DarkLordOfOptics
Politics • Science & Tech • Sports
Guns, Optics, 2nd Amendment and resisting the Left in everything they touch.
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19 years since 9/11

I am not normally an early riser, but on September 11th of this year, somehow I got up early, located a pen and a coffee and started writing. Most of the writing I have done professionally has been of technical nature, so I welcome any and all suggestions you may have to make me a better writer. I found myself enjoying this far more than I thought I would.

"The purpose of terrorism is to terrify" Lenin

9/11 terrorist attack on the US accomplished that purpose. We were all terrified, pissed off and more than a little concerned. Even the Leftist Democrats who borrowed their primary military strategy of "bend over and push" from the French, temporarily developed some sort of affection for America and pointed out that this kind of terrorist action is a little uncalled for. It was a moment of great unity in the face of danger and it lasted a cool week or so. Honestly, I am no so sure there was all the much unity because the Leftists were simply a little concerned about being destroyed together with America; personal danger was never a part of their plan. Almost immediately the Left went over to their usual pre-occupation of undermining the US, the troops started planning a foray off to Middle East and Central Asia to kick some ass, and the political class set off to come up with the dumbest possible strategy to to use our military. The rest of us were left to quietly wonder whether the TSA is the final proof of the existence of the ever merciful G-d. It had to the Almighty's punishment on all of us since there is no evolutionary reason for it. The whole organization is basically one large recessive gene.
But I digress. It has been 19 years. We are essentially a generation away from 9/11 and two generations away from the end of the Cold War. It sorta stands to reason that when Soviet Union collapsed without fully destroying the Western Civilization, the Left in America felt that they suffered a bit of a setback. Soviet Union was an evil shithole and selling their usual Marxist power grab to the American people, with the Soviet Union exposed as the empire of slavery and misery that it was, became impossible.
The time period between the fall of the Soviet Union and 9/11 was difficult for the Left. In order to continue the destruction of the US, the Communist Party pretty much had to re-label itself as the Green Party. That served two main purposes:
-they had some sort of legitimacy again with the low information emotion-based voter
-predictions of dire but unprovable future environmental disasters turned out to be a great way to launder money and weaken US economy.

The tragedy of 9/11 a generation alter was a gift from the above for the Left. Here was a golden opportunity to outsource the physical destruction of America to someone else without having to go give up DC cocktail parties. They could not support the Islamists immediately, but it did not take long to turn the whole thing around and add Islamophobia to the usual accusations of racism (luckily, an average Democrat voter had no idea that Islam is a religion, rather than a race so it could all be lumped into one). As is usually the case, the Left does not care about the actual plight of Muslims around the world. They just needed something else to hit America over the head with. If they cared about Muslims they'd be all up in arms about the Chinese oppression of Muslims in their Central Asian provinces. However, since they havn't yet figured out a good way to blame America for the Chinese sending a million Uighurs to re-education camps, it barely makes the news. Nearly twenty years after 9/11, having had all this time to corrupt young people who were not there to witness the collapse of the Soviet Union or the disaster of the Twin Towers coming down, we have Antifa and BLM, with vocal approval and support of the Democrat Party, doing what the Islamists could not: destroying our major cities.

After 9/11, most of us came together as a nation to condemn terrorism and support our country.
Are we going to do the same in the face of the domestic terrorism of Antifa and BLM?
I wish I knew the answer to that. I suppose we will know in November.

We ran away from Soviet Union 30 years ago, but there is nowhere else to run. This time we have to stay and fight.

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5x Prismatic Wrap-up

This is not the end of my commentary on 5x prismatics, but it is a wrap for an unintentionally very long term project I had. I spent an unhealthy amount of time evaluating these four prismatic riflescopes:
Element Immersive 5x30 https://alnk.to/gzXEPUr
Swampfox Sabre 5x36 https://alnk.to/aAPTubq
Vortex Spitfire Gen2 5x https://alnk.to/3co4hVD
Primary Arms SLx 5x https://alnk.to/2jOhnT7

Two are large prism designs. Two are small prism designs.

The order in which I list them above corresponds to the image quality, from best to worst, although there isn't a ton of difference between SLx and Spitfire Gen2. Purely on the merits of resolution, Sabre is comparable to them as well, but much wider FOV and forgiving eyebox does put it a step above in terms of performance (at the expense of about a pound of weight). Element Immersive 5x30 is a different beast optically and it should be at a higher price at which it sells. It resolves better, has higher contrast and widest FOV of the bunch. Side-focus adds ...

00:16:40
Blast From The Past: Millett ZoomDot RDS

I dug this thing up purely by accident. It has been a long time since I used it for anything, but I am thinking I should, especially as I work on a magnifier video.

MIllet's ZoomDot was a unique red dot sight that had auto brightness and variable dot size from 1MOA to 10MOA.

Early ones, like mine, were made in the US. Millett had some aspirations of selling these to the US military.

I do not think they got very far, then the company was bought by Bushnell and essentially shut down after a little bit. At some point, the manufacturing for the ZoomDot moved to China and it was not really the same.

00:05:44
Scout Scopes: Burris 2.75x20

Scout scopes are almost like a forgotten art form these days. There is an occasional discussion either on how they are the greatest thing since sliced bread because 1) THE colonel said so 2) if you do not think they are, refer to rule number 1.
Alternatively, the prevailing thought is that they are completely useless and if LPVOs existed in Jeff Cooper's time, there would never be such a thing as scout scopes.
The truth, as is usually the case, resides somewhere in the middle.
Scout scopes do have their place, but they are definitely a niche product. It is, however, an interesting niche.
Scout scope pickings are relatively slim in terms of what's on offer.
Leupold makes a 1.5-4x28 https://alnk.to/gKSibYj
Burris makes a 2-7x32 and 2.75x20
Vortex has a 2-7x32 in the Crossfire line
There are also a few out there from UTG, Aimsports, etc.

I strongly lean toward compact fixed power designs, so Burris 2.75x20 https://alnk.to/cSJCBQx is probably my favourite and is the subject of this ...

00:11:58

Hi Ilya,

For many years I have been looking for a new spotting scope that has an FFP mil reticle for accurately calling corrections.  I have the angled version Kowa TSN-883 with 20-60 eyepiece that is great except it doesn’t have a reticle so the correction calls are not as precise or as fast as they could/should be. An ideal reticle would have a crosshair or L with a grid off of center but a simple crosshair, L or a tree would be sufficient.

I really like dual focus (can settle for single focus) that uses the small knobs that rotate very easily/smoothly so the scope can be focused on a v-bag while staying on target when it's impractical or a hassle to use a tripod. 

I also like an angled eye piece because it’s easier to establish a comfortable position in many situations as compared to straight eyepiece where you need to be directly behind the scope.  

I haven’t found anything with these attributes with max magnification and glass quality at least “good enough” for clear ...

Is it possible to integrate functions of impact 4000 into/with a scope cam system with a ocular side display, without running into patent issue?

Hey Ilya,
This may be a dumb question but is the quality control of leica binoculars and other sport optics are expectably worse compared to their photography counterparts?
I’m only asking since I have lots of excellent cameras and lenses from them and had never had any complaints for the 3 shelves of lenses I owned but the first and only binoculars I got from them seems to have a sizeable imperfection in the case of my Geovid AB+ It’s a wonderful piece of equipment throughout its range of utility and optical clarity.
However, I’m not sure if I’m cherry picking like with photography and cinematography gears but I can’t help to notice there’s a tiny hair/ crack/ glue flake in the edge of the 10 O’clock area in the right tube and it appears to be around 5mm when looking down the binos.
In photography world inperfections like this probably warrant a trip back to the factory; but I assume that similar imperfections in sporting optics doesn’t prevent it from fulfilling its ...

A morning with a chronograph

When I tell people that I am using Hornady's factory ammo for matches, I get occasionally surprised looks.  Occasionally.  Most of the time, I get fairly condescending looks from handloaders who would not let a factory round pollute the chambers of their precision rifles if their lives depended on it.

To be fair, if I had the time, I might be reloading as well.  I might be able to do better than modern factory ammo, but the truth is that I am not a quarter MOA shooter, so a lot of that would be lost on me.  The UKD matches I fidn most interesting can be done by a competent shooter with a 1MOA gun.  I am working on that first part.  I reload when I have to, but if I can get factory ammo that's not outrageously expensive and that shoots well, I will go with that every time.

I looked around and realized that I have about 600 rounds of Hornady 147gr 6.5CM factory ammo from two lots.  400 rounds from one that I will use during the match later this month.  The remainder I will likely use up practicing prior to that.

I woke up early and snuck out to the range while my family was still asleep earlier today.

I set up in the 100 yard tunnel we have.  I took my four shots to zero with the lot I plan to use for the match.  Then I fired a six shot ~0.7MOA group.  That's accurate enough for my purposes.

Here are the chronograph results:

It is slow, but accurate and consistent.

Then I shot a five round group of Hornady 147gr ammo from the other lot.

Both of those lots are not too shabby for factory ammo.  POI was within 0.2mrad between the two lots, all laterally.  

 

I had some other ammo on hand, so I fired two five shot groups with Berger 144gr hybrid target ammo and Sako TRG 136gr.

