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Posted: 1/19/2017 1:29:22 AM EDT
| Can anyone tell me the approximate serial number for when leatherwood production shifted to DPMS? And while were at, anyone know approximate values for both pre DPMS and DPMS-built scopes? Thanks guys. |
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? DPMS built scopes ?
The believe the Art II was built by Burris. Unless you want to spend a considerable amount of money simply to get an accurate build of a Vietnam era M21 using an inferior scope then go right ahead. Modern scopes are head and shoulders better than anything made in the 1960's. Any of Leupold's Mark 4 scopes will serve you better than the Art II. |
| Why do I get the impression that the previous poster has not used an AR-TEL or ART II? The 1.3 rounds per kill results in Nam are impressive. The ART system is simple and effective. No calculators are required to estimate range and they work as far as an M14 will shoot. This isn't to say they did not have their issues or that newer systems are not better in some ways, but the ART system worked as advertised. I've used them since the mid 80's and my M21 is one of my favorite rifles. By the way, the ART II was not made by Burris. It was designed and made by Jim Leatherwood who started Military Armorment Corp., DPMS (for a short while), and is still being made by Iron Sight in Tulsa, OK. |
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I own a ART IV, based on the same basic design and manufactured by Burris for Springfield Armory in the 1980's. Compared to any of my current Leupold scopes it's junk. The whole premise of the scope is to dial the magnification dial to obtain the BDC thereby relieving the shooter from having to accurately range their targets. It works fine as intended, but is an ancient and almost crude compared to the better scopes available today.
If it were so great the services would still employ it in the field. People interested in preserving history or building a copy of the rifle they used in Vietnam will enjoy owning one, I consider it a blast from the past and unworthy of serious consideration for use outside of historical applications. |
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Quoted:
Why do I get the impression that the previous poster has not used an AR-TEL or ART II? The 1.3 rounds per kill results in Nam are impressive. The ART system is simple and effective. No calculators are required to estimate range and they work as far as an M14 will shoot. This isn't to say they did not have their issues or that newer systems are not better in some ways, but the ART system worked as advertised. I've used them since the mid 80's and my M21 is one of my favorite rifles. By the way, the ART II was not made by Burris. It was designed and made by Jim Leatherwood who started Military Armorment Corp., DPMS (for a short while), and is still being made by Iron Sight in Tulsa, OK. This... At the time, during the 1960's and 1970's the ART scopes solved the "ranging" problem in a reasonable way. Once man portable LRF's and Mil-dot type systems hit the scene in the 1980's and 1990's it became obsolete. In general the main weakness of the system are the fact that ranging at long range is unfortunately not terribly precise a 10% ranging error will mean that at 900m you are off by up to 90m, which generally means you will miss since your error budget is pretty tight at long range. The second issue is that there is no real way to account for differences in ballistics of a round due to environmental factors (i.e. altitude), aside from having a cheat sheet of which range to dial versus what the estimated range is or holding off. However at medium ranges out to about 5-600m the system works quite well as the ranging errors are smaller and your error budget is larger. If you look at the VN war, most of the sniper kills with the XM21 were mostly in the 3-400m range or less. |
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Quoted:
I own a ART IV, based on the same basic design and manufactured by Burris for Springfield Armory in the 1980's. Compared to any of my current Leupold scopes it's junk. The whole premise of the scope is to dial the magnification dial to obtain the BDC thereby relieving the shooter from having to accurately range their targets. It works fine as intended, but is an ancient and almost crude compared to the better scopes available today. If it were so great the services would still employ it in the field. People interested in preserving history or building a copy of the rifle they used in Vietnam will enjoy owning one, I consider it a blast from the past and unworthy of serious consideration for use outside of historical applications. The Springfield armory versions of the ART were mostly garbage when compared to the original ART-1 and ART-2. Other than that you are correct. |
| BTW-Iron Sight in Tulsa, OK is selling Chinese made knock-offs. They have been panned by every serious source that tested them for repeatability. If a person can get their hands on an original Vietnam era ART scope it will be head and shoulders better than anything bearing the Leatherwood/Hi-Lux label now being made. |
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I have an Original AR-Tel Sniper Scope that was carried in VN on two tours by a Green Beret. That GB became a VP at Winchester Arms and was best friends with my friend and boss (part time job) Walt Langendorfer. Walt was the inventor and patent holder of the Rhino Device. The GB told Walt that this scope has many kills on it. Sadly the GB took his own life. I took ownership of this scope and an M1A from Walt's Estate. The M1A was built for Walt by the GB after I sent him a stripped Springfield receiver. He had his military buddies build the M1A for Walt and he returned it to me from Winchester Arms. I had an FFL at that time.
I requested information on this AR-Tel from Leatherwood and I got a personal reply directly from Mr Leatherwood asking me for pictures. I sent him pictures and he replied "That I had the Real McCoy of Vietnam Sniper Scopes". Here is a picture of my Smith Enterprise M21 with my ARTII mounted on it and the AR-Tel Sniper Scope. Both Scopes have their original Military Cases. You can see a note written by Walt Langendorfer on the AR-Tel case Identifying it to the AR-Tel Scope. This ATII has a Ranging Ring for the 168 grain National Match Load. I originally bought this ARII for my Belgian FAL rifle. I bought a Canadian FAL Sniper cover/mount. This is my second ARTII Scope. The first one would not hold Zero and it was replace. The first one was all metal and the second one has some plastic on it. 
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