Victims of Tactical Fashion

Much like the fashion industry, we too suffer from what is cool and what is not.  Fads and trends.  Often these tends fall away from what is practical or useful.  

The current tactical fashion is unnecessarily long handguards.  You see it with new production rifles, specifically the WS-MCR.  Even with the WK-180C people are in a mad scramble to change the functional handguard to something silly long.

It escapes me how this serves any practical purpose except for the LCF (look cool factor).  Extra weight?  Check.  Lower maneuverability and usability? Check?  Bragging rights like every other mouth-breathing wannabe cool guy? Check.

Perhaps the extra weight helps to reduce the hellish recoil of the 223 rounds?

Maybe they are worried that they might lick the barrel and thus want it covered?

I don’t know.

I had a guy try to justify this trend outside of LCF: he said that people wanted to put flashlights as far forward as possible.  Does his flashlight shine 5” farther than mine?

Another one I hear is: I want to shoot like Magpul tells me!  Navy SEALs do it!  I roll my eyes at this.  You know that Navy SEALs are generally not running around with full length rifles right?  You know that the Magpul method is not used in the real world like you think it is?

I can’t stand lies.  If you are one of these people, just be honest.  Tell me: I do it because that’s the cool thing nowadays.  I’ll respect you for it.

New Techniques

I was at the Calgary gun show this year showing off my wares and a person came over to examine a S2.  He picked it up and shouldered it, grabbing the forend using what I can only describe as the Magpul overgrip method.

This prompted a lively discussion with my helper.  We are in agreement that there are a lot of new shooting methods coming out where an instructor with “Street Cred”, that is someone who has shot at people for a living, comes up with a new idea and markets it as the newest greatest thing.

What I find is that often people invent new things for the sake of inventing new things and use the cognitive fallacy of false attribution (claiming something as the reason for something else when they are in fact there is no causality).

Without naming names, let’s take a trip through inductive reasoning.

Premise 1)
Man trained as part of _______ where he won many harrowing gun battles.

Premise 2)
He used the methods taught to him by that elite unit.  Those methods clearly worked and therefore are proven and workable.

Premise 3)
He comes back to America and develops his own methods to sell to the public.  He uses his past exploits to justify why you should trust his new system.

Conclusion – His fancy new method was never tested in battle.  Its value is therefore called into question as a fighting method.  It may perform on a 3-gun range but can not be proven like his original skill set was.
Why can't he pass on his proven skill set?

Back to the Magpul overgrip method.  It is touted as a way to increase stability.  When I instruct I tell my students, I tell them that the farther they grip the rifle down the forend, the more stability they will gain; it does not matter if they use a forgrip, angled grip or the traditional hand grip. The trade off to gripping farther down the forend, is they will fatigue quicker.  All the Magpul overgrip method does is adds a silly grip to a proven theory and falsely claims the stability benefit as a result.

But if instructors taught what worked and did not invent new stuff they would have a hard time marketing themselves and standing out as a brand.  From a marketing standpoint, I can't blame them; they just want to make money. But from a gunfighting standpoint, I think they are subtly cheating the consumer out of what they should know and what they hope to learn.

I think the moral of the story is don't buy into every silly little method.  Critically ask yourself if these new novel methods actually make you a better gunfighter or if you are simply lining someone else's pockets or worse yet, buying into a cool looking fad.

Science and Magpul Back Up Sights - Gen 1 vs Gen 2

Anyone who knows me knows that I am somewhat of a student of the psychology of perception. How the brain sees things and organizes shapes, lines, colors and even how it makes assumptions. It is a fantastic science. One thing that is science fact is the brain has an easy time lining up circles or determining if the circles are in alignment. I was cutting washers to cap the barrel shrouds on the S2s (something that customers seem to want) and something looked off. The center hole was not quite right. I examined the cutting program an sure enough it was cutting the inner hole offset 0.05 inches from the center. I could see that tiny difference. This is not a skill I uniquely have, it is biological – something all people can do to some extent.

This fact is why I like diopter sights; sights like the MP5, the HK416, the Troy Back up Iron Sights (BUIS) etc. A circle aperture lining up with an encircled front post. They are the fastest sight to line up and they blow the traditional rabbit ear sights (like the AR15) out of the water. People who try diopters seldom, willingly go back.

Diopter sights do not need a full circle to work, having a break in the top still allows the principle to function. The 416 sights are an example of this.

So I have this article who’s title suggests I am going to talk about Magpul back up sights. Now that I have the science out of the way, I will get to it.

I had the chance to examine the Magpul Gen 1 and Gen 2 sights mainly because most retailers are dumping their Gen 1 sights to make way for the Gen 2 sights.

The Gen 1 sight posts curve inwards around the front post creating a quasi-circular bracket. I say quasi because the bottom is squared off. The front sight reminds me of the PPS-43 front sight. Combined with the rear aperture it makes a damn fine sight, using the human brain’s natural ability to line up on the target.

The Gen 2 sights have the outer posts curving in but on the vertical plane, the sight area is very shallow creating a frame that is rectangular and obviously so. The brain does not line up rectangles very well and it certainly does not line up rectangles inside circles so you are left with that is essentially a traditional American style sight where you line the post up in the middle of the rear sight. Despite a few pluses that the Gen 2 has, I feel it is a step backwards.

With the rush towards, “Combat Sexy” where only the latest trend will do, I have found that wholesalers and retailers are letting their Gen 1 sights go at criminally low prices. If you are looking for a BUIS, go out and get a Magpul Gen 1.