Bet that thing makes your ears ring.

 

My brother has a 357 like that. It is scary to shoot.

 

We once shot a 5 gallon tomato paste can with it for fun... In the snow.

 

Huge mess.

http://www.opticsplanet.net/best-reddot-sights.html - http://www.opticsplanet.net/best-reddot-sights.html

I love Stoeger, and I think their coach guns are gorgeous, but that "Double Defense" model is a rather silly. 

Absolute bull. Your experience is highly unusual with EOTechs. They're in very wide service militarily in extremely harsh conditions- I used my own personally purchased one while deployed, of an identical model to what we issue (552 A65). I never found it had any trouble keeping up. Nobody I know who's used one has ever had trouble with them in terms of reliability. It's possible you got a couple from a lemo batch, or possibly that they were counterfeits.

The EOTech and the Aimpoint have been torture tested side by side many times, and fairly consistently they come out in a dead heat- the only real variable seems to be what people like in terms of reticules. The EOTech offers some advantage in that you can still use it with the screen partly damaged or occluded. The Aimpoint is a bit smaller in most models. Both can use the flip to side magnifiers. Battery life is so long on both that it simply is not at all an issue. The EOTech has somewhat better physical protection in the metal hood around the screen. The EOTech offers a larger screen for quicker target acquisition under stress, or sub-optimal shooting (e.g., while on the move form a hatch). 

Both are very excellent brands of sights, the EOTech no less so- as evidenced by Trijicon's attempt to imitate what they do, and by the very broad market EOTech enjoys amongst those whose lives literally depend on them.

My rifle early on in the tour. Later on I got gifted an M203, and swapped the crappy flashlight for a proper Surefire M3. I had to ditch the PAQ-4 because once the 203 was added I had nowhere to mount it.

The BUIS was an absolute piece of crap- composite, not actually metal. Fortunately it never became an issue.

At the time I was just a rifleman, not in a leadership role, so I got it- but yes, I wanted it too, just in case I ever needed it.

 

Also Brihard, (this is a serious question, btw) what role do 203's serve in combat? Strictly anti-personnel? Long range frag grenade? Cant say I have noobtubed any terrorists lately myself.

Does the thing (shell?) fired out of an M203 have it's own continuous propulsion? Or is it like having a small mortar on your gun? 

impulse418 wrote: Like a mortar

So there is, essentially, two explosive charges within an M203 ammunition. One pointed out the back which detonates, and the pressure sends the thing out of the tube and at the enemy. The second explosive charge goes BOOM and spreads pellets at the enemy. 

The M203 is a great weapon for *suppressing* an enemy. There's something about explosions that makes people not want to be in or right next to them. If you know that exposing your position is likely to make you the focal point of explosions, you'll be more reticent to shoot- or to move. They can help to fix an enemy while another manoeuvre element flanks them.

I do know a couple guys who had to use the M203 extremely unconventionally. They were in one scrap where the enemy was in a compound less than 50m away. They were using the M203 almost literally as a 40mm mortar, firing in a close to vertical arc to drop rounds over the compound wall. Dangerous as hell for the gunner, but it worked.

In any case, it's a very versatile weapon that gives me, the section commander, the organic ability within my section to make things explode out to 3-400m. We'd likely have a couple of M72s as well, but M203 ammo is easily carried and resupplied.