DarkLordOfOptics
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Guns, Optics, 2nd Amendment and resisting the Left in everything they touch.
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Black Friday and other deals

It looks like we are officially in the midst of the discount season. While pointing out deals is not something I do a huge amount of. Getting some affiliate commission is nice and all, but that is not what this community is about. Still, if there are deals to be had this is the month, so I will keep this post pinned to the top of the news feed and add things to it as things pop up. Check it occasionally if you are looking for anything.

If you run into any particularly good deals, please post them for others in the comments under this post. If it happens to be from the website I have an affiliate account with, I might add my own link to that as well.

Primary Arms Black Friday Sale is... extensive: https://bit.ly/3gxfpJy

OpticsPlanet, naturally, has theirs: https://shrsl.com/3tb0n Also, BFCM12 gets you 12% off and they roll out some new discount every day.

1791 Gunleather has 15% off the entire website (use BF15 at checkout). They are sort of an interesting company. I've chatted with the owner a couple of times and he seems to know what he is doing. I originally stumbled on these when I was doing an article on handgun holsters that are designed with red dots in mind. That's when I found their ultra custom design that has some sort of a thermo pliable material sandwiched between leather layers. It feels like leather and carries like leather, but has the retention of a kydex holster. Essentially, you dump it into hot water (I use my sous vide for that) for a bit and then mold it to your gun. It is my preferred OWB holster at this stage https://bit.ly/3gCZ2Lr

Fix-It-Sticks has a few items on sale for the holidays. There may be additional discounts on Black Friday, but I do not have any insight into that. I have two kits from them that I use all the time and they have replaced almost all other tools I routinely use when working on firearms. The kit that lives in my shooting bag is this one: https://bit.ly/3UZXAlk The kit on my bench is the somewhat larger version of The Works one they have: https://bit.ly/3TYh1cX

SWFA Black Friday deals are up on their website. If you are looking for something with serious long track record of durability on a budget, their SS scopes are pretty much the way to go. It does not hurt that they are made in Japan: https://www.swfa.com/blackfriday2022

Shield has a crazy deal on the SMS2 with glass lens and 4MOA dot. Of all the different red dot sights out there, I have more red dots from Shield than anyone else. If you are looking for a low profile red dot sight for a handgun or as an offset for a rifle, this is pretty much as low profile as you can get without drastically decreasing window size. Until 11/24, they have it for a hair under $200: https://bit.ly/3G60Bfa

Cameras: if I were getting into an interchangeable lens system from scratch, I would absolutely go for the Fuji X-mount. They introduced a couple of new cameras, so some of the very capable stuff that has been around for a couple of years is getting slowly phased out. Fuji X-T4 with 16-80mm lens ( https://adorama.rfvk.net/e49e4Q ) is an excellent allround choice for both phot and video. Eventually, you can add a fast portrait prime to it and be done for a while. A year or two down the line, ad a long telephoto for taking moon pictures.

If you are in the market for a thermal that looks like a conventional scope for ease of mounting on bolt guns, Eurooptic has the XG50 (640x512 core with 50mm lens) marked down to $3400. https://bit.ly/3U1p5tu This one has 12um pixel, i.e. VOx core. Image quality is quite good and mounting height on bolt guns is easily compatible with most normal stocks.

Eurooptic is closing out Steiner P4Xi 1-4x24 scopes with G1 reticle for $549. https://bit.ly/3DTIshY I really like this scope and highly recommend it. It is assembled in the US. While the magnification range is only 1-4x, the optical quality is very good and it is one of the faster LPVOs on 1x out there. I think at the regular price it was a little overpriced. You could get the Japanese Delta Stryker for a little less than that, but at under $600, it is really between the P4Xi and PST Gen2 if you want something to get you speed on low power.

Also on Eurooptic website, until the end of the year (or supplies last), Leica Amplus 2.5-15x50 and 2.5-15x56 scopes are $500 off. These are good low light scopes, especially the 56mm one: https://bit.ly/3UThQVn

The first one that popped up in my e-mail is Brownells MPO 1-8x24 with mount. They have a flash sale of some sort where it goes for $759.
The scope is a little heavier than I like at almost 25 ounces, but it is robust and very nicely optimized both optically and mechanically. The mount looks a little bit like Warne, but I really do not know who makes it for Brownells. It is made in the US and it works quite nicely. I have one and like it so far. For under eight bills you get a Japanese SFP LPVO and US-made mount.
https://bit.ly/3UiJRpw
Under normal circumstances, I somewhat prefer Tract's 1-8x24 SFP LPVO that is lighter, but for the moment, the MPO with mount is more than $200 less than the Tract.

