I was at the local range today and met a fellow who claimed to be just back from Iraq. He said the usual; M9 breaks apart and has killed 5 guys, 5.56 works as long as it put in the right spot, and he met a Navy Seal who allowed him to shoot his SIG P226. Needless to say he had just bought a SIG P226R in .40 S&W (I think). He also asked me how I liked my Aimpoint. Told him I loved it and so forth. He said that he was issued a M3? I was a bit surprised. He said the M3s were more durable than the M2 like I had. WTF?

I thought the M3 was the same as the M2 aside from the fact that is availble in both 2 MOA and 4 MOA configurations and it had 50,000 hours compared to the M2's 10,000 hours?

I also thought that the optic itself was BRAND NEW? I mean I just bought my ML2 last year and the ML3 and M3 wasn't even out yet. How could the Army have these things already? Thanks for the input guys!

+1 on it being in their hands before ours
along with all the other goodies

It is currently on the GSA schedule.


https://www.gsaadvantage.gov/advgsa/advantage/catalog/product_detail.do?BV_UseBVCookie=Yes&oid=71229557

Quoted: Im not one to know for sure, but I would suspect that the military was using/testing M3's well before they hit the commercial market. Maybe not in large numbers, but military guns probably had M3's before our guns did. I would also suspect that once the M3 models were out, any Aimpoints purchased by the military would be the new model, not the old. All of this is just my WAG though.

Colt as well as many other manufacturers make it a practice to supply the guys who make a living off this gear (serving our country) before anyone else. No way to know if the guy at the range was for real but M3s being in use today would not surprise me at all.

Quoted: I was at the local range today and met a fellow who claimed to be just back from Iraq. He said the usual; M9 breaks apart and has killed 5 guys, 5.56 works as long as it put in the right spot, and he met a Navy Seal who allowed him to shoot his SIG P226. Needless to say he had just bought a SIG P226R in .40 S&W (I think). He also asked me how I liked my Aimpoint. Told him I loved it and so forth. He said that he was issued a M3? I was a bit surprised. He said the M3s were more durable than the M2 like I had. WTF? I thought the M3 was the same as the M2 aside from the fact that is availble in both 2 MOA and 4 MOA configurations and it had 50,000 hours compared to the M2's 10,000 hours? I also thought that the optic itself was BRAND NEW? I mean I just bought my ML2 last year and the ML3 and M3 wasn't even out yet. How could the Army have these things already? Thanks for the input guys!

what??

An Army Lt I went to a class with in June (10th Mountain Dv IIRC) had a ML3 issued to him and he brought it along.  It was neat...almost enough for this EoTech fan to think about switching.

Quoted: An Army Lt I went to a class with in June (10th Mountain Dv IIRC) had a ML3 issued to him and he brought it along.  It was neat...almost enough for this EoTech fan to think about switching.

Settle down, lets not get carried away here.....