DarkLordOfOptics
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Guns, Optics, 2nd Amendment and resisting the Left in everything they touch.
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How much is $40 billion?

Further below is a nice summary from Eugene (the gentleman who has been on my show a couple of times to talk about Ukraine and we will do another episode on that on May 24th). He posted it on Facebook and I am copying the whole thing in a completely unadulterated form.

To clarify a couple of things first though:
1) use of a russian term "лох". It basically means "sucker" and not in a fun "Hollywood after party" kind of way.
2) I keep on seeing all this indignation on the right about "we are sending $40B to Ukraine while we are suffering here in the US from "fill in the blank" Donald Trump Jr is all over social media with this stuff as are a bunch of other people. It is basically the populist right learning how to do world class sloganeering from the communist left. The basic idea is that if you say something stupid yet catchy often enough, noone is going to look into the details. Well, some of the details are below and, generally, by the US government standards, $40B is pocket change (which is a separate problem in its own right). Also, before you rush to blame the military industrial complex, evil Jews, neocons or whatever else is the enemy du jour on the alt-right, take a long hard look at your elected political leaders. Think long and hard about how any semblance of a moral compass ended up disqualifying you from being elected into office.

Here is Eugene's summary of the military aid situation:

I think what we are witnessing with respect to the Western help to Ukraine, using a technical term, can be best described as "развод лохов". Лохи in this case are not the Ukrainians, but 65% of Americans who support more sanctions and/or military aid to Ukraine.
Let’s start with unprecedented economic sanctions. They exist, but with many critical caveats. As everyone knows, the Russian government makes money selling oil and gas. Gas specifically is still being purchased and at record prices, so that Russia is actually running an unprecedented currency surplus. Most European countries made promises to stop or curtail purchasing by the end of the year. Which does not impact the situation today, and gives ample time to see how war plays out.
Frozen $640bn Russian funds offshore were still, until recently, accessible for the purposes of paying Russian debt. Which was yet another loophole allowing Russia and the West to make some money while pretending to be very decisive. After that loophole closed, in the beginning of May Russia was allowed to make a payment using its currency reserves. Next payment is coming-up on May 25th and the US treasury did not say if they will allow the next payment to happen or force Russia to go into a default.
Though sanctions do bite, by no means are those the “nuclear bomb of economic sanctions” on the Russian government. With oil and gas being the main sources of revenue for the government, sanctions on everything else has more impact on the Russian citizens than of the Russian state.
But what about billions of dollars of military aid that we have sent to Ukraine? According to the White House website close to $3.5 billion dollars in aid were disbursed and another $40 billion is on the way! Yee-haw!
First of all, is “almost $3.5 billion dollars” a lot or a little? To put this in perspective, over 20 years of war in Afghanistan the US was spending $290 million per day. This was a highly uneven conflict in terms of intensity, ranging from 710 KIA in 2010 to 0 in the latter years. However it is safe to say that at its worst, the conflict in Afghanistan was an order of magnitude less intensive than that we are seeing in Ukraine. So 75 days in Ukraine cost as much as 12 days of “kinda war” in Afghanistan.
Now, it is not fair to have to compare expenses 1-1. While I do not believe soldier salaries are included in the $290 million estimate, the cost of maintenance and other expenses are. Clearly, Ukrainian mechanics charge less for their maintenance. But still, US funding towards the war in Ukraine is more in line with our recent funding towards the operation in the Philippines ($2.6bn), which most of you have never heard of.
But wait, didn’t we deliver 90 M777 howitzers and 200 M113 APCs? That is something, but out of all of those numbers, perhaps a handful of M777 are currently in the theater. 90 M777s seem to have been delivered but need to undergo maintenance first (more about it later) and M113s are still “in the mail”.
It so happened that yesterday I was hanging out at Stanford with a bunch of former and current military officers. We had a good representation from all of the branches, ranks and specialties, including senior artillery officers. Subject of M777s came up. Based on the accounts of those present, M777 we sent were not the top shelf items – I was told that specifically the shipment from the National Guard “were all brown” (rusty) and would take significant maintenance to get into a working order and not clear how long they would last after. I imagine this is the same story with M113s, since those were not even used by the US military for the past 15 years.
Canada even sent a few thousand GPS guided Excalibur rounds for M777. The problem is that M777 come in two modifications – M777A1 and M777A2. The A1s are most of the ones that went to Ukraine and they cannot fire Excalibur rounds. Good job Canada!
So far $40bn allocated have been used by DoD to send to Ukraine equipment that they were planning to get rid of, and now can sell for a premium price to US congress.
The situation is further corroborated by Ukrainian servicemen and people who visited them that I had a chance to speak to; it is also seconded by USMC Col. Andy Milburn, former special operations command, who is actively working in Ukraine – Ukrainian soldiers are short of everything, and aside from Javelines, no presence of the US equipment is felt in Ukraine.

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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
Labor Day is upon us...

As we head into Labor Day, we will all be bombarded with a huge number of emails indicating impending discounts of all sorts.
I am not even going to pretend that I have the bandwidth to go through it all, but if I see something worthwhile, I'll post it here. This will remained pinned to the top of the feed for a week or so.

The first nice deal that crossed my path here is steep discount on the original version of the FFP PLxC LPVO from Primary Arms. https://alnk.to/5Q7R6eK
Now that the new version with nuclear bright illumination came out, it looks they are closing out the original. It is a lot of LPVO for $1100 and the version with the Meters reticle is my favourite. You can easily make it work for imperial units.

Tract has the TORIC100 coupon code that gets you $100 off any Tract Toric optic. https://tractoptics.com/toric-uhd-30mm-2-5-15x44-ffp-illuminated-mrad-eagleman-long-range-hunting-rifle-scope?ref=ILYAKOSHKIN
The coupon codes are stackable, so if you also use my DLO discount code...

I was a bit confused at the beginning but this is a new Model looking at the turret compare to old LH2-10x40,
Any news on this ?
https://www.amazon.com/Vortex-Optics-Razor-Second-Riflescopes/dp/B0FBMNTW52?th=1

Updates, deals and new review items: PLxC RDB, Zeiss Tripod, etc

As the week is coming to an end, I find myself in an unusual place: home.

I plan to be home between now and September 1st when I have to go to Israel for ten days, returning on the 11th (dayjob stuff).

For the last couple of months, between family vacations, work and a couple of matches, it seems like I only spent enough time at home to check zero on my 6.5CM Fix and head out again (it has not shifted, thank you Area 419 mount).

I have a lot to do during the next two weeks, but I will try to take some pictures, film some footage and release it as I go along. I can edit videos on the plane or in Israel just about as well as I can at home.

While generally, I am very picky about what I accept for review (given my bandwidth limitations), I do have a few new things here worth talking about.

One is Primary Arms new PLxC RDB 1-8x24 LPVO. It is essentially a version of the original FFP PLxC LPVO except with different reticle illumination technology. The new model utilizes diffractive reticle illumination (same style ...

Well, that was a doozy...

My original plan was to try to set up a hunt where my daughter will have her first memorable hunting experience without working too hard.

The choice of the pronghorn hunt was largely based off of my experience in that same area last year.

The way it went last year was quite straightforward.  We drove around until we saw a large pronghorn buck.  It was a solitary animal that decided to lie down in an open area to relax.  We made a short stock, crawled the last hundred yards or so, found a good spot about 350 yards away from the pronghorn and made the shot.

https://darklordofoptics.locals.com/post/6034347/well-that-was-a-nice-morning

This year, when I decided to take my daugher on the same pronghorn hunt on the day of her 14th birthday, I figured it will be somewhere along those same lines.  It kinda was, but not quite.

Still, it worked out nicely.

In the pciture:

Q Mini-Fix with 6ARC 16" Proof Research carbon fiber barrel

Q Jumbo Shrimp supressor

Gunwerks Elevate 2.0 bipod

Telson Toxin 3-18x50 riflescope

Leica Geovid Pro AB+ LRF binoculars

Pint-sized sticky Gamechanger bag

Unnamed pronghorn buck.  It will likely get a name once it's skull is euro-ed and is hanging on the wall.

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Arming The Children
A couple of very specific children that is

In case you were wondering, no, I am not starting an underage militia.

I do have two kids though and I am teaching them to shoot.

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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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