DarkLordOfOptics
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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 some 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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Vortex Defender XL Green

This is the second time Vortex' Defender XL crosses my path. I was very impressed with the original red dot version, so I was curious to see how the one with the green dot works for my eyes.
To get the details, see the attached video.
The cliff's notes version is that I am just as impressed with this one. In terms of collimation quality and parallax control, it is quite exceptional.
https://alnk.to/881BEV1

00:10:20
Primary Arms HTX-1 US Made red dot sight

I've had this RDS for a bit over two months now and I am beyond pleased with it.
Despite some spirited abuse, it keeps soldiering on.
https://alnk.to/1C9z5dw
It is a very nice RDS and being fully made in the US does not hurt either.

00:13:03
Delta Stryker 3.5-21x44 Wrap-up

This scope comes up a lot since I really like the configuration. It is time to do a final wrap-up of it.

It is one of my favourite scopes on the market today, especially for the money, since I naturally lean toward general purpose-ish designs. Still, while the 3.5-21x44 Stryker is relatively compact and light, it still clearly leans toward the precision side of things, which suites me very well.

https://annexdefense.com/optics-and-optic-accessories/delta-optics/

00:10:25
Had to switch to a different streaming service

Rumble Studio crapped out on me. so I hadd to stream using a different service

Well, imagine THAT....

I wonder if all of the Youtube frauds who spent the last few weeks shamelessly lying for clicks are going to go apologize to Sig now.

https://taskandpurpose.com/news/air-force-m18-arrest/

Area 419 and Odinworks Muzzlebrakes raffle

Just a reminder: on Tuesday, August 12th at around 7pm, Aaron and I will go over out impressions from the TRT Sniper Challenge in a bit more detail. We have the course of fire, so we'll go over how the stages were set up and the challenges presented by this rather unusual (by my standards match).

Somewhere half way through the livestream, I will raffle off a couple of items I picked up off of the prize table.

One is the Area 419 Hellfire Competition brake.

The other is a tunable brake from Odinworks.

The pictures for both are attached.

In order to enter the raffle, you have to be a member of this community (darklordofoptics.locals.com). You do not have to be a paying supporter. A free account is enough for this.

If you would like to enter the raffle, send me an email with the following information:
-the item you are going for (Area419 or Odinworks)
-your username from this Locals community

send the email to [email protected]

I will accept entries until ~8PM on ...

post photo preview
Steiner C35 Gen2 Mount
from Annex Defense

The production version of the Annex Defense's mount for the Steiner C35 Gen2 thermal Clip-on is finally here.  At $1600 (when this is published), the clip-on is an absolute steal.

I've had it for a few days, but, me being the good old paranoid me, I spent some time shooting with it before posting anything.  I had a couple of days with it prior to last weekend's match in Montana and a couple of days after.  Another to pop it on and off a few times and get a couple of hundred rounds of 6.5Grendel through the gun to see if anything shakes loose.  So far so good.

The C35 Gen2 clip-on is sitting on my 6.5Grendel AR as a part of a long running "Only One" project that I have.  It pairs perfectly with the Steiner H6Xi 2-12x42 scope.

Here is what comes in the box from Annex Defense:

The order in which the whole thing comes togethe is pretty stragihtforward:

-slide the thermal washer onto the threaded interface extending out of the back of the clip-on

-spin the mount itself onto the threaded interface (the mount is threaded on the inside) until it can go no further

-rotate the mount so that the clip-on is properly lined up to the picatinny clamp

-once you are happy with the alignment, use the three nylon tipped set screws (you'll need an allen wrench for that) to lock in the position of the clip-on in the mount.  You need very little torque on the set screws.  They are there for one reason and one reason only: to keep the mount from spinning when you tighten the timing nut in the next step

-spin the timing nut onto the threaded interface of the clip-on to lock the mount in place.  You should not need the timing nut wrench, but one is in there just in case.

Here are the pieces laid out in the order in which you will need them.

When you are done, it should look like this:

Note that the mount normaly comes with two T20 screws.  I am using two thumbscrews instead, since I am popping the mount on and off all the time.  It seems to be staying put with the thumbscrews just fine.  I am hoping Annex will offer the thumbscrews as an option.

It is not quite an equivalent of a QD mount, but we needed something with an extremely low profile clamp to fit under scopes with fairly large objectives.  As is, the mount works with most scope that have objective lens diameter of 50mm or less.

I am using with with Steiner H6Xi 2-12x42 and the two work together exceedingly well.

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Scoping Gas Guns
an interesting question that acme in via PM

I received this question via a private message and thought it was interesting enough to answer it in some detail.  I have been thinking a lot about appropriate optics for gas guns recently, so this came it at the right time.

 

Here is what I ahve been messing with last few days:

 

Above: 18" WOA barrel 5.56 AR-15 with Burris XTR PS 5.5-30x56 on it.

Below: 22" Satern barrel 224Valkyrie AR-15 with Delta Stryker 3.5-21x44 on it.


For obvious reasons, I am not posting who asked the question, but what I'll do is send him a link to this article, so that he gets an answer and we might have a good discussion.
Here is what I received:

Had a question for you
I have a Knights Armament SR25 6.5CM with a 14.5" barrel - I plan on shooting 100 - 600 yards at targets at 100 yd intervals
I am favoring the TT 315P with an Aimpont Acro mounted on top -( see you liked the TT315M) - would that be enough magnification?
I saw the SB SB 5-20 which offer more top end - I like the turrets on the Tanget and tooless Zero - what are your thoughts between the 2?
If I stayed 400 and under - how do you see the TT315P with the Acro Red dot against the SB 1-8 Short Dot (saw your review on that)

There isn't really enough information in the question for a simple answer, so let's consider a couple of options.

What is the gun for? 

For shooting medium range (out to 600) with occasional close range use?  If yes, go with a conventional scope and offset or piggybacked RDS.

For shooting at close distance with occasional med/long range use? If yes, so with a nice LPVO like the above mentioned S&B Short Dot 1-8x24 https://alnk.to/3J8vlFv.  It is quite capable at long range, but where it will really knock your socks off is up close and personal.

The question of what is enough magnification is pretty personal.  For me, 3-15x is plenty, but I shoot a lot off of the tripod and off of barricades which likely influences my decision.  For that, my 3-15x50 TT315M Tangent works great and 6mrad of elevation is plenty.  https://alnk.to/gVNkUXB  175gr #08 out of a shoter tube will drop in the 5 to 5.5mrad range at 600 yards.

For a dedicated long range semi-auto, other than the looks, there isn't much downside to a larger scope, which is why I set up Burris' XTR PS on the 5.56 AR pictured above.  It is for my son to learn to shoot at distance and to us in next year's BOTC match.  https://alnk.to/gp33YuR

If I were setting up an accurate semi-auto and wanted a high mag scope for it, I would likely lean toward March 4.5-28x52. https://alnk.to/dLjHgjh  It is compact, relatively light and very good optically for any use other than the dead of the night (for which we should be using clip-ons anyway).

S&B Short Dot is a very nice scope, but March is a newer design and, other than the lowest light, has an edge in terms of image fidelity and stray light control.

TT315P Tangent is a veyr ncie scope and toolles turrets are appealing.  However, there is a weight penalty to that.  For me, that was not worth it.  I ahve 5-25x56 and 7-35x Tangents and those toolless turrets are spectacular.  However, in a 3-15x50, I am quit ecomfortable with simpler 6mrad per turn knobs on the TT315M.

 

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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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