Steyr Upgrade

AFAIK, not gospel mind you, but they are upgrading the sighting systems. They would probably give the rifles a service while they are at it too.

As for details of the upgrades I couldnt tell ya!

Was on work experience in a local barracks a couple of weeks back and they give us a demonstration of the steyr A1 and the lieutenant mentioned that they should be upgrading the sights, think i heard him say something about ACOG sights and red dot sights.

the_syco wrote: »

A google brought this site up, that said that

it may mean not much will be done to it?

It won't be as radical as what the australians are doing with their EF88 upgrade, which involves wholescale changes including the angle of the buttplate and change to the trigger guard, length of pull for cocking the weapon, the introduction of electronics within the buttgroup and a new lighter fluted barrel and optimisation for use with aussie F1 ammo - they produce theirs under license and thats a huge upgrade that will take alot of work and testing to bring into service. Oh and they're throwing a new optic on as well. Basically your talking about entirely new weapons being rolled out, that are similar to whats in service already, so the retraining time should be short.

The patents on the AUG are long expired - a number of "clones" are on the market in the USA, so its probably not that big a deal to make more radical changes, however its more likely to follow along the lines of a the kiwi upgrade - overhaul of weapons and upgrading of optics and a new housing group with rails.

goldie fish wrote: »

You have an aim point. The centre of the reticle on the centre of the target.

No what we have is an open reticle with an aim point determined by the firer. With huge margin for error. You rely on the placement of your sites on the tgt and using the tgts edges as a guide as opposed to dot or point at which you use.

It wasn't me! wrote: »

Not used a Steyr but from my understanding, the reticle is a circle, yes? If so, this is because your eye has an innate talent for finding the centre of a circle and recognising symmetry and concentricity. In formal target shooting using aperture sights, the foresight element is universally a circle for exactly this reason. It's also conducive to quick shooting since people don't fluff about with a fixed, definite centre to a reticle, which is something that encourages overly laboured and indecisive shooting.

That is exactly the reason on paper why this site is being used. "If a man fits within the reticle at 300m the rounds will hit dead centre" so yeah line up your sight, stick the tgt in the centre of the reticle and you should hit something.

It's all very vauge for my taste.

Compare this site to a simple dot sight or cross hairs as used by most other armies and when you try use it you can immediately see the flaw when trying to put down accurate deliberate fire.

The flip side of the argument is that its ideal for close quarter and quick snap like firing (which one may argue is what most modern conflicts are throwing at soldiers). But personally I hate the lack of defined aiming point. What is conducive to quick shooting is detrimental to accurate shooting!

BigDuffman wrote: »

That is exactly the reason on paper why this site is being used. "If a man fits within the reticle at 300m the rounds will hit dead centre" so yeah line up your sight, stick the tgt in the centre of the reticle and you should hit something.

It's all very vauge for my taste.

Compare this site to a simple dot sight or cross hairs as used by most other armies and when you try use it you can immediately see the flaw when trying to put down accurate deliberate fire.

The flip side of the argument is that its ideal for close quarter and quick snap like firing (which one may argue is what most modern conflicts are throwing at soldiers). But personally I hate the lack of defined aiming point. What is conducive to quick shooting is detrimental to accurate shooting!

I disagree there. Like I say, in formal competition shooting, it's all we use, and guys are shooting two-inch groups at 300m with that sighting system.

c-90 wrote: »

couldnt agree more, sounds great in the manual and in theory but when your on the range simply hitting the target isnt good enough.

even in a real life scenario, if the target is standing up all is well but how many people are going to stand up in a firefight. if you have to aim off for some reason the circle reticule becomes a severe disadvantage.

Again, it's all a question of sight picture, and if you know how much you need to aim off by you can do it. I use a round foresight element for competition and can hold off accurately by quite a long way to account for wind.

is there a lefty version of steyr ? or can it be adapted?

The Defence Forces one were ordered with the ejection port on the left sealed up though. They are not ambidextrous.

RedWolfCQB wrote: »

Could you not place the cover over the right port and just make do with the charge handle where it is?

You could, if there were actually a left side ejection port, and if you had the replacement bolt assembly. Since the DF rifles have neither, no, you can't.

Yes but if they weren't, could they have not done that instead to keep an armorer out of the equation? I'm a bit of an oddball because I write with my left hand but I play golf etc right handed, if I boxed I'm not sure if I'd be orthodox or southpaw and if it came to holding a gun (pass my medical next week and hopefully I will) I'm not sure which way would be more comfortable.