iPod Touch mounted on M110 Sniper Rifle
We have seen some cool iPhone applications come out for shooting sports. But nothing comes close to the sheer awesomeness of the Knights Armaments M110 iPod Touch mount and accompanying ballistics software.
The M110 is the 7.62x51mm semi-automatic sniper system which won the Army’s competition to replace the aging M24 bolt action sniper system. While it will not replace the M24 in the near future, the system is seeing action in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The rifle is based on the SR-25, which in turn is based on the Stoners’ AR-10 design.
Knights Armaments have developed a mounting system for the iPod Touch that attaches to a side mounted picatinny rail. The mount attaches to an Otterbox protective case.
Click to expand. Photo ⓒ Chen “SMGLee” Lee. Used with permission.
Click to expand. Photo ⓒ Chen “SMGLee” Lee. Used with permission.
KAC contracted Runaway technologies to build an external ballistics calculator for the iPod Touch / iPhone named Bullet Flight. It is your standard ballistics application. You can set firearm / ammunition profiles, then call up the saved profile and enter your environment information, for example, distance, wind direction, elevation and temperature.
The application is available from the iTunes store for $11.99. It is a lot more expensive than the $4.99 iSnipe application.
We may yet see an iPhone on the battlefield 
Simply beautiful.
That’s an awesome piece of kit. (Conceptually)
Hopefully I’ll have the opportunity to try that out at some point when I visit the states, but until then I’ll just have to stick to admiring it from afar.
Is it shock isolated to prevent hard drive death from the recoil?
Reach out and touch someone.
@Fred
That iPod model doesn’t have a hard drive, so no worries there.
One thing that concerns me about that design is that in low light conditions it is likely to illuminate the person operating the weapon.
A lot of a sniper’s efforts are spent on concealment, which might be negated by having a backlit screen attached the weapon.
Another issue with low light conditions is that the comparably bright screen of an iPod touch or iPhone might dazzle the operator, leaving him effectively blind.
Something that could be a huge benefit would be to add a filter that would bring down the brightness of the screen, and add a feature to allow the software to run in a monochrome mode. (red or green only, for instance?)
That should reduce the amount of light shining on the operator of the weapon, as well as prevent dazzling more than one type of light receptor in the eye.
NaOH, they need a low light mode. Turns the brightness down and switches to monochrome with red text on black background.
Steve: I agree. Although I think even the lowest brightness of the iPhone/iPod touch is too bright for truly low light conditions. (Think moonless night with cloud cover.)
A simple filter that would clip into place over the screen ought to solve that problem. I suspect the manufacturers of the bracket would be the obvious people to make that.
Also, the monochrome mode should hopefully match the colour used by any light amplification equipment that the sniper might be using. Green seems to be the popular choice.
Very cool. I bought it just to play with on my iPhone. I see they are already working on an upgrade for known problems. But they say the upgrade will be free.
I would suspect that this is not for use in theater, and would not replace a spotter. Where it would help is in competition and to set up a new scope and rifle combo at the range, or test new loads.
Just a quick update, I’ve got the software installed on my phone and am goofing with it now. It’s pretty easy to add additional rifles and calibers. It’s simple to add zero range, bullet speed, weight, BC and scope height.
I will compare the read out from this program to some other programs I have and see how it compares. Unfortunately it will be March before I can actually field test the program.
GOD BLESS THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Wonder if it can handle the tiny ballsitics of my favorite squirrel slayer, the 17HMR
I can see it now. Forget to put the phone on silent. You’re sneaking behind enemy lines at night. The phone rings. The display lights up your face in the middle of the dark field like an illuminated bullseye…
Greg, haha, yes, but imagine the comedy value in a movie. “Yes, Mr President, I am busy right now”
HMRSniper, it would be! Ballistics are the same from .10 (yes they come that small) to .50 and beyond.
WHY WOULD YOU DO SUCH A THING???
It appears BulletFlight did not include a mildot range calculator. (?)
I wonder if there is an NVG filter for an iPod to prevent blinding the shooter
*sigh* It amazes me just how much time and ingenuity some people will apply to the task of killing other human beings.
