Project - Dope Card Holder
Silent Thunder Ordnance
FX Crown with an 11mm dovetail DOPE card.
So when we hunt with airguns, there are four common threads:
Night vision image of another local night predator.
We hunt around a series of targets/stations from a known position
Targets are pre-ranged, and often pre-shot, so that the hold is known
Often this is done at night, when re-ranging/shooting a target to test hold is inconvenient at best
We’re forgetful and with half a dozen targets, you’re always double-checking your DOPE sheet to make sure you have the right hold for the right target
A DOPE card holder designed to attach to 11mm dovetail is the obvious solution. A few additional design requirements/caveats were that we wanted something easy on-easy off with just one tool, we wanted a flex mount to handle recoil and getting banged/caught on things, we wanted a card backer which could be exchanged to different sizes but also directly written on, and we wanted a non-destructive break-away feature so that when you inevitably catch it on something hard it doesn’t cause any damage to the rifle or itself.
Prototype 11mm dovetail DOPE card.
The original design, seen at left, was a bit chunky and long, adding unnecessary length to the whole system.
The final version is slightly more clever, cutting the length significantly, and made up of just seven components. It slips easily on and off a dovetail rail with just a slotted screwdriver or coin, the center is a piece of flex tubing which bends to absorb recoil and can be pulled off if hit/caught on something. The card backer itself is 1/8” thick, and while black is pictured, transparent is also easy. Clipping a notecard to the backer using a binder-clip, the more common strategy, is also easy as this thickness works well with the small binder clips.
We may update this concept over time. One possible avenue is to replace the card backer with a sheet of a glow-in-the-dark material, such as moonglow, to make it readable in pitch black conditions. Tritium illumination is also a distinct possibility.
FX Crown with 11mm dovetail DOPE card.