Picked up an Eotech XPS2 to throw on my ‘green machine’ AR. Unlike the one that is sitting on my FN, this one is by itself with no magnifier. Just a simple, unmagnified red dot. To my surprise it shot quite well at 100 yards, keeping three shot groups within a couple inches. Considering this is 1x and there is no magnification, thats not too shabby. I expected good accuracy from the SIG upper, but I didnt expect my eyes to be able to keep a red dot, in bright daylight, on a light background at 100 yards. But..here we are.

Thats a SIG upper on a KE Arms poly lower with their target trigger, 45* safety, and ambi mag release. It’s pretty light for what it is, and as age comes on apace I find that lighter guns have an appeal (says the man who owns a Barret 82A1).

One thing that is wildly pissing me off is that the front rail has no picatinny on it. So, I had to add a segment of pic rail to the front top to accommodate a set of backup sights…but that raise the sight to the point it shoots a bit low, even with the front sight post bottomed out. The solution is going to be to find a thinner pic riser.

I mounted the Eotech on the gun and fired it at 100 yards. Windage was spot on and only elevation needed adjusting. I’m coming around to enjoy the speed and utility of these red dots. Ive learned the hard way that if youre going to need a gun, you need it in a hurry and anything that speeds up getting the bullet into the backstop is a good thing. So, I’ll let my wallet be my endorsement…I liked the first XPS2 I bought so much that I bought another.

While at the range, I also pulled out the SBR’d BRN-180. I recently purchased a Meprolight M21 as an experiment with non-illuminated scopes. The M21 uses just ambient light, like an ACOG, but unlike the ACOG has no other light source (unlike the ACOG’s tritium backup). So…a batteryless optic for the end of the world. Howd I like it. Its…ok. Build quality seems good and I expect it to be brutally rugged. But it suffers the same problem all fiber optic sights have – shooting from light into light, and light into dark is no problem. But, if youre in a darkened area shooting into a lighter area, the reticle may not be bright enough. Meprolight does make a version of this optic that has tritium, which Ill probably try, and another version that uses batteries. Considering this is an Israeil offering, and it tends to be sunny all the time over there, I suppose its not an issue over there. Here, however, its another story. Then again, this stubby little wanna-be-PDW is mostly an indoor/car item, so perhaps its not as much of an issue as I think. And, of course, backup sights which cowitnessed beautifully.

Unfortunately, this little gun is giving me some ejection problems. Every so often a case extracts, but fails to ehect, giving me a stovepipe and double feed. Rather than go overboard screwing with it, I’m just going to swap out the ejector, ejector spring, extractor, and extractor spring for some enhanced one from JP Customs. I really want to like this little gun, and I want to have faith in it’s reliability, so a little work is called for.

Interestingly, in the same size I can get the JAKL pistol/SBR whcih gives me the same size package but has proven itself well so far.

So, overall, a productive day at the range. Beats sitting at home doing weekend laundry duties.