Primary Arms has a site-wide 12% OFF for the moment with SAVE12 code.
https://bit.ly/3UAbf24
If you would prefer a FFP LPVO in somewhat comparable price range, Primary Arms recently dropped the price on their GLx 1-6x24 to $600. I do not know if that drop is permanent, but it is a nice scope, so keep an eye on that one. I am sure they will have some sort of a discount code as we get closer to Black Friday. https://bit.ly/3WEExyc
The catch here is that I am not a huge fan of PA's GLx mount. It looks interesting with the skeletonization, but it can cause problems. I do not mind it too much with LPVOs, but I would not use it with a scope I plan to use for dialing. Now, their PLx mount is really excellent, so I always check to see if they have any open box ones https://bit.ly/3td83gM
All that having been said, if I were spending my own money, I would rather pick up one of the blemished 1-6x24 GLx scopes they have for $150 less: https://bit.ly/3UhrP6M Everything I use ends up scratched up anyway, so cosmetic defects are irrelevant to me. Optomechanically, these are perfectly fine which is all I care about.

Deals on Burris thermal optics are still ongoing at Eurooptics: https://bit.ly/3FReuxR
Also at Eurooptics, you can still get Vortex PST Gen2 3-15x44 for under $600: https://bit.ly/3DLnuC3
I think that is a closeout not a Black Friday thing, but a really excellent price on this scope.

Lone Wolf started their Black Friday deals already. It looks like they will be rotating through different products on a weekly basis and whatever they have on sale is on this page: https://bit.ly/3Wy9vb8
I have several Glock-type builds made exclusively out of Lone Wolf parts and I have to admit I am really happy with them.

Forloh has a Cyber Sale going on: https://bit.ly/3TRBm3s. My hunting clothing is sort of a weird assortment of different pieces from nearly every high quality maker. On balance, I think I like Forloh the most with Kuiu a close second. Had I discovered Forloh a little earlier, I would likely have most of my hunting clothing in their Exposed camo pattern. It is not the prettiest pattern, but it is seems exceedingly effective out where I am. Their Solair stuff for warm weather is excellent. For colder weather hunting, I am making very good use of their Deep Space baselayer: https://bit.ly/3DI5Kr6 It is remarkably good in controlling moisture.

More to come.

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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
Uncooled Thermal with a little bit of history

There is, as always, an entertaining discussion happening in the Hide, but I do not feel like getting into another protracted argument about comparative merits of different uncooled cores with people who do not know a whole lot about them. I mentioned that BAE is getting out of the uncooled core business. The responses were interesting.

Still, I thought some of the background on uncooled cores is worth rehashing since I was around for most of it and involved in some of it. Hopefully, you'll find it informative. If not, this post will fade like many others before it.

Here is a little history on uncooled cores from an eyewitness.

I was working at Raytheon when it was starting out and one of my first projects over there was trying to figure out how to calibrate early uncooled cores for a military project that eventually ended up going into ENVG.

The uncooled technology was first developed by Honeywell and after a while they licensed it to a bunch of people. Honeywell developed the technology, but did not ...

Something to consider

I had an interesting conversation earlier today that made me think. I was approached by a company called TourHero.

Apparently what they do is organize various tours, trips, etc in partnership with different influencers.

The influencer does the marketing, i.e. convince his/her audience to buy this customized tour, while the company does all of the logistics.

The idea is that they get several people to pay extra for a tour package which pays for the influencer in question to come along and, apparently, make some money on top of it, depending on how much the influencer is able to get out of his/her followers.

How I got on their radar is very unclear since they are very focused on the Instagram crowd and I have a very small Instagram channel. https://www.instagram.com/darklordofoptics/

My best guess is that they saw the picture of my daughter and me after her antelope hunt and made some sort of an incorrect conclusion. Frankly, the types of the things that they push require levels of narcissism that I ...

Another G&A Article

For the few of you who still pay attention to print magazines, I have an article in the latest Precision Rifle Shooter, called "Optics For NRL Hunter". For those of you who have been following my stumbling and bumbling match shooting exploits, there isn't going to be anything new there. You know what I think on the subject.
However, I still get some sort of a weird nostalgic kick out of seeing something I write printed on paper.
When I was growing up in the Soviet Union, my room doubled as a family library. I think it is some latent aftereffect of spending my childhood with books. Gen-Xers have a reputation of spending their childhood outdoors doing whatever mischief came to mind and that is true in my case, to some extent.
However, that is largely because at some point my mother got sick and tired of seeing me in the apartment with my nose stuck in the book. Every once in a while she would just search me for hidden books then kick me out of the house to go do something active. It ...

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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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