MTC Optics Connect-01 prismatic scope part 1

[Parabuteo]

My apologies to anyone thinking you were going to get a super tech review…you won’t . But some may be wondering if the connect is any good. I think it is, but please remember the one I have is a very early ex demo model, so any oddities I pick up on may not be there on the next batch.

I actually had a Connect-01 scope from MTC optics on sale or return, and, as Gary says, it’s a Marmite scope. You either love it or hate it, which is why I was given the option to return it if I didn’t get on with it. You cannot say fairer than that, cheers Gary.

I gave 3 oppo’s a chance to shoot with it. One loved it, said you couldn’t miss. The other refused point blank to even have a go..Which was nice! (I will have him beaten up later) .

Picking the unit up it just exudes Soviet. I have handled quite a lot of Soviet kit (courtesy of dear old Sadam) and this falls into the same bracket. It’s a multi tool. If you run out of ammo, you can beat the enemy/quarry to death with it.

Personally, sad as it seems, it was this quality that made me persevere with it.

It has to be said, the evening I got it home, I had a look through it and hated it. I could not see me getting on with it whatever.

The following day, I took the beast out on the range, and it changed my mind, leaving me with a rather cheesy grin (and I don’t smile much) but more of that later.

The hardware

It is reassuringly heavy 0.88 kg), and just screams robust. It has what appears to be 3 turrets. On closer inspection, you have the 2 ret adjusting turrets (under some serious metal covers) and a rheostat for the IR on the left.

The instructions mention that the rotation of the turrets are opposite to normal. If you are used to dialling shots then I suppose it matters, but the turrets have a L/R and U/D arrow which correspond as expected.

I would suspect that the turrets can be re-set for BDC, and the click system is…well…clicky. It works as it should.

The whole sight comes in a neatly matt blacked package, with a single piece mount included, and a plastic flip open lens cover. On the top of the mount is a weaver rail which would no doubt serve to mount a Corsak laser on.

The cover can be rotated so suit your needs. I found that as fitted it reflected light back into the scope, as it was against the magazine of the rifle, so I moved it so it opened down and right, well out of the way. I intend putting an aiming point Aid Memoir on mine in black with white text so it can be seen with the cover open.

There is an eye piece into which you push your eye (if you don’t, you wont get the advantage of the scary FOV on this sight) the eye piece on mine was rather loose and floppy. I cut down a Bisley unit to give me a tight gripping collar, and one section of bellows. The supplied unit just pops over this and stays put beautifully. I then punched some holes in the bellows to help avoid misting, although to be fair, you don’t spend a lot of time with your eye to the scope (that said, it does make a good observation aid too, so it’s still worth avoiding misting if you can).

This feature highlights one potential problem you would not like to work out by accident….do not put the bloody thing on a recoiling rifle…you will regret it. This one is strictly for the recoilless rifles.

MTC feature a succinct and clear warning on the front page of the scope’s instructions, so don’t come running if you get it wrong….right?

The IR unit has a large rheostat on the left hand side of the scope, marked 1-5.

Oddly (and it had me, I thought the battery was a dud initially), setting 5 gives the lowest brightness, and 1 the highest. Either way, once you are aware of this, it is not a problem. The IR is nice and crisp and seems not to spill like some other IR’s out there.

It has a dull orange glow which is just enough to highlight the crosshairs against the background. This is a feature I will be using as the low light capability of the connect is an impressive feature.

The unit runs on the seemingly standard CR2032 coin cell, commonly found in PC’s as a memory back up battery.

Using the beastie

Mounting is a doddle. Simply chuck it on the rails and do up the large allen headed bolts. Be careful that any allen key is seated well and a good fit, as the holes in the bolts are not overly deep, and the key may come free damaging the heads slightly.

Because of the minimum eye relief (quoted as 16mm), the sight may need mounting as far back as it will go on most rifles. Certainly on my AA410k, it is right at the back.

