DarkLordOfOptics
Politics • Science & Tech • Sports
Guns, Optics, 2nd Amendment and resisting the Left in everything they touch.
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Visiting Primary Arms

Primary Arms visit turned out to be quite surprising. I have been talking to the gentleman who runs PA on and off for a while now, but somehow I still wasn't grasping the entire scale of their operation. Now, to be fair, I am certainly still not aware of everything they do. However, looking back on it, I really shouldn't have been that surprised. They have a seriously substantial warehouse since they stock they stuff they sell and, looking at their website, it should have been apparent that requires space and manpower.

What I didn't know is that they have a pretty solid engineering group in-house and how much effort and resources go into the Primary Arms branded optics. When PA optics line started, what they had were just comparatively standard OEM scopes that stood out because of the ACSS reticles. As I have elaborated previously, some ACSS reticles I like and som ...

e I do not. A lot of it is just personal preference, to be honest, and some is just stylistically differences. However, all of the ACSS reticles I have seen to date are intelligently conceived and I can clearly see what the design goals were and how they went about achieving them. That's more than I can say about most reticles out there.

PA optics line still has the various ACSS reticles, but there is a lot more to them now which is how they ended up within my field of view, so to speak.
Many of their products stopped looking like "me too" designs with good reticles. The line of micro-prisms that I have been talking about is unique to them. Other small prismatics out there come from different OEMs.

The new PLxC 1-8x24 LPVO is just exceptional and easily clears the bar to make it onto my list of recommendations (with room to spare, frankly). Optomechanically, it is clearly going after scopes like Razor Gen3 and ATACR. Given the price, if they ever add a diffractive reticle to it, they will absolutely be in the same conversation.

The interesting part is that when I first saw that scope, it absolutely threw me for a loop. At this stage in the game, when I look at a scope, I can usually make a pretty good guess which OEM it is from, especially which Japanese OEM. This scope sorta looked like a LOW design, except I had never seen that exact version (and for a good reason since it turned out to be entirely new and likely proprietary to PA). The turrets, however, did not look like it and did not feel like it. Click feel was different and when I took the removable part off, the insides were kinda sealed. I generally do not take scopes apart beyond what is expected of a consumer (sort of a courtesy to the manufacturers; although there are exceptions to that), so I did not go further.

Now, that I got a chance to spend a little time with the team at PA, it all makes sense. There is a good size engineering group in-house and an increasing number of the PA optics have some elements of their own design, with turrets being at the top of the list. There are other things coming though. For example, they are a bit cagey about what is happening there, but they are building a cleanroom. You do not need a cleanroom like that for QC.

Now, one of the things I look for when I visit companies is the quality of the team. If you have a cohesive team, a couple of smart engineers and company support you can get a lot of stuff done. The gentleman who is in charge of engineering at PA looked strangely familiar. It turned out that we had crossed paths in the past (through my dayjob) a decade or so ago. More importantly, we have some mutual friends who speak highly of his abilities. That's the kind of stuff I pay attention to and that also explains why I am seeing increasingly sophisticated opto-mechanical designs coming out of PA, with more on the way. Also, I got a glimpse into the insides of one of his turrets designs (looking at the CAD screen over his shoulder) and it is a clever system that should be durable.

For another example, PA has a few red dot sights in different price ranges and the new one I got to play with is the SR-10. It is a part of their SLx line, so it is on the budget end of things. We'll see how it does, but offhand, it looks like a pretty straightforward Docter-pattern open emitter red dot sight for use on both pistols and long guns. However, for a couple of hundred bucks, it comes with a picatinny mount and a very slim Glock MOS adapter. I'll confirm, but I am pretty sure it will sit low enough to co-witness with standard Glock sights. Decent collimation quality with a 3MOA dot.

