Looks good, too, and you get a good two-eye sight picture there without the distraction of dual imaging when mounted on the flattop close to your eyes. The piece seems pretty solid. I will shoot with it and let you guys know how it holds up and holds zero, although with fair warning, I'm a bit of an Armchair Commando. The roughest handling this rifle will get will be when it slides off my work table onto my carpeted rug. 
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OK, I just got the YHM rear flip-up sight the other day - the ATN Digital Ultra looks like it is left of bore about 1/8", which I find to be curious. It was irritating at first; I clicked in enough right windage to put the crosshairs on top of the iron sights. Hopefully, this will work. My plan? Sight in the rifle with iron sights flipped up first. Make zero @ 25 yards, then make zero with ATN, then make zero with both @ 100 yards. Has anyone else experienced this phenomenon? |
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So I shot in the rifle and the sights today. The Digital Ultra is pretty damned good. The dot is something like 1 MOA, so it resolves itself as a pretty small dot @ 100 yards. It sits right over the iron sights; wherever you place the dot, that's where the shot lands. Seems to be holding zero OK, too. For the $146 shipped price, I think I got a stinkin' bargain. It's biggest drawback is its size - it is too long and too high to be an effective sight with BUIS. I would like to get an EOTECH when I can collect the moolah, as I like the co-witnessing aspect of that sight. Considering my expenses on guns this year, I think that this is rather unlikely to happen anytime soon. 
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| Thanks for your observations. I think the reason the ATN doesn't get much press is that most people don't want to spend close to $200 on a sight that's not combat proven. If you're going to spend that kind of coin, you might as well get an EOTech or Aimpoint; or, on the other side of the spectrum, it's a little expensive for a plinking optic. $148 delivered is a good price though. |
I'm happier with the sight after shooting with it than after I was when I first mounted it. It's pretty good, although I don't know if I would rely on it for combat. That's why I got the BUIS! |
Shot it again today - went plinking in Left Hand Canyon. Brought my Bro-In-Law, and we shot up a manniquin/dress-fitting dummy. Before the fun...It's a woman's torso on a stand, so it makes a great target for handgun and rifle practice. It was raining/snowing, 37 degrees. Fired Wolf ammo. No loss of zero; rain will fuck up your view through the sight. I experienced no issues or visual problems (once I cleaned the lens), and I remain really impressed with the sight. It's defintely not an adverse-weather-capable sight; none of the open-format red-dots are.  After the fun.Keep in mind we used an AK, an AR, a Glock 23, and a Mossberg 500 with pistol grip and 3" magnum slugs. My hand hurts. The scope, however, is doing real well. |
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Update: The scope is not doing nearly as well as I thought - I went to clean the rifle, and noticed the scope moving fore and aft on the mount. I could wiggle it side-to-side as well. This would seem a detriment to it's ability to hold zero. I found a main mounting screw underneath had gotten loose. After tightening it, I remounted the optic and still can move the unit very slightly side-to-side - any mounted optic has to be absolutely rigid on the upper for it to be expected to hold zero, and it should be able to take the impact of .338 Win-Mag, rough handling in the field, rain, snow, etc., without losing zero. This one was shifting after 400 rounds of .223 off a bench and offhand, all the while being handled like a newborn child. So I sent it back. They're sending me another; I won't even take it out of its package; it will go directly to ebay. The optics, glass, laser diode controls - all that stuff was absolutely top-notch, but the mounting system and windage/elevation controls were strictly third-world bullshit. Eotech, here I come! |
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