This can seem a little odd, and the head positioning is a challenge to start with, but once you get used to it, it works nicely. Another spin off is that the weight is right back over the receiver of the rifle, so it does not seem to upset the balance at all.

I would see this sight suiting rifles with an adjustable cheek piece, although it seems to work well with my TH stock.

One thing that hits you straight away is the brighness and clarity of the optics. Once focussed correctly, the reticule appears stamped on your eye ball. It is imperative that you get the ocular lens focussed as finely as you can manage, and it may require re-focussing again after zeroing. The manufacturers suggest you look at the ret for only a few seconds at a time. I kept my left eye open which also seemed to help.

The last time I had a sight with this pointability was an old singlepoint sight in the early 80s.

To focus the ocular end, you have to remove the rubber eye cup, rotate the internal ocular focussing collar, and then tighten the locking screw. The locking screw had no effect on my example, although the lens stays put nicely anyway.

I put the rifle on a bipod and just printed out single ragged hole groups with magazines at a time. It was a formality. The sight is fixed at 10x, which may seem a lot to some, but oddly, with the wide FOV you don’t really notice movement in the same way as with a normal scope at the same mag.

My kneeling shooting is definitely better as a result, not just because of the mag illusion, but also due to what seems like a better, tighter head position.

My initial attempts on a rabbit’s life were comical. Because the ret appears to be quite small (although it is a full size ret). Mr Brain (such as it exists) went into range finding mode and told the targeting computer it was at about 45y. The round went hissing over bug’s head…and bugs buggered off…sensible things rabbits.

During the post mortem, it became obvious that the clarity and detail were fantastic…there was just more of it. The rabbit had been in glorious sharp Technicolor, brain had just assumed it was further away…oops...its been a while sinc I have used a mill dot scope

I have taken several rabbits with it since. One, a pearler, round the corner of a building kneeling at 35y. Clean smack on strike. It looked like the thing was right in front of me.

I picked up another running in and was able to track it easily until it paused….silly wabbit. I would not have managed that with an SR6, I simply would not have been able to pick it up quick enough. It’s a combat sight for airguns, and it works.

Another laugh is reaching for the parallax collar…some bugger has nicked it and the hand is waving in mid air. The scope is so short, and so far back, that the focus collar is where the turrets usually are. You soon get used to it, and the image snaps sharply into focus easily when required, right down to the advertised 4m (I know, because I shot at 5m to see how much hold over you need).

The ret itself is a rather nice MP-8 tactical reticule, particularly ideal I would suspect for the .22 shooter.

It is a mill…err…stadia line rather than dot, in that it has no dots just stadia lines. It has ½, 1, and 5 mill lines which add greater flexibility to the scope.

Being used to an SR6 scope, I quite like this, although as a .177 user, the usefulness of the ret for aiming points was more limited than for .22.

That said, I did shoot a string of shots at 5yard intervals at a common horizontal (moving slightly right for each shot) from 5 yards to 50 yards and the max distance between centres from 15-45yards was 18mm. The 10m point was a further 10mm lower, with the 5m being down about 40mm down from the horizontal.

The 50 yard shots were 2 off. I was perched on a load of broken rubble (ran out of range, someone needs to mow the bloody grass) and it was getting quite blowy, so I shot 2 to make sure.

The more astute of you will notice that neither the 35 nor 20 yard shots hit the line…it was a rush job as the wind was getting up, so you will need to use your imagination. Either way, most of the useful ranges fall in pretty close.

As GC stated in his proper, technically correct, review; the sight seems to suit the longer ranges better. I would agree with this, because if I get it right, the 50yd aim point is only about 11/4 mills hold over, whereas the 10m is just under 2, and the 5m a whacking 7. I was aware of needing something like the hold over for 50y for the short range shots, but not at much as this.

I have produced a little aid memoir with the aiming points on it for my rifle printed on photographic paper, hopefully, it will work, but can be easily adjusted using word.

Bugger...run out of space...please fast forward to part Deux


Chris Ballard.

Link to Gary Coopers review

http://www.rusmilitary.com/html/c-optics_press.htm