COMBATSHOP.RU - MAGNUM IN FOCUS

Interior Ministry special forces training camp with a fair trial shoe MAGNUM. 
First week. Next - trip to the UK. To be continued ...

Review: PK-AS (ПК-АС) (by Gruppa-L)

The PK-AS is a versatile, compact and waterproof sight with a rather unique working principle made by BelOMO (БелОМО) in Belarus.
Often people refer to it as reflex sight or red dot which does no justice to its capabilities at all. Why? Take a look at these two photos:

The the ocular and objective have way different diameters. At this point it should be pretty obvious that it is not just another reflex sight. In fact it is uses an extremely complex lens system to increase the field of view. The edges of the scope virtually seem to disappear:

Compared to a regular reflex sight like the Aimpoint CompM2/4 the advantages of this design really begin to show:

• Due to the lens system the visible image takes up 100% of the ocular, you can not see the ‘inside’ of the sight
• The black reticle is always visible, the sight can be used without a battery. So there is no need for backup sights either
• The reticle and the red dot will not get bigger when increasing the distance between the ocular and the eye. Very much like on holographic sights by EOTech, though they use laserlight to archive the same effect.
• The elevation to compensate bullet drop can be changed on the fly

The reticle consist of a 1 MOA black dot enclosed in a elliptical range-finder circle. It is always visible without the use of battery. A 1.5 MOA red dot can be used on demand.

 
There is a different sight which uses the same reticle: The PKS-07 (ПКС-07) sniper scope. The PKS-07 (left photo) is used on the SV98 and sometimes SVD Dragunov rifles. Both are made from the same company in Belarus. In fact the PK-AS is basically a non-magnified version of this scope.
 
To zero the sight in the whole optic is adjusted like on the Elcan Specter DR. It also has an cam wheel for adjusting the elevation in the field. It is marked with different from 0 to 3000 meters. Adjusting the windage on this sight can be a bit tricky. It reminds me a bit of the AK front sight where you have to move it back and forth until its zeroed in correctly.

The sight is powered by two D-357 button batteries for a total of 3V of power. The brightness adjustment knob uses the typical Russian 8 mode off-on-off layout  (0-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-0)

You will often see an additional letter at the end of the label. This refers to the mount base which is used:
The original mount for the PK-AS is off-bore to left, the PK-AS-W (which is the one in this review) has a 22mm mount base. The PK-AS-V uses a centered BP-02 based mount. It should be worth mentioning that the sight itself is screwed onto the different mounts so you can change between these three. I personally only use the W and V mount since I don’t see any benefit in the off-bore mount.

As for now the PK-AS is not adopted by the Russian military, but is in used by gru und police units.

Review: Rusak reflex sight (русак коллиматор) (by Gruppa-L)

 

Russians seem to have a crush for polysemes and ‘the rabbit’ is no exception. Because that’s what rusak/русак means. And indeed it is a very swift sight.

 
I got the sight in a pretty ancient plastic container with a barely readable sticker. Apparently it was made in 1992 by OJSC Kazan Optical and Mechanical Plant (ОАО Казанский оптико-механический завод) and sold for 600 ruble ~ 16€.
Don’t be mislead by the photo, it comes with a 11mm mount only. I milled it off and replaced it with a standard ak side-mount.
These sights were made for the civilian and export market only and cost only around 10€. That is also the reason for the 11mm mount.
 
As you can see the name is written in Latin on this one, which means it is an exported one. It runs on two AA batteries which gives it a nearly infinite battery lifetime. Once I forgot to turn it off and left it running for around four months. Actually I never changed them in the three years I own this sight.
The screw on the right photo is for adjusting the battery compartment for different batteries, since AA batteries vary slightly in their length. You can also see the attached lens cover.
 
The chevron style reticle is very sharp and there is no ghosting or whatsoever. Even magnified (right photo) it looks very consistent.
 
The brightness can be adjusted in nine levels, so you can use it at night and in broad daylight without any issues.
To zero it in you have to loosen the screw and manually adjust the front lens with you fingers. This is the biggest flaw by far of this scope. It really takes some time and flair to get the lens in the right position.

 

Basically this scope is a poor mens cobra. It is cheap and was never meant for shooting beyond 100 meters. However it is rugged and performs well for the ranges it was designed for. I don’t think there is any other sight in that price range which is as capable as this.

Review: R-392 Headset (p392 наушники) (by Gruppa-L)

This is the headset of the R-392 man pack radio. It uses a dynamic microphone as well as a dynamic speaker. This is a typical setup for army radios, since dynamic microphones are more resistant then capacitor or piezo based ones.
However most amateur radios only work with those. So I had put in a piezo microphone in order to get this thing running with my Wouxun KG-UV6D. The speaker is good to go without any modification.

 
The design is rather unique – the microphone rests on the cheekbone. This way the ambient noise is massively reduced. It’s the same working principle throat microphones use. This is obviously a good thing to have for a headset which should work in combat situations with a lot of noise around.
 
(photos taken from: armyradio.com)

The R-392 radio which this headset belongs to was developed in the 1980′s and can be still found in service. It offers 6 fixed frequencies: 44.3, 44.6,44.9, 45.2, 45.8 MHz. The design of the device itself is pretty similar to its predecessor – the R 126.
The radio is carried on the back and often used in the role of a patrol radio.

   

Quantum Physics in Soviet Russia? (by Gruppa-L)

Quantum Physics in Soviet Russia?

So what is it with Quantum Physics and reflecting armbands?!

You have probably seen photos with Russian soldiers or special forces wearing reflecting armbands by Альфа Спецснаряжение already. They are usually worn for quicker identification in assaults or generally close quarter situations. That is why we bought a couple of those for our team.

The first thing that made us wonder was the price. 15$ for a tiny little yellow strap? Well, life’s a bitch.
But when we used them at while playing night the first time I immediately noticed that they seem to glow somehow – they were brighter then you think they should be. Most of the time you could not see anything, but the glowing armband of someone whizzing threw the night. And it is not that kind of glow where you have to charge it up light. It is just permanent bright.

Back at home I fiddled around with different light sources trying to find out what was going on with that thing. I noticed that only blue and UV light made it glow. You can see the effect pretty good on the photo below:

To put it in a nutshell: Blue light contains more energy per photon due to it’s wavelength then green one. The blue light is absorbed by the armband and green light emitted. But due to the energy difference between those two it can emit more green light then it absorbs blue light (in terms of photon count). This leads to the glowing effect. At night the stray light by the moon is enough to cause this effect.
How this happens in detail is pretty magic. The electrons use forbidden band gaps and violate a couple of physical laws. Though I am in my 9th semester of electronic engineering it was still somehow hard to understand.

Some more reference photos for you: