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HITECH Optical Systems
Straight Line Technology (SLT) is a concept applied to all our scopes and mounts from the first design sketch through the finished product. The result is what we call HITECH scopes and mounts.
That sounds simple enough: take a design idea, apply down-to-earth principles through development and manufacturing, then market the product as the best in the world because those principles - and SLT - were followed. That is true of HITECH scopes and mounts. There is more to the story than that. Much more.
It started in 1988, when a design team was formed in Michigan by Phil Martel. By then, P.C. Martel was already well experienced in design work. He had founded DC Engineering, Inc. fifteen years earlier, in 1973.
The “PC Dream Team” was formed to put Phil Martel's Internation & US Patents and his many dynamic ideas into every day-practice. The PC Team is still working together today. And it remains the backbone of every HITECH product.
The P.C. Martel design team includes Martel family members whose experience in design, manufacturing, and engineering is second to none. Many in the industry regard the Martels as leaders in this kind of design work in the United States.
That brings us to Straight Line Technology as it applies to scope mounts. Original thinkers have a dream. The Dream Team’s goal was to design mounts on P.C.’s ideas and give those ideas a working form. That is how SLT was born.
HITECH scopes and mounts are built to be the straightest you are likely to buy. They are designed to eliminate torque flexing by incorporating SLT.
Imagine independent rings manufactured perfectly straight, perfectly aligned, and perfectly round - lapped, shimmed, and/or bedded. How would you then know that the scope and the base have no run-out, without spending a great deal of time on precision measuring equipment that many gunsmiths do not always have? And when they do have the equipment, It again can becomes very time comsuming and expensive for the average shooter!
Once you start working in alignment and straightness, the problem becomes obvious. If a scope is torque-flexed in misaligned rings, the optical line of sight is under stress and accuracy suffers. If both the scope and the rings are not straight, the trouble is doubled. Add a misaligned base and you have a real mess.
Between shots, as the rifle comes to rest under shock, recoil, and vibration, the optical center can relax into another position. The line of sight changes, and the next shot goes out.
In testing, a riflescope only needs to move one thousandth of an inch at any time on the rifle - about one-third the thickness of a human hair - to put the next shot a full inch off the previous hit at 100 meters/yards.
SLT starts from a fact of manufacturing: nothing is perfectly straight, and alignment is never totally correct. The design compensates for that. “Pulling” to all centers, no matter where they fall in a world that is not perfectly straight, is the answer. The fundamentals of SLT are exact - true in theory and true in practice.
When SLT is put to work, the results are striking. Unlike independent rings or horizontally split cap-type rings, all HITECH scope mounts are vertically split and integrally bridged from front to back. That lets the mount align evenly along its length and pull to the true center of the scope and the true center of the base. This patented design works. Add the optional quick-disconnect feature - also patented, and the fastest we know of - and you have both speed and accuracy.
Benefit 1. In testing HITECH mounts we found that shimming, bedding, and lapping were unnecessary. Scopes right out of the box were already on paper at 100 meters/yards. (See the testing notes below.)
Benefit 2. Accuracy tests were the surprise. Firearms that could not hold tight groups with other well-known equipment shot twice as tight, and tighter still, with HITECH mounts. SLT paid off in a big way.
Riflescopes sold today are mostly set to optical neutral at the factory. That means the center of the reticle is very close optically to dead center relative to the scope body. Windage and elevation turrets then move that point in measured clicks (for example, 1/4 inch at 100 yards).
In numerous tests, HITECH mounts were near dead-on at 100 meters/yards without touching the scope's turret adjustments. Only minor movement from the factory-neutral setting was needed.
On a large percentage of rifles, including the AR-15 flat top, hit points were within one inch of dead center without changing windage or elevation from factory neutral.
On handle-model AR-15s, the same result was reached with a slight downhill adjustment of the HITECH base. That base was the first we know of that adjusts elevation up or down with no special tools or shims, and is self-adjusting for lateral alignment. The HITECH base and its applications have been patented.
Firearms that could not shoot tight groups in earlier tests grouped more than twice as tight. Through-the-same-hole shots became a regular result with HITECH scopes and mount designs.
After thousands of hours of design, testing, development, and a number of U.S./International patents, HITECH scopes and mounts with SLT design factors are what the accuracy dream is about. We invite you to try them and see it for yourself.
In testing, additional accuracy was gained by using our HITECH under-rail on the detachable carrying handle as used on the flat top - about 1/2 of an inch better groups with the detachable handle than without. That result runs against the usual reason given for the flat-top design. On non-detachable handle AR-15s, accuracy dropped more, even though those same rifles still shot better with our equipment than with any other setup we tested.
After looking at the data, we found that the detachable handle on the flat-top upper receiver have more aluminum in key areas. That extra material means less harmonic movement and vibration under firing recoil. The gain was modest: about 1/16 to a 1/2 of an inch on 3-shot groups as compared with mounting the optic directly to the Picatinny flat top. For a fuller account of our testing results, contact Phil or Timothy Martel in care of the company, or our Engineering Department at the same address.
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Engineering - Home of rifletech.net & HITECH Optical Systems
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