Finally got a Kobra sight for the SAR-1...

[benEzra]

I've been saving for a Kobra collimator sight for the SAR-1 carbine for a year or so, kept meaning to get one and kept having stuff come up (we have medical bills out the wazoo related to my son's care). But I sold my POSP and finally scraped together enough additional pennies to order the Kobra. Was $179.95 plus shipping, or ~$185 out the door, which is pretty darn cheap for an electronic sight. It came with thorough instructions and a carrying case with belt loops.

For those who aren't familiar with it, a Kobra is sort of like a Eotech/Holosight (basically a heads-up display for a rifle), but unlike the latter, the underlying mechanism of the Kobra isn't holographic; it's also a lot cheaper than an Eotech. It's made in Russia by Aksion (Axion), and meets Russian milspecs regarding waterproofing and whatnot, which is nice.

The sight I chose is the EKP-8-02, the second-generation Kobra that has a slightly lower profile housing (to obscure the lens less) and a smoother style of side mount. It runs off a lithium coin cell, giving you about 70 hours of battery life at moderate brightness. The 1st-gen units that use AA batteries give you longer battery life, but I wanted the smaller profile and more streamlined mount, so I went with the -02.



Here's the sight mounted on the side rail of my SAR-1:



Below is a closeup; the camera makes it look like it's offset from the bore, but it actually sits right on the centerline. It is too low to use the irons underneath and too high to cowitness the dot, but you can see the front sight through the lens, and it comes off fast if you need to use the irons in a pinch. Starting at the front of the unit, the rotary switch is on/off, the button is the reticle selector, the rocker switch adjusts reticle brightness, and the two dials are windage and elevation.



Here's what the sight picture looks like. Notice that the reticle is focused at infinity, even though the sight itself is out of focus. To me, the neatest thing about this is that I can keep both eyes open when using the sight, even though I am strongly left-eye dominant (I can't do that with traditional scopes). It's also nice that it's more heads-up than most scopes, important for me since I wear glasses.



Here are the other reticles you can choose from, using the selector button on the side:



Prior to settling on the Kobra, I had thought about putting a forward Picatinny rail on the carbine to mount a cheap Wal-Mart red dot low and forward, but the rail alone would cost as much as the Kobra, which is a much better optic than the Wal-Mart optic.


Range report to follow as soon as I can get to the range...


(BTW, for non-gunnies, that's not a real AK-47, which are tightly controlled by Federal law. It's a non-automatic civilian lookalike, a 2002 model SAR-1 that I purchased in 2003.)






---------
Dems and the Gun Issue - Now What? (written in '04, largely vindicated in '06, IMHO)

[krispos42]

1. Excellent post

When I clicked on the post, I though "I wonder if I can get benEzra to take a picture through the sight". Then I scrolled down, and there it was!

I'm kind of surprised that the reticles are white instead of red, though. They usually use red to save your night vision.

Is the sight parallax-free?

[benEzra]

2. The reticles are actually red, but they showed up white in the pictures

because I had the sight turned up a bit much for the ambient light conditions, and I guess it saturated the camera's CCD.

It is supposed to be parallax free, but I haven't tried it at the range yet. The dot is 1.8 arcminute, and I think the chevron is 10 or 15 arcminutes across.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

3. It would be nice if my Kobra had a timer

so it would shut itself off after an hour or so. I keep forgetting to turn it off. I keep extra batteries in my "shooting box", but still ...


(this is just an "old fart" lament - bad memory cell in the brain) :)

Other than that, it's a nice sight.

[benEzra]

4. Yeah, I've thought about that...

70 hours of battery life can go pretty quick if you accidentally leave it on...

[benEzra]

5. UPDATE -- took it to the range today!

Took the rifle and optic to the range today and sighted it in. The closest target position on my local rifle range is 50 yards (which is a bummer, for lots of reasons), but I managed to get the first shot on paper at 50 by setting the rifle on front and rear sandbags, putting the dot on the target, then sliding the optic off the rail without moving the rifle and seeing where the irons were pointing. Decided to go ahead and zero it at 50, which puts the trajectory around 2 inches above the line of sight at 125 yards, and provides a far zero at 195 yards and a 5-inch MPBR of around 225, if I have it figured correctly. Not bad for a low-velocity cartridge with a trajectory like a rainbow, but ironically the Kobra's high sight height (3.8 inches above the bore axis) is a plus, since it allows a much longer MPBR than a lower sight would.

Took me a few minutes to figure out which direction to turn the adjustment screws (the markings are in Russian, but the instructions are very good), but I had it sighted in after a magazine and a half. Finished the last half-magazine offhand, and was really impressed by how much better I can see with it. Unlike any other rifle sighting system I've ever tried, I can aim with both eyes open; I'm strongly left-eye dominant, so I can't do that with traditional scopes or irons, but with the Kobra it's a breeze.

At range, the sight appears to be absolutely parallax free. A small amount of parallax appears at very close range (i.e., across the room distance), but at 20 feet or so it only amounts to about a half inch POI shift from the center of the lens to the edge. At 50 yards, there was no POI shift whatsoever.

All in all, I fired about 50 rounds in 50 minutes, and had a very good time. Had several people stop and peer through the sight or ask about it, and one gentleman even asked me where he could order one for his "AK". A good day.