The product line I have been paying most attention to lately was probably GLx. Don't get me wrong, the new PLxC seems good enough to satisfy even my optics snobbery and the SLx are very good budget options (admittedly, I am mostly familiar with SLx red dots and micro-prisms). GLx, however, might be the best bang for the buck of the bunch, starting with the 2x prismatic I looked at a little while back. Then, I looked at the 2.5-10x44 that is very feature rich and just excellent mechanically (it also has their own turret design and, now that I met the engineering team, I understand why it is excellent). Optically, it is better than adequate, but not exceptional. It is good enough for me to recommend it overall, though. I knew they had new GLx scopes coming, and that is what I really wanted to see while I was there. They were refreshingly open about their upcoming products. A couple of them they asked me to not talk about yet, but there are several that are coming soon enough to discuss. There were four new variable scopes I saw. One was the 1-10x24 FFP LPVO made in Japan by JOL. Three were made in the Philippines, all with FFP reticles: 1-6x24, 3-18x44 and 4.5-27x56. I got a chance to see near-production quality prototypes of all four and I was, honestly, pretty impressed.

General disclaimer: there isn't all that much I can immediately say from looking at scope indoors, but there are a few things to look for and I did not see any glaring problems. Mechanically, everything had a good feel and all had PA's own turrets that I noted earlier. I am not entirely sure what the final pricing will be and I suspect they are still finalizing that. Once I know the specifics, I'll let you know.

The 1-10x24 is a bit on the heavy side of the LPVO world, but I have seen this optical system before and it really is quite good with a well designed eyepiece, so it is easy to get behind. It should play nicely against other LPVOs out there that are used in a DMR-ish role, i.e. on accurate AR carbines that have to work from up-close and personal out to a few hundred yards.

The 1-6x24 was completely new to me. I had no idea it was in the works. Of the two LPVOs, this one is probably the one I am more curious about since I have not seen that optical system before. It did look quite respectable. Reticle illumination seemed adequately bright, but I was indoors the whole time. That's something to check. The eyepiece, however, is done very well, so I expect it to be quite easy to get behind. We had a long warehouse to use, so I set the scopes up on a tripod and spent some time peering through them on different magnifications. The 1-6x24 had good detail and good flare control best I could tell.

The scope I was arguably most impressed with was the 3-18x44. It has the same excellent zero-lock and zero-stop turrets I liked on the 2.5-10x44, but a better magnification range for crossover use and likely better image quality. With this one, we are getting into magnification ranges where there isn't a ton I can really say indoors, but it looked promising. This scope should be a contender as a crossover scope for anything from accurate ARs to lightweight precision rifles. I'll post full specs once available.

Same goes for the 4.5-27x56 model. It appeared to have more or less the same mechanical features, so I have reasonable confidence it will work well. I did not see anything obviously wrong optically, so that is encouraging too.

All of these GLx scopes showed some commonality of mechanical design and eyepiece design, which is a good thing. GLx scopes seem to sit in that rough sweetspot where you can get a lot for your money, but these are not cheap scopes. That's roughly the same market where Vortex' PST Gen2 plays. Various Athlon Ares scopes are in there as well as several others. This is where you can find decent quality Japanese scopes and higher end Phillipine-made and Chinese designs. This is really where the battle of the OEMs is happening right now, I think.

Lastly, I wanted to look at how they do QC and it turns out that every PA branded optics that comes in, no matter how expensive, is looked at. Every single one is taken out of the box and checked. That, I did not expect. To the best of my knowledge, for the inexpensive chinese optics, noone else checks every single one. With higher end products that is pretty common, but checking EVERYTHING is pretty unusual.

Overall, it was an interesting visit. PA is located in the part of the country I visit with reasonable regularity, so I'll make it a point to check on them every once in a while. I kinda want to know what they plan to do with that cleanroom.

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Subsonic ELR: next level of masochism

If you feel like your life is too simple...
If you go to the range and nothing out there presents any sort of a challenge...
If you you have mastered the art of understanding women and want to move onto the next frontier...

This is for you.

Q MiniFix 300BLK https://alnk.to/6xLN87K
Q Trash Panda suppressor https://alnk.to/dLiRlDI
March Shorty FMC-3 https://alnk.to/880BXun
https://discreetballistics.com/
Gunwerks Elevate bipod https://alnk.to/d3DPqlF
Sticky Pint-sized Gamechanger https://alnk.to/dptlnZC

On understanding women...
Some years ago, a New York businessman accidentally stumbled on a magic lamp with a genie in it. Once released, the genie told him to choose one wish as his sign of gratitude. The man thought about it and asked for a bridge over the Atlantic between New York and London, so that he could drive over instead of getting onto the plane. He had to go to London on business all the time and he was mortally afraid of flying. Driving would be much better.
The genie ...

00:12:49
SCR2 Mil Reticle in Burris XTR3i 3.3-18x50

As I work through the several 50m crossover scopes I have here, one of the things that becomes clearly apparent is how it is entirely feasible to have rather differing approaches to making a crossover scope.
One of the biggest differences is the treatment of the reticles.
Burris' XTR3i unabashedly approaches it from a precision/competition side of things. SCR2 Mil reticle is relatively thin, full featured and just excellent for shooting plates and other smallish targets.
That means all on its own, it is not great on low powers, especially as you get below ~6x.
That is where well designed illumination comes in. They illuminate a "T" shape that is 4 mrad wide and 3 mrad tall. You can switch between green and red illuminators depending on where you are.
The whole thing really works quite well.
Overall, there is a reason I view XTR3i 3.3-18x50 as one of my reference standard designs in the $1k range.
https://alnk.to/9bv3NDk

This video is a quick "through the scope" look at the sight ...

00:09:13
Revic Acura RS525i 5-25x50 RH2 Reticle

Here is a look through the Acura 5-25x50 scope from Revic. https://alnk.to/gp27CYM
The reticle they have in there is what is probably the best general purpose hunting reticle on the market today and the scope itself is rather nice.
It is a bit heavier than I'd like and it is in MOA. Beyond that, I am having a hard time finding something to complain about.
Now that I think about it, the one other reticle that is conceptually similar to the RH2 is Burris' 3PW-MOA in their 2.5-12x42 Veracity PH scope. That scope is normally about $1100, but EO has it for $799 at the moment for some reason https://alnk.to/h6H9yhT
That smallest of the Veracity PH scopes is another design that should be much better known than it is.
Same goes for the Revic Acura. While Revic's smart scope is well known, the more conventional Acura barely gets any mention. That's unfortunate. It is a truly excellent design.

00:12:21
Dope Talk

If you've been watching my livestreams occasionally, you have probably seen the face of Will, who goes by @CovertNoob5 on Youtube and elsewhere.
Will is an accomplished PRS shooter, so he has joined my livestreams on several occasions when I needed to pick his brain on the subject.
I generally like how he approaches shooting, so I try to bring him on after SHOT Show to get his impressions.
Most importantly, Will still lives in California and if it was not for him, all my "Kali" jokes would be sitting dormant.
Given where he lives and the fact that ever since weed was legalized there, cannabis dispensaries proliferated so fast they overtook Starbucks, when I heard that Will has a new podcast called "Dope Talk", the first visual I had was of Will decked out in full Snoop Dogg attire, with a joint in his teeth and unsuccessfully trying to formulate a coherent sentence.
That was going to be the basis for the next basis of friendly verbal abuse, but, alas, it turned out they had different kind of ...

Spring Cleaning, Part 2.

The next casualty of safe overcrowding is Meopta Optika LR 10x42 LRF binocular.

Optically and mechanically, it is in excellent condition. I see slight discoloration on the rubber eyepiece on one side. Beyond that, I do not see any evidence of me using for a couple of years.

I lost the cover for the threaded hole that is commonly used for tripod adapters, so I have the Vortex Pro binocular adapter stud in there to avoid leaving the threads exposed (this thing https://alnk.to/6IGzVeW).

$825 shipped within CONUS.

If interested, shoot me an email at swag@darklordofoptics.com

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Kicking off another round of spring cleaning. Part 1.

Scopes in my safe are stacking up again and, as I go through and publish my reviews, some of them should really find a new home where they actually see some use.

This time around, it is the Revic Acura 5-25x50. As I mentioned previously, I like the scope a lot, but it is in MOA, which is not my cup of tea. Aside from the whole MOA business, it is a very good long range hunting/precision scope leaning a little more toward the MOA side of things.

Looking at the scope carefully, I see a couple of minor scratches that mostly came from bumping into other scope in the safe (I assume). I also see relatively faint ring marks (I tried to take a picture).

$1325 shipped within CONUS.

If interested, shoot me an email at swag@darklordofoptics.com

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The Copper Creek Cartridge Experience
back to the reloading bench I go...

Like any self respecting firearm enthusiast I always have some number of projects going on concurrently.  One of them is a fast twist 22-250 bolt gun.  

Every once in a while Tikka makes a run of 22-250 T3x rifles with 1-8” twist barrel and I happen to have one.  That dramatically changes the varminty character of the 22-250. With a modern 80gr bullet, it is a nicely viable hunting rifle for small and medium game (just about perfect for pronghorn).  It is also a very capable long range number.  At the altitude where I live, it does not go subsonic until you get to about 1400 yards.

1-8” twist will not stabilize the heaviest available 22 bullets, but works well enough for anything up to about 80grains, depending on the bullet construction.

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Thinking About Open Light and Factory
NRL Hunter

Since my ultimate goal with competition is to shoot NRL Hunter matches in an Open Light class (to more closely resemble the rifles I actually hunt with), I set up my 308Win Fix and 6.5PRC Stag Pursuit for Open Light and Factory respectively.
I have a lot more 308Win ammo than 6.5CM anyway, so that is the rifle I prefer to practice with.

Now that I have a little time before the next Hunter match, I decided to see if I can properly control the muzzle rise with the lighter rifles.  To that extent, I went and sighted them in before proceeding with shooting at various plates mostly between 500 and 600 yards to see if I can control the  muzzle well enough to spot my misses.

The wind was pretty sporting and inconsistent today.  On top of that, I decided to use the lightweight pint-sized gamechanger bag to add to the challenge.  While we were at it, I also tested the new tripod plate from Sunway photo.  I generally like it, but it needs to be a bit wider for shooting purposes.  It is great for holding binos and a wind meter.

Here is how the bag fits on it:

Not bad, but a little more width would help.  The tripod is Field Optics Research's Dome Top Hunter 32.

The 308 Fix is a known quantity since I have talked about it quite a lot in the past.  In this iteration, I have it set up with Tangent Theta 5-25x56 in an Aadmount. 

The muzzle device is Q's Bottle Rocket on top of a Cherry Bomb.  

The bipod is Gunwerks' Elevate.

Rather amazingly, the balance on this thing is just right as is.

However, I must have made a miscalculation somewhere because I thought this would weigh just a hair below 12lbs.  It weighed in at exactly 11lbs and based on the Arizona match, my scales measure a little higher than the ones they used over there (about 5 ounce difference for my 6.5CM gun).

Despite that, I had no real issues controlling the muzzle rise with this setup.  I was able to comfortably spot my shots and see trace as long as I was properly square behind the rifle.  Interestingly, at this weight, it is something I might actually hunt with, but a lighter scope might not be a bad idea.

This also means that I have enough weight budget to use Q's Trash Panda suppressor instead of the Bottle Rocket brake.  While the brake is not obnoxiously loud, I do prefer to run with a suppressor when possible, so I will try that next.  

With the 6.5PRC, I know for a fact that without a decent brake, I could not spot my own shots, so I have Area 419's titanium Hellfire brake on it.  This was my first time shooting with it.

It was substantially loud, but not as obnoxious as some competition brakes I have seen.  More importantly, muzzle rise was minimal at most.  I doubled up on the hearing protection, but the rifle became impressively more mild mannered.  Again, shooting standing off of a tripod in the wind, I had not problem at all spotting my own shots and watching trace when shooting a bit further out.

The rifle is Stag Pursuit in 6.5PRC

The scope is Vortex Razor HD-LHT 4.5-22x50 in Talley MSR rings (the lightest 30mm rings I had on hand).

The bipod is Gunwerks' Elevate.

