So… what would the next generation of the last round
indicator or round counter look like. What would be the best thing?
There are a few trains of thought. Either keep-it-simple and make it
non-battery powered, make it a tactile thing, make it a visual indicator, or
make it a wiz bang electronic thing.
A true last round indicator, the next generation, would
probably be a tactile last round indication. To make it tactile you have to
feel it in your hands somewhere. Either on the grip or in the trigger
pull. And that would just tell you that you are down to your last round.
An indicator that affects the trigger pull… well that may
have some pros or cons. Hard to say. Anything that affects a
trigger pull could be kind of a hard thing to deal with in a liability
sense. Something that could make a trigger pull a little harder?
Maybe when you need it on your last round that’s theoretically when it’s going
to pop up. Would that make you think and stop and not shoot that last
round? Who knows? What do you want to feel if you’re pulling your
trigger? Do you want to make it feel harder? Do you want to make it
feel gritty? Do you want to make it go to two stages? Maybe two
stages would be the deal but then you really have to have some mechanics that
would make the springs change or something in the geometry change to make it
actually go and say “Ok my single stage trigger now goes to two stages and oh
that means I’m down to my last round”. What’s really
noticeable? That would need to have some research. And then you
still want to have the mechanics stay simple in order to be a tactile last
round indicator. So that the thought on that. The tactile last
round indicator needs to be something you can feel.
You don’t have a lot of motion on your hand unless something
like pops out somewhat on the grip so it kind of makes it fall to the
trigger. Another tactile thing which is not necessarily something you
would feel but something you would see would be something that pops up and
blocks your site. But you’re not always going to be looking at your
sites. That was something we thought about in the first generation.
Something purely mechanical in the sense would be something that would block
the sites or pop up and pop down when you replaced the magazine or something
and be noticeable that way. No it seems like the better execution and
design would be something that actually you could feel. And being that
your trigger finger does a lot of motion it would probably be something that
your trigger finger would feel. That’s the thoughts on the tactile last
round indicator as far as the next generation.
As far as the next generation electronic last round
indicator it would be a little more applicable to maybe a rifle sense or it
would be a red dot pistol. It would be something that would have to be
electronic and so small that it would fit with an RDS Site/Red Dot Site.
And it would have to be something that would be added to the dot site that
would actually project either a blinking dot on the screen or it would project
a number count on the screen. The blinking dot might be easy to execute
with small LEDs or something that you could see on the screen. But the
numbers would be a lot more challenging and a lot more interesting to have
something that could either count the rounds you’ve just shot or count down on
the rounds you’ve just shot. But that not only entails adding a numeric
display or a LED display into somewhere that would be projected on the screen
of your site. It would entail the use of a sensor as well in your
magazine. Something that would be magnetic or somehow register each
firing of the weapon. Something to that effect.
Hard to say how dependable that would be. One that
would count each shot would be very dependable as far as saying how many is
shot. One that would be tailored to count down how many rounds you have
might not be as good. Maybe a combination of the two. Something
that would count the shots that you fire and then you could make a setting
knowing that you load fifteen (15) rounds in each magazine, when the sixteenth
round comes up, which would be in the stove pipe, (fifteen (15) plus one(1))
. Maybe that could be something that could be worked in. but it would be
a little more complicated to do.
So interesting thoughts. There are some things to
overcome on what would be the next generation. Weather it would be a
tactile one or be an electronic one. Each has its own advantages and it
would be interesting to be able to do both.
