Seen here the white, this is a first look at a Hodge Defense mount design for the new Trijicon Miniature Rifle Optic.
The Dogbone design was devised by Hodge and manufactured by Mega Arms. It’s currently undergoing evaluation by Trijicon for use as a cowitness mount.
“cowitness” man I would hate to see how tall the lower 1/3 is. It looks like it would snap off pretty easy.
I so hope this sight takes after the ACOG and not the RMR in terms of durability. I would love a nice, tough, American made red dot.
Until then Aimpoint is GTG.
I hope the MRO proves to be a great sight as well. As for your assessment of the mount, well, it’s not made from Popsicle sticks.
Question: What do we think is stronger? A machined 7075 I-Beam or the 8×32 threads in the housing of the sight?
The mount is never the weak part in any of these sights.
Bingo
He beat me to it. You do realize there is a reason skyscrapers use I beams and not square beams right? Not an Engineer but I have drank with a few and they tell me that design is plenty strong in the strength to weight ratio. GREAT point on the screws though. Would love to see some shielding to direct an impact into the mount and away from the optic.
Bat signal for some eight pound brain engineer dude (or gal, gotta be PC).
I was there when LAV blew up a Subaru with an Aimpoint T1 mounted to a DDM4 inside. That car went sailing and we found the T1 up a hill about 100 yards away. It still worked but the screws had been stripped from the mount which was still on the carbine.
Yep – the mount isn’t the issue at all. It’s how it attaches to the optic. As for the new Trijicon I hope it’s good enough to motivate Aimpoint to do a version of the Micro as a companion to the Patrol Rifle Optic- a $450 street price Micro; at that point we will all be happy !!
Sorry, I can’t leave this one alone.
1. I-beams are only structurally strong with a moment (torque) applied along the length of the beam. This is due to the high I (second area moment) which is influenced by the large area far away from the center cross section (provides light-weight and good resistance from bending, great for buildings). With a torque folding the web (the center flat part of the beam), yes it is weaker. A lot weaker, but they look to be countering that with a slight taper in the profile and it’s material properties.
2. The screws on the other hand are always a recognized weakness in any design. If at all possible, they’re avoided since they create holes which are points of stress concentrations. The screw itself is more susceptible to failing in shear (imagine the screw being a block of cheese and it getting cut in half between threads) and tension (pulling apart). The 4 8-32 screws have a redundancy in that if one fails you still have 3 to keep the optic in place. Properly torqued though, there really shouldn’t be an issue.
@SSD, the example you provide was probably shearing, the amount of explosive pressure and vibration was high enough to just break it apart. You really can’t expect those little guys to hold on through everything.
3. As for the shielding, you’re adding unnecessary weight for little benefit. You smash it once and then the shielding becomes defective and could potentially damaged the rest of the mount.
TL;DR: Looks fine. Like anything, bang it too hard and it’ll break.
The screws in the MRO are a 4-48 thread pitch, not 8-32…
ssd,im broke and you always show cool stuff when im broke ….
I think you’ve got a little time to raise some cash.
That design looks like it would be easy to design a thin spacer and get lower 1/3 co-witness too.
If it’s not going to be qd, I’d rather just stick with the Trijicon oem mount.
There isn’t a Cowitness one yet.
This will be an option for folks but I will wait until Bobro comes out with a QR mount for the MRO.
Shane
Yes, we have three OEM mounts. Low, co-witness, and 1/3.
Apparently, I misunderstood when I spoke with the guys last week at Ft Bragg.
Guys, just wait till you see the new Rogers QD mount for this MRO. The Trijicon Engineering Team is evaluating it now. The Price will be very highly competitive. Like all Rogers products, it was tested at the Rogers Shooting School and so far all the Tier One guys like it.
I don’t understand the advantage of the increased height over bore? As I understand it, a shooter wants the center of the optic as close as he can have it to the line of bore.
Anybody care to share some professional insights?
Grab an AR 15 and look at the height your eye is at with a proper cheek weld. That is why the sights are as high as they are.