Go do something productive with your life.
“Today I performed my duties as an Operative.” – HHGTTG
@Jeremy
“Go do something productive with your life.”
What makes you think this thing will be useful for anything other than hobbyists? “OH NO IT INVOLVES GUNS AND GUNS MEAN KILLING!”
Get over yourself.
Jeremy, this system has significant sporting utility. The calculations needed for ballistics are the same if you are sniper, a hunter or a target shooter.
Jeremy, As a recreational shooter, this is an interesting app. I’m interested to hear what Heath has to say about it after some testing.
[Ed: lets keep it friendly ]
:Sometime in the future, in Iraq:
“Let’s see….range….air temperature….windspeed….” *ringtone* “Hello…..Mom? Look, I can’t talk right now….I’m at work. Ok….love you too…bye.” *BLAM!*
Everyone is worried about th ebacklight being too bright or stuff my main concern would be if someone rings you in the middle of a sniper fire with the iphone ring tone “INCOMING” whhheeeuuuooaahhh. and it needs to be waterproof aswell
Robbie, why, do you snipe underwater ?
Just joking
ipod touch makes for fast development but what they need is to embed the sensors from a suunto watch like this:
http://www.amazon.com/Highgear-20037-Altimeter-Chronograph-Temperature/dp/B000BBGQEM/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1232507667&sr=8-3
then instead of entering the variables, everything but windspeed would be taken care of.
The damn phone cant send a picture or does it have copy/paste. Priorities people priorities…
Jeremy, foreign policy arguments aside, this would be extremely impractical for military operations. While the otterbox may provide some ruggedization, the iPod/iPhone still probably wouldn’t survive a lot of operational missions. It has no nightvision capabilities and even if it did the screen would be bright to begin with before launching the app.
So don’t worry, terrorists will be safe from iPods and iPhones facilitated deaths for the foreseeable future. You can put your Che t-shirt back on and drag your feet back to Berkeley.
I want one! Maybe I can even use it to teach Jeremy how to shoot and convert my fifth person this year!
It’s fun to make bullets go where you want them to. iDevices are fun. Apple should make a sniper rifle–it would be beautiful. You’d deploy it with your mat and it would autozero, autorange, autowindage, autocompensate and pull its own trigger. Might even dispense an espresso.
FOX News mentioned you.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,481004,00.html#
shoot now use the iphone later
a really sniper don’t need that piece of crap. the real ones just shoot
It’s shocking the amount of people on here who don’t realise the ipod touch is not a phone.
The real snipers don’t “just shoot”. They know the ballistics of the bullet before they pull the trigger. Range estimation, angle of fire, bullet drop, ballistic coefficent, drag, wind speed, etc. are all figured in. It doesn’t matter if it’s done with a paper taped on the stock or another, more high-tech way. It needs to be done before the trigger is pulled. The high-tech way leaves less to chance. It’s a good thing, in my view.
Guys, the iPod Touch is NOT a phone, so there is no worries about getting a call in the middle of combat, that functionality does not exist.
The screen brightness can be a genuine issue, but with a low light level setting, a screen filter, and maybe even a hood, this can be mitigated.
Waterproofing is a must for real-world use in an operational capacity. Maybe the housing that holds the unit can be sealed with a rubber O-Ring for water resistance, but the screen and controls must be exposed, so I doubt that any real waterproofing can be accomplished.
There is no hard drive, so shock is not an issue. It used flash memory which is basically a solid state drive. Just memory chips, no moving parts. I’d be more worried about battery life in the field. These things don’t have field replaceable batteries, so when you run low, how do you charge?
This looks like a neat application for the iPod.
I wrote a ballistics program for the PalmOS devices (anyone still use those) several years ago. The primary intent was to be able to carry it with me when out shooting varmints at extended ranges. The ballistic tables I could print from the desktop computer never seemed to match the environmental conditions found when out in the field and this tuned out to be the perfect solution.
Since I only used a couple of calibers (.308 and .50) with only a couple of loads in each, so there wasn’t a huge effort put on creating a library of ballistics parameters. As such, it is pretty much set up for one load and the parameters entered are saved between power cycles.
If you have an older PalmOS device, you are welcome to download and use it. It’s free even.
Go to the web site at http://www.dt-concepts.com. In the left-hand frame, click on MISCELLANEOUS then, when the main screen loads, click on the PBX – Portable Ballistic Xtrapolation link.
Randy Smith
Defensive Training Concepts, Inc.
The real question becomes how much does the Knights Armaments mounting system and Otterbox protective case cost. The 11.99 or 4.99 app is definitely the cheap part of the equation…
I’ve got an AR-15 that I do tactical shooting competitions with, and also own an iPhone. I’d see this mostly as a conversation starter and something to put in that open position.
I’m a little concerned about the shock from firing the weapon in regard to the sensitive electronics in the phone. I understand that it doesn’t have a hard drive, and uses solid state memory; however if the shock from constantly dropping your phone can damage it, then what about the free-float mounting system the phone would be mount to?
Some of the environmental information should be able to be collected by an iPhone/Touch assuming that where you are shooting has a cell/data connection available. It could then pull temperature, wind speed/direction, humidity etc from a weather reporting source. These apps should have the option to try and get the information automatically, or manual input. I just cant imagine it would take much effort to add said programming to achieve that automated functionality into these applications.
A long-range shooter knows the bullet drop per 100 yds and bullet drift per 5 mph side wind for the range he’s using. He estimates range/wind, adjusts either the sights or sighting point, and squeezes slowly. He doesn’t do any calculations, other than in his head, before he touches off.
Nice for hunting though. Turn off the key clicks, mute the ringer, tap the range and kuhblammo, venison for the freezer (the non-Knights app is nicer).
@Maffers
Damn, you beat me to it. lol
For everyone complaining about the light, in Afghanistan and Iraq during the day, no problamo. Lots of light anyway. At night, well, night vision scope and left eye monocular for looking at the screen, with it’s back light turned almost off.
Randy, very cool. I have a Palm although I have not used it in years. I think I will fire it up and try your app.
Yea right another gear that emit radiation to get detected before the shot…. I don’t think so Mickey
The KAC application for the iPhone is pretty weapon specific but the concept is right on for a dedicated systems support package. For general use there are better ones available in the AppStore. In concept, it’s a useful compaction of the PDA + GPS in a little Pelican hard case combo one finds packed into the field kits of many military snipers because the iPhone is a computer with a built in GPS. And you can potentially text message a fire support/air support request if you had to … with the GPS reference points and a photo no less. Also don’t discount the leverage of doing the BGZ’s on each of the rifles/scopes in a unit and sharing the data by s/n among all personnel and from unit to unit for rotations. The 3G gives you a max range of 44 miles from the cell location. Don’t laugh at that thought. Remember that the first real cell communications equipment was the stuff fielded by the British Army of the Rhine back in the Cold War era. Those were beefy shock and rad hard cell phones with moving armored cell repeaters. What goes around, comes around. All kinds of potential here for next generation warriors. I like what I see.
All that’s missing is a facial recognition and a camera-mounted on the view-finder.
Yuri, very cool
Thanks for letting me know.
You’re getting notice every day Steve!
that how we do it here in the U.S.A
Long range sniping requires a lot of data and calculations. At very long distances, the earth’s spin and curvature are added to the mix.
The Barrett BORS system bolts onto the leupold scope and provides most data, except wind speed. DARPA is looking at ways of measuring wind speed at various locations between the gun and target.
The BORS is about $7k, I think.
So, a $12 program on an iPod or iPhone that helps is an affordable start. Of course, there are complex scenarios. What is the negative lead and elevation shooting off a 40 mph convoy vehicle at 90 degrees? Or a 800m shot at a target on the 15th floor?
The ideal sight would collect all info and calculate the ballistic solution, but right now there is no all-in-one sight yet.
I do think the iPhone with some tweaking could be an interesting tool. See the satellite view of your terrain and a secure link showing all your squad. Have all the report formats in templates with auto-calc.
And you know what, you probably don’t need a mounting system, except for conveinance.