Off Duty, Technology - Navy Times

Find of the day: Death around the corner

ORLANDO, Fla. — Warning: Objects in mirror are closer to death than they appear.

Until now, shooting accurately from around a corner meant either spraying and praying or risking your neck (and head and shoulders).

But with the ParaScope Urban Combat Sight, you can see the bad guy around the corner long before he ever knows you’re coming.

This shockingly simple device — a five-sided prism inside a rotating box with rear and side viewing ports — puts a periscope on top of a Picatinny 1913 rail-equipped rifle. All you have to expose to get off a well-aimed shot is your rifle, not your head.

Requiring no power source, zeroing or calibration, the ParaScope is today’s find of the day at SHOT Show — the four-day Shooting, Hunting, Outdoor Trade Show and Conference here.

The ParaScope is being sold by Harrisonburg, Va.-based Tactical & Survival Specialties Inc. It was developed by MTC Technologies of Dayton, Ohio, with funding from the Army’s Communications-Electronics Command and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Because it requires no power source, the quick-release unit is surprisingly lightweight and does not interfere with most other rail-mounted sights, scopes and laser designators, according to Rich Frank of TSSI. Gun sights — including those by Eotech, Aimpoint and Trijicon, for example — marry well with the ParaScope, though some require that the device be mounted forward of the gun sight instead of behind, Frank said.

But either way, the ParaScope doesn’t interfere with your optical device or iron sights. After shouldering a rubber rifle at SHOT Show with the ParaScope and a gun-sight mounted on top, we found that the sight picture was clear and that there were no significant differences in what we saw through the rear and side viewing ports.

As an added bonus, the ParaScope rotates to allow you to fire accurate shots from cover with your rifle pointed straight up or straight down. That feature is sure to prove useful in close-quarters combat in multi-story buildings — you can fire from a ladder well at an enemy on the landing above or below you.

The device also could prove useful on the marksmanship range, Frank said, as the side viewing ports would let coaches see exactly what a trainee is looking at through his sights, eliminating the guesswork in trying to correct subtle mistakes.

Expected to sell for $1,000, the ParaScope will be sold only to military and law enforcement personnel and will be available through the military supply system, according to Everett Smith of TSSI. Production is expected to begin within 60 days.

For more information, visit www.tacsurv.com.

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