As shown, the rifle clocked in at 11.7lbs on my scales.  I am inclined to not mess with it too much, but if it comes to that, I can mount a somewhat heavier scope without too much trouble, but I am inclined to let it be.

I did a good number of dry presses and live fire with both rifles.  One thing that surprised me a little was that the Fix had a smaller wobble zone than the Pursuit.  I think I can attribute that to the balance point on the Fix being a little further forward, but some experimentation is in order.

I was definitely shooting better with the Fix, despite the Pursuit being chmabered for a much flatter cartridge.  Perhaps, a heavier bipod will shift the balance point sufficiently.

That is one of the advantages of the Fix design: the buttstock, while sturdy and comfortable, is so light that it is very easy to balance.  Pursuit's beefy buttstock while comfortable, could use some weight cutting.  If I want to ever use this rifle for NRL Hunter's Factory division, I can not make any mods, so I'll do with what I have.  If my arithmetic is correct, I could probably get a lightweight Ckye-pod to shift the weight a little forward.

With all that, I am not sure how I feel about trying to game this too much.  For now, I'll just shoot the rifle as is and see if I can train my way out of this wobble zone issue with some deliberate practice.

I have to admit that Area 419's muzzle brake is pretty impressive.  The rifle is now extremely soft shooting and the muzzle stays down.

The next step for the 6.5PRC is to either buy or work-up some proper match ammo.  All I have is Hornady's 143gr ELD-X which shoots pretty well in this gun, but isn't match ammo.

Hornady loads their 147gr ELDM in 6.5PRC, so that is probably the first option to try.  Looking at the costs, this might be one of the few calibers I have to reload for.

If I were to go compete with a sub-12lbs rifle today, I think I would still take the 308 Fix despite all the ballistic disadvantages.  It is probably just the familiarity factor, but I simply shoot that rifle better.  In the future... we'll see how it goes.

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Trident Barrel
by X2 Devgroup

At this point, I do not remember any more how I stumbled on this barrel, but it is not unusual for me to be looking for relatively random things while I can't sleep at night.
Then again, given how much time I spend at the range, looking at different AR barrels is not all that random.
My take on AR-15s is that they are supposed to be lightweight and accurate enough to reach to the outer limits of the capability envelope of whatever they happened to be chambered for.  I know they are plenty of people out there with freakishly accurate AR-15s that are set up with thick barrel.  They are impressively consistent, but a heavy AR-15 sorta defeats the purpose of an AR-15 to me.
Then again, I do have a couple of moderately heavy small frame AR variants.  One is built around an 18" 223Wylde WOA barrel and the other around a 22" Satern 224 Valkyrie barrel.  I'll talk about those builds in due time and I enjoy shooting both of those rifles quite a bit.  However, I view them as practice rifles since 5.56 and 224V are nice practice rounds for longer range stuff and it is easier to balance heavy barrel rifles for shooting off bags.
Most of my ARs are a lot lighter than that and they are built around 16" barrels of moderate weight.
Ideally, I want this rifle to weigh no more than 8lbs with a scope, typically an LPVO of some sort.  This is the type of rifle I expect to be equally comfortable doing timed short range drills and shooting plates between 600 and 800 yards (with appropriate ammo).
Over the years, you have seen pictures of several of these variants.  One of my favourites is built around a 16" Proof Research carbon fiber barrel.  That's the AR in this video:


I have another one built around an experimental 16" barrel that is sleeved in AlSiC, a rather exotic material.  That way of making barrels did not go into production, unfortunately.  It is not the most intrinsically accurate barrel I have, but it is very well behaved when hot.
Naturally, I also have a couple that simply have thin, near-pencil profiles.
The basic problem with most of the light weight barrels I have seen to date, is what happens when the barrel heats up.  Most barrels end up with substantially larger groups when hot, which is OK.  However, quite a few of them end up with the group centroid also changing, sometimes significantly, which is not OK.
That is an especially commo problem with carbon fiber wrapped barrels.  Christensen barrels are famous for their wandering zero.  Proof Research barrels seem to be better and the two I have do not wander around when warmed up.  However, it appears that some do.  With carbon fiber wrapped barrels I tested, Proof was the best, but it has been a little while since I experimented with it.  More recently, I have heard from others that Helix6 and Bartlein barrels are more consistent, but heavier. 

