Just ordered a EoTech/Accucam setup .......

Since it is "fresh" I cannot go into details at this time, however suffice it to say I shot someone recently. The someone was shooting at me, along with three "friends" and wound up hitting one of my friends more than once. Completely justified, however in this day and age we have a period of time to await the civil process......

The area was dark, at night in a densly populated area. The friends were shooting pistols (45ACP) and I had the rifle, which had a LED light attached along with an AimPoint in a Larue mount.

Now, for the "reasons":

1. Price... my setup is currently in the hands of a gubm't agency and will probably be there for some time. The replacement cost for a new ML3 (with mounts) is just too much right now, yet I need another setup ASAP. I have another rifle, but no optics for it. After this incident, I will never again deploy a rifle without an optic of some sort.

2. I think, based upon this incident, the large 65 MOA ring of the EoTech would have been a huge benefit. Mind you, that huge benefit is a mere fraction of a second, but I think in this case a fraction of a second could potentially have saved my friend from being shot. The AimPoint served me very well, but scrutinzing the incident after incident makes me believe I could be faster with the EoTech. We shall see.

There are probably hundreds of lessons to be learned from this, and I will someday be able to share those. But for now, those of you intending to actually use the tool to defend something I recommend at a minimum, a red dot sight from a decent manufacturer (AimPoint, EoTech, Leupold, Burris [not tested by me, but I hear decent things about them] and a very close second a decent light attachment (Surefire, Night-Ops, Pentagon) setup.

I "think" the larger reticle would have enabled me to get on target slightly faster. My firing was done after the bad guy first fired, and all indications are that his first round hit my friend, however subsequent hits could have been eliminated had I acted faster (I think).

It's hard to tell, and although I am a diehard AimPoint fan I am gonna try the EoTech out for a while. If I don't like it, I can switch to the 3 (when funds permit).

Some sidenotes:

Tunnel vision is/ was a very big part of the incident, as  is trigger control. It seems when the bad guy is shooting at you the traditional trigger pull training goes out the window first.

I don't carry an AR for a living so forgive the questions but, if you are so inclined, ...

I loved my Aimpoint but I was not comfortable with the amount of light that I was getting through the tube in low light/twighlight conditions.  This was compounded by the "glare" of the 4MOA dot.  Yes, turning it down helped but the light variance between my left and right eye was distracting.  I'm sure that practice would have eliminated my concerns.

I don't know if you experienced anything similar.  If so, I would be interested to know whether it was a contributing factor.

I recently purchased the EoTech and find it excellent in low light or virtually no light.

Then again, I don't have anything near the "real world" experiences of many on this board.  It was just a "feeling" that I had that moved me away from the AimPoint.

If you have any issue with the Aimpoint, I have found that it is easy to run them with the front lens cap up.  Keep both eyes open and shoot occuluded.  That way you don't need to mess with the brightness or worry about washout and any other suc issues.

Biased_Observer,
Glad you made it.  Stay safe.

I have nothing to contribute other than glad you're OK and best wishes for your buddy.

WIZZO

Quoted: I have nothing to contribute other than glad you're OK and best wishes for your buddy. WIZZO

+1 on that.

+2

As something I've learned on the street, don't second guess yourself after the fact.  You made it through safe and your actions saved your friend's life.  Don't beat yourself up over the post game review.  As long as  you practice with your chosen optic, I doubt you will see all that much of a difference in speed.   Stay safe!

You've got mail.  Glad you're OK.  Feel free to e-mail if you feel the need.  You did good.

As an experienced line officer in some of the toughest streets in this country (and years of Dynamic Entry / Hish Risk warrant scenarios) let me say that making it home is a win. No matter how we measure our actions, if you made it home...you did the right thing.

Also, depending on the "freshness" let me say from experience that it will take some time (maybe months to years) to truly get your head around every dynamic second of that incident. It is vital to remember that, as your replay this scenario over and over in your mind, some things will come to you that you didn't even realized happened.

As this occurs you may also exaggerate other things, for example:

-As your adrenaline dumped and your mind began processing information faster than you could think thru it, time slowed to a crawl. That time that time "seemed" to slow you may, in hindsight, feel that there was more delay in your actions than there actually was.

Trust me when I say this........I have been there.......let those doubts go! At the time, you did what you needed to do to, identify the threat, determine your possible courses of action, chose the right option and execute that option.  

If you feel better with different gear....go for it....but realize that you are trained to preserve and protect life and an individual put you in a position to have to react to thier hostile actions and take life. That takes shifting gears in a BIG way and I am not sure which optic you were looking thru would have shaved any time off that big of a decision.

Speedy recovery to the fallen good guy and congratz on a job well done.

Oh and tell the injured 'soldier' this:

"Courage is not defined by those who won, but those who fought, fell and rose to fight again!"

I'm a city cop, and I went with an Eotech for many of those same reasons.  I have ZERO regrets, and while I like Aimpoints, I can't think of any reason why I would want one on my duty pig.



You already know the drill, and you all went home alive.  The trick is to make sure you talk and deal with the events.  CISM sucks the first couple times, but it actually helps....

The_Biased_Observer,
Glad to hear that you made it through all this safely.

As far as the Eotech vs. Aimpoint, I think they are so close to each other in perfomance that you could go with either one (and I have owned both) and feel confident in there performance. I would have to say that I think that you would gain more of an edge  from spending time with either optic that you choose in either structured training or time on the range doing drills, rather than splitting hairs in the performance of either optic.

Best wishes,
Dave