Here is what I got for five rounds of Berger:

That's not a ton of statistics, but it is a data point.  The group was ~1.1MOA

 

Here the data for the Sako TRG 136gr ammo:

This ammo showed some mild pressure signs, but not too significant.  

Again, this is not a ton of data, but Hornady is looking pretty decent here.

I'll repeat the zero retention and consistency tests a couple more times between now and June 18th when we head to Wyoming.

I might pick up a couple more boxes of Hornady 147gr from a different lot to get some more data.

More to come.

 

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First PRS Match is behind me
High Noon at Del Norte

My first PRS match is officially behind me.  It was, I think an officially sanctioned regional PRS match at the shooting range called Del Norte about an hour from me (just east of Rio Rancho).
As I discussed previously, rather than using the rifle I originally prepared for it, I ended up having to change gears at the last moment and slapping a 5-25x56 Tangent on my daughter's 6ARC MiniFIx.  A lightweight 16" Proof barreled 6ARC is not an ideal set up for PRS competition, but, in the grand scheme of things, the rifle did hot hold me back at all.  I had a couple of weights that fit the Q-cert handguard, so I slapped them on there as well, which got the rifle to right around 12lbs.  The balance point was almost where I want it, but not quite.  In all other ways, this was a very handy rifle to shoot.  I am actually thinking of getting a couple more weights that I can stack on it (Sawtooth weights are stackable), so that I can shoot some future local matches with it.  It shoots Hornady's Black 105gr ammo very well (it also shoots 108gr ELD-M and 103gr ELD-X well, but I had a larger supply of Hornady Black ammo on hand).

It chrono'ed pretty consistently for factory ammo.  Here are the measurements for a 20 shot group.

If I were to take out the fastest shot, SD drops down to 8fps.  

In terms of wind performance, it is a 5mph rifle, so slightly better than the 308 ammo I was going to use originally, but not as good as the 6.5CM that was my intended match rifle for this year (we make plans, but then life happens).

I do have to admit that I really enjoyed shooting the match with the MiniFix.  So much so, that I am seriously thinking of building another one for myself, since this rifle is technically my daughter's.

The closest shot we had was a bit over a couple of hundred yards.  The furthest was around 1150.  That was a bit challenging for the 16" barreled 6ARC, especially since the terrain there is tricky and wind is doing strange things.  Morning was relatively quiet wind-wise, but then the wind becamse gusty with changing directions.

It was a one day match with about 30 shooters (six squads) and ten stages.  The 17 year old kid who won the match was in my squad with his dad.  Apparently he is on the US team, so it should not be surrpising that he won.  He was very good.

Overall level of the shooters in the match was quite good.  I really was not sure what to expect.  Somewhat paradoxically, the only matches that I have shot in so far are the much larger two day NRL Hunter matches.  In those, I am just out of the bottom third in terms of skill level.  In this match, it was pretty much in the same spot, I think.  

The terrain was a little bit like Cameo, I think (I have been there, but not shot there), with some angle changes and sufficient vegetation to make getting on target occasionally troublesome. 

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Getting back on the horse, little by little

My original plan was to do a livestream on Thursday of this week, but I think I'll push it out to next week.  A few days at home is doing wonders for my recovery, but my voice is still not quite there.  I do not think any of you are looking to listen to me cough for two hours straight.

Also, I am going to try to shoot that local PRS match this coming Saturday, so doign a livestream next week after the match is likely to be more productive.  It is my first one, so I fully expect that I will screw it all up.  It should be a good learning experience.  I do not have a dedicated PRS rifle and I am not looking to set one up jsut yet.  If I like it, I'll put something together, but as far as competition goes, my focus is really on UKD matches like NRL Hunter, Competition Dynamics, etc.  My 6.5CM is not back yet, so I'll just shoot it with my 308 FIx.  It is not ideal, but it will do just fine for my purposes.  I am in no danger of winning anything either way and this will stress my ability to read wind.  A secondary purpse here is that I am not 100% certain what rifle I will take on a mule deer hunt with later this year, but it will be either something new to test or this 308.  Now that I think about it, the 308 is going with me regardless either as a primary rifle or as backup.  The rifle shoots, so if I miss, I know it is on me.

For the match, I have Burris XTR PS 5.5-30x56 scope on the 308 Fix.  I think the way they did the heads up display in these is a meaningful improvement over conventional riflescopes.

https://alnk.to/d3EjPHC or https://alnk.to/8iVRlGN

Optically, I think XTR Pro is a little better, but the EO integration in the XTR PS is, I think, in advantage.

In parallel, I am looking at the replacement AAC ammo (they replaced the faulty ammo and I have chrono results on it) and testing the optics of the 40mm scopes in parallel.

 

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