Tracking Point officials sent me this beauty shot of their networked tracking scope mounted on the Army’s newest sniper rifle.
In January, we reported that the Army had purchased six Tracking Point systems for testing.
“While we don’t know the depth to which the system will be tested, we can showcase the platform it is on, including our working in-house version,” Tracking Point officials said. “Our networked tracking scope and guided trigger are integrated with the XM 2010 enhanced sniper rifle for military testing purposes.”
Tracking Point emerged a little over a year ago. Its performance at SHOT Show 2014 was impressive. You look through this very large optic. You put your red dot onto the target. You push a red button on the right side of the trigger guard to tag it.
Then the red dot drops below the target. You bring it back up just below the tag. You then squeeze the trigger, but the rifle doesn’t fire until you put the red dot over the tag. As soon as it’s lined up, the weapon fires.
The system includes a Linux-powered computer in the scope with sensors that collect imagery and ballistic data such as atmospheric conditions, cant, inclination, even the slight shift of the Earth’s rotation known as the Coriolis effect. Because the computer is wireless-enabled, information can be streamed to a laptop, smart phone or tablet computer for spotting or to share intelligence.
Tracking point officials maintain that the technology was never intended for snipers but more for the average shooter, who might need to engage a target at sniper range.
As you might have guessed, Tracking Point is expensive. These guns range in cost from about $10,000 for scope-and-trigger kits installed on semi-automatic Daniel Defense rifles accurate to about 750 yards, to between $22,000 and $27,000 for those installed on bolt-action Surgeon rifles accurate to about 1,250 yards. The kits can also be installed on other types of firearms.