Most lightweight barrels designed for light weight have an odd (to me) profile with too much metal removed by the chamber.  Some years ago, Adams Arms had their own pencil profile barrel that left a lot more metal near the chamber, then went thing quickly.  The way Q does their light weight barrel is also done with heat distribution in mind.  Their barrel leave a lot of metal near the chamber, then run what is essentially a straight taper.

All this barrel research is probably how I stumbled onto the Trident Barrel from X2 Devgroup https://x2devgroup.com/trident-barrel/

It has very deep flutes which dramatically cuts weight.  It is about five ounces lighter than my carbon fiber Proof barrel of the same length.  Fluting can often cause problems when not properly stress relieved, but it seemed like they were paying attention to this kind of stuff and taking care to not introduce stress.  After digging through my memory banks a little, I remembered that a know someone at that company.  It was time to pick his brain.  He is a pretty serious shooter, and he was happy with these barrels.  Then he said something that made me perk up and pay attention.  He talked about vibration and how these barrels felt "dead".  That is a lot of the same verbiage I hear about structured barrels from TacomHQ.  Once my interest was properly peaked, I looked around, relaized I have enough spare parts to build an upper and that I have a built up AR-15 lower that is not attached to anything.

Once the barrel got here, I gave it a careful look.  In terms of the quality and consistency of the machining, it looked very good.  Those are some seriously deep flutes though.

The barrel, somewhat unusually, is dimpled for both of the gasblock screws and in a way that will work with the majority of gas blocks out there.

I had an Aero upper and an Aero handguard of relatively ghastly color, that probably explains why it was heavily discounted.  Since I fully expect it to be scratched up and covered by dust before too long, I could not care less.

I plan to run it with and without a suppressor, so I added Q's Cherry Bomb compensator to it.  As this is written, I have not fired it yet, but will shotly.  After some consideration, I decided to mount March's excellent 1.5-15x42 MPVO on it. https://alnk.to/b7zh0YQ  That is still the purest expresssion of the MPVO concept on the market today, so I thought it was appropriate.  Depending on how it performs, March may or may not stay on there permanently.  However, for initial break in, long range practice and accuracy evaluation, it knocks the socks off of any and every LPVO ever made.

Most AR-15s are reasonably broken in somewhere between 200 and 500 rounds, so I am not going to stress about accuracy too much in the beginning.  I'll get it sighted in, do some positional shooting and keep an eye on whether there is any abnormal behavious.

The rifle ended up weighing a bit under 6lbs without optics and a bit under 8lbs with March 1.5-15x42 in Burris XTR Signature rings. https://alnk.to/4MBZHCL The suppressor will push it a hair over 8lbs, but that's close enough.  With the bipod as pictured it just under 9lbs.  The bipod is not going to be on there permanently.  If I have to choose between a suppressor and a bipod for weight reasons, Jumbo Shrimp it is  https://alnk.to/880ol8Y

Eventually, I will likely switch to a lighter LPVO on this gun since I prefer the March on a hunting rifle, but in the meantime, configuration-wise, it is a near perfect SPR.

The nice thing about all these AR variants is how easy they are to accessorize, but all those extra gadgets do add weight.  For example, if I throw Steiner's excellent C35 v2 clip-on on there, it is another pound. https://alnk.to/8iV9jU9

An offset red dot sight will not add much weight, but it still adds a little.  Same goes for the light/laser (I think I have an extra CMR-301 https://alnk.to/880olc5 somewhere here that I can use.  It is not super fancy, but it works).

Before it is all said and done, if I keep everything on there, I will end up with am 11.5 to 12 lbs gun.  It sounds like a lot and it is.  However, if I did not start with a sub-6lbs gun before everything that I plan to latch onto it, we'd be talking about a 15lbs setup.  That's why I want a truly accurate sub-6lbs AR-15 and that is why I am always on this "holy grail" barrel search.

Stay tuned for the updates as I test this thing.

 

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