Tag Archives: what optic Marines use

Marines make do with refurb’d ACOGs

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A U.S. Marine with 2d Battalion, 8th Marines, zeros his rifle during a live fire range as a part of a Service Level Training Exercise (SLTE) on Marine Corps Air-Ground Combat Center, Twentynine Palms, California, July 21, 2023. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance. Joshua Kumakaw)

Michigan-based Trijicon recently picked up an eight-figure contract from the Marine Corps Logistics Command.

The Marines widely use the Trijicon 4×32 TA31 ACOG as the service’s Rifle Combat Optic on its M16 and M4 platforms, a practice made standard in 2008 after the acquisition of some 104,000 of the devices, leaving iron sights behind almost altogether after 2011. The service also utilizes smaller numbers of Trijicon’s VCOG 1-8×28 LPVO, primarily on its HK-made M27 IAR platform, turning it into an ersatz DMR.

The new $20,702,792 contract stipulates that Trijicon will provide “all materials, labor, equipment, facilities, and necessary repair or replacement parts required to inspect, diagnose, test, and restore RCOs to a fully mission-capable condition.” The work will be performed at Trijicon’s Wixom, Michigan, with an expected completion date of June 2030.

The Corps had previously issued a $41 million repair contract to Trijicon for legacy ACOGs in 2020, which expired earlier this year.

While the Army also uses the ACOG, that service is currently fielding a $2.7 billion contract with Wisconsin-based Vortex for up to 250,000 XM157 Next Generation Squad Weapons-Fire Control systems. These optics will be used on the M7 rifle and M250 machine gun, 6.8x51mm platforms set to replace the 5.56 NATO-caliber M4 carbine and M249 Squad Automatic Weapon.

Marines sticking with their ACOGs for a while

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The Marine Corps Logistics Command last week announced that Michigan-based Trijicon has won a $41 million contract to remanufacture the Corps’ ACOGs.

The Devils evaluated the ACOG as the Rifle Common Optic (RCO) in the early 2000s and, after a recruit training company on Parris Island in 2011 using the optics produced 30 percent more rifle experts than the average company, moved to purchase upwards of 115,000 RCOs for general use.

The newer VCOG will be the SOC, with some 19,000~ acquired over the next few years, but the rest of the force will still be rocking ROCs (ACOGs)

And, even though they will be augmented by the newer Trijicon VCOG 1-8×28 as the service’s new Squad Common Optic (SCO), the RCO will likely endure for at least another decade or more.

More details in my column at Guns.com.

Meet the new Squad Common Optic

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The U.S. Marine Corps just selected Wixom, Michigan’s Trijicon to supply the service’s new Squad Common Optic.

The Marines describe the SCO as a “magnified day optic that improves target acquisition and probability-of-hit with infantry assault rifles.” Using a variable power non-caliber-specific reticle with an illuminated or nonilluminated aim-point, users can identify their targets from farther distances than the current Rifle Common Optic (RCO)– the Trijicon ACOG 4×32.

“The SCO supplements the attrition and replacement of the RCO Family of Optics and the Squad Day Optic for the M27, M4 and M4A1 weapon platforms for close-combat Marines,” said Tom Dever, interim team lead for Combat Optics at Marine Corps Systems Command.

The glass selected for the SCO program is Trijicon’s VCOG 1-8×28. The waterproof (to 66 feet) optic has a 7075-T6 aluminum housing and a first focal plane reticle that allows subtensions and drops to remain true at any magnification.

More in my column at Guns.com.