Let me first mention something that I didn’t cover in the video: what does “COA” stand for? Well, nothing. They just wanted a name that they could trademark that wasn’t already in use. So go ahead and make up your own acronym.
It may be hard to see how a pistol red dot sight could be exciting, but if you’re into this sort of the, the new Aimpoint COA has some really neat features. Specifically:
* Really excellent mounting system that fixed the problems of recoil lugs and screw holes into the delicate bits of pistol slides
* Improved software with things like automatic brightness step-down to maintain battery life
* Reduced width, essentially taking the Acro and removing the outer shell.
* Automated assembly, to reduce end user cost.
The project has been a collaboration with Glock, and so Glock has the exclusive use of the COA for the first year, starting now. After that, Aimpoint will release the A-cut specifications to industry for everyone else to use.
Disclaimer: I don’t have a COA myself, unless they decide to give me one after this video publishes. I went to Aimpoint on my own dime (thanks, Patreon!) to film the funky and cool PDW they built in 1979 (that video is coming soon), and they asked if I wanted to see the secret new thing while I was there. So of course I said yes, and this video is the result.
It’s a great system and I’m sure it’s superior to the RMR cut, but how many pistols will have enough “meat” in their slides to allow for a cut like that? If you can only use it on Glocks, good for them, but some folks like to shoot other guns. I hope it isn’t some dumb scheme to corner a market that’ll cripple both companies when it doesn’t work.
Ian, have you got an opportunity to handle the Savage Stance 2.0? They also came up with a novel solution which is a 100% screw-free MRD mount, where you just slip the sight in (actually hook one side and cant the rest until it clicks).
“(…)hard to see how a pistol red dot sight could be exciting(…)”
Did they manage to secure any patent w.r.t. said improvements?
The acronym COA means “circle of awareness” in the accompanied freefall system of skydiving instruction (AFF). COA starts with the student looking at the instructor on his/her right side, then the instructor on the left side, then the altimeter on the student’s left wrist and finishes with looking forward at the horizon.
These sorts of sights aren’t going to be a full replacement solution until and unless they’re the same size and footprint as the iron sights and project the red dot through some sort of holographic arrangement. Until then, that blocky goddamn excresence on top of the slide is just too damn big, too blocky, and entirely too much trouble. Try sticking one of those stupid ‘effing things under your jacket, and then drawing it… You’ve gone from a situation wherein there’s not all that much to catch on the stuff you’re wearing to one where you’ve bolted a damn brick onto the top of the slide, which is going to catch on everything. Don’t even ask about putting the resultant abortion into your pocket…
This reminds me of the days when everyone was slapping lasers and lights onto everything; what might have a place in your “bedroom gun” is absolutely irrelevant to an actual carry piece. For that, you need something that hasn’t got all kinds of extraneous crap bolted onto it, and which is rock-stupid simple to use.
I mean, seriously… For the love of God, Aimpoint hasn’t even bothered to ramp the front and back of this thing to “melt” it into the slide. That idiotic thing is going to be a magnet for anything and everything on the way out of the draw, and will likely result in getting a lot of people killed while they try to untangle their pistol from concealment. On a duty pistol, this thing might not be a totally stupid solution, but on the guns they’ve put it on? WTF? Are you people high on psychedelics?
amen same logic applies to flash lights on the gun. I was taught that in dark, people shoot at the light, which you now hold in front of your face!