DarkLordOfOptics
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Guns, Optics, 2nd Amendment and resisting the Left in everything they touch.
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Primary Arms micro prismatics

Primary Arms has two micro prismatic sights at the moment, both of them part of their SLx product line. I've got a video on these coming shortly, but I have been slow with editing, so I figured I should lay the groundwork, so to speak. I added them to my updated recommendations, so some additional commentary seemed like a good idea.
I have spent quite a lot of time in the last year or two trying to think of a variety of ways to set up AR-15 rifles. I sorta know how I like to set them up for me, but that does not necessarily translate in how I think they should be set up for others, for example for my wife who is eight inches shorter than I am and less than half the weight and for my kids (8 and 10 years old as this is written). To be fair, my 8 year old son will probably be bigger than I am before I know it, but in the meantime I need to set up something he can grow with.
The fashionable thing, of course, is to set everything up with LPVOs and offset red dot sights. That is not too dissimilar to how I set up my AR (see the second Guns of the Dark Lord video), except I use offset irons and, for me, those are really supplementary sights. I use the Razor Gen3 LPVO on that gun on 1x all the time.
My wife has taken a couple of gun classes with me. She seems to like the classes (or at least likes them enough to go with me sometimes and develop some proficiency), but she is not a gun enthusiast. Also, when we are home, making her practice requires political skills and powers of persuasion I do not possess. It is easier to take the kids with me to the range, but getting them to do structured practice can be a bit of work. Besides, I sorta want to keep it fun for them.
What is fun for people who are not yet (or will never be) gun nuts? Being able to grab the gun and shoot at different targets, at different distances, and do so without putzing around with equipment.
Given that I am also dealing with people who are physically pretty small, the whole setup has to be light ad maneuverable.
So, what we've got for the moment is: light, quick, accurate enough, easy to use with minimal number of controls.
Well, that sorta spells out some sort of a low power prism with an offset red dot and the lighter this whole thing is, the better.
What is low power? That's another interesting question. For speed, you sorta need something with unity magnification, but the drills I am setting up for training tend to involve taking a look at something before shooting it. There is a lot to be said about being able to go fast and I am really not good at the whole going fast thing. However, I can make a really good argument that we are not living in a video game and being able to recognize whether whatever you are looking at needs to be shot is as important as being able to shoot quickly and accurately.
For target recognition, a little bit of magnification goes a long way. My wife's AR sports Trijicon Compact ACOG 1.5x16S with Primary Arms' ACSS reticle. 1.5x may not sound like much, but magnification is multiplicative. It is roughly equivalent to the difference between 2x and 3x or between 4x and 6x or between 10x and 15x.
For me the range of "low magnificaiton prismatics" starts at 1.5x and ends at 4x. 4x is probably higher than most people are comfortable with for this kind of use, but I spent so many years shooting my Elcan OS 4x that I am supremely comfortable with it as long as the reticle stands out well enough.
After that whole preamble, let's go back to Primary Arms' new batch of prismatics. They have two SLx micro-prisms, 1x and 3x, and a GLx 2x that is more of a standard/large-ish prism design. It is still a very compact scope since prism size is tied to magnification and FOV. With 2x magnification, you do not need a huge prism to get good FOV an large exit pupil. The GLx 2x has a 12mm exit pupil and the whole thing weighs 11 ounces with the mount and everything. If I had to choose one optic for a lightweight AR, this would definitely be in the running.
The SLx micro-prismatics take that whole compact thing to another level. They are not quite as nice as the GLx, but they are notably smaller and lighter. What really shocked me was that since they are part of Primary Arms SLx line, my expectations were pretty low. Older SLx products I have seen did not exactly inspire me, but these are legitimately good.
And small. Did I mention small? I may have mentioned small. Well, they are small and lightweight.
Time will tell if they are robust, but they seem to be so far.
They barely have any effect of the handling of light weight ARs and remarkably enough, they are very easy to get behind. The eyepieces were designed with comfort in mind.
Optically, they are better than I expected. Now, I am not going to trade in my Elcan any time soon, but I am not going to buy another fixed power Elcan or Trijicon either. For what I need, these are plenty good enough and for the price of one Elcan I can have multiple ones. To be fair, I do plan to pick up a switch power 1x/4x Elcan, but that is a conversation for another day and there is a reason for my madness.
For ARs that are light, capable and easy to use, these new micro prisms are awesome. Now, the natural question is, if microprisms are so good, why would anyone want to buy a large prism scope? They do get pretty beefy as the magnification goes up. They offer a very wide and immersive FOV which has certain advantages. I'll talk about large prism scopes in a separate post.
Going back to micro-prisms, the other application for these is to assuage my paranoias. I really like to have backup optics pre-sighted in for most of my rifles. For conventional hunting rifles I usually use very lightweight SWFA Ultralight 2.5-10x32. For ARs. I think it will Primary Arms' micro-prisms. They are small, light and easy to pack. Unexpectedly, the integrated mount comes back to zero surprisingly well if I use a torque wrench.

To summarize all of this: not only do these punch above their price range in terms of overall performance, I can also have spares with minimal effort and without going broke. I'll have the videos up with some extra commentary soon. In the meantime, this was why they are among my recommendations.

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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
Integrix M1 MRAD Reticle in the 3-18x44

Wind was really making things difficult, but at least this gives you a look at the reticle.
It is a respectable design that is conceptually closer to SKMR reticles than to the ones I usually gravitate to. They also have an M2 that is, I think, a little better.
In the grand scheme of things, the M1 did not take me long to get used to and it is not giving me any real issues.
https://alnk.to/9TaI2kH

00:06:33
Integrix 3-18x44 Tracking Follow-up

I reached out to Leapers to relay the issues I found with reticle sizing and tracking in the 3-18x44 scope they sent me.

They confirmed that the scope I have here is an engineering model. They also talked to engineering and, apparently, they found the same issues I did with the mrad model and fixed them for the production run.

The MOA model (https://alnk.to/eZIJo9a) is, according to them, spot on. The issues were only present in pre-production mrad scopes.

Once they get production scopes going, I plan to re-visit them. I think the first one to become available will be the 4.5-27x model with the M2 Mrad reticle. I saw it during SHOT and I think it will be more up my alley than the M1, though the latter is still serviceable.

This is strange but once in my lifetime I felt fortunate to be not smart enogh to be in Harvard University...

Memorial Day Sales

I am beginning to see some early Memorial Day Sale emails in my inbox.
If I see anything interesting, I'll add it to this post which will be pinned to the top, rather than inundate you with incessant "it's a sale!" emails. Better keep it all in one spot.

The first one I see is from Opticsplanet. https://alnk.to/cwU58u8
They have all sorts of stuff rom Burris and Steiner discounted including the recently introduced Burris XTR PS 5.5-30x56 for $2199 https://alnk.to/d3Em4Su and the rather unusual Steiner T6Xi 3-18x56 https://alnk.to/ge7ZJBN
Eliminator 6 gets you $400 of bonus bucks to use on something else. https://alnk.to/flycPy8

Tract Optics will be running a 10% storewide sale starting Thursday with the discount code "REMEMBRANCE". While I generally like their products, the one that is really agreeing with me the most is the new 2.5-15x44 with MRAD Eagleman reticle. https://tractoptics.com/toric-uhd-30mm-2-5-15x44-ffp-illuminated-mrad-eagleman-long-range-hunting-rifle-scope/
I am sure ...

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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A first look at Steiner H6Xi 2-12x42
MPVOs are finally getting some attention

Here are some initial thoughts on the Steiner H6Xi 2-12x42.

I finally had a chance to shoot with it both supported and unsupported, which is an important part of figuring out how usable an optic is.

I found what looks to be more accurate specifications in the manual that came with the H6Xi, so the spec table is now updated:

To re-iterate from an earlier post, Eurooptic is selling the H6Xi 2-12x42 for $1350 and at that price, it is easily the best deal going in this category: https://alnk.to/90ALO3C

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