DarkLordOfOptics
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SunwayFoto TL3240CS-Q Tripod
Catchy name...
November 10, 2022
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As I have mentioned a little while back, SunwayFoto has introduced (and is continuing to introduce) a series of products aimed at the shooting and hunting market.

I was curious, so I got my hands on a few and have been using them.  This particualr tripod is the first of the reviews that I am publishing.  The video will be out in a week or so.

The tripod in question is TL3240CS-Q (doesn't that just roll off the toungue?) and it has spent some time on the range:

and some time in the field:

This particular tripod is very new, so I have not yet seen it at any of the retailers.  Here is a link to it on SunwayFoto's website.

A similar tripod with collar locks on the legs does seem to be available from a few retaielrs like Adorama: https://adorama.rfvk.net/Ea3q2n, but if you decide to buy it directly from SunwaFoto and use code "DLO", it will get you 5% off.

The choice between collar locks and lever lock is sorta individual.  For heavy duty applications, collar locks are probably a little more robust.  Personally, all else being equal, I prefer lever locks since they give me immediate visual confirmation on whether the leg segments are locked or not.

The tripod comes nicely packaged with 1/4-20 and M-lok ARCA plates, spike feet and all the appropriate allen wrenches.  The machining quality on everything looks quite good.  I tried the ARCA plates with a variety of clamps I have here and nothing looks to be out of spec.  Carbon fiber legs do not have any obvious manufacturing defects that I can see.

The tripod itself is an interesting design.  It has a 38mm ball head, but the non-removable ball head is integrated into the tripod so that it sits very low.  That greatly aids stability.  If you imagine a convergence point (where the axis of each tripod leg would end up), it is right where the ARCA clamp is.  Is it as stable as my heavy duty bowl top tripods? probably not.  It is more stable than I expected it to be though.  It is also light enough to take to the field with me.  This is a hunting tripod, not a longe range competition one.  SunwayFoto does have heavier duty tripods, but I was looking for somehting light enough to comfortably strap to m pack.  The tripod weighs in right around 4lbs and at that weight I am quite impressed with the stability.  The downside of setting up the ballhead that way, of course, is that you loose some range of motion.  You still get about 35 degreed in any direction from center.  That is sufficeint for my purposes.  The Arca clamp has a couple of levels integrated into it on opposite sides of each other, so you have an indicator of tilt.  Some sort of a tipping angle indicator could be good as well, in principle, but tilt is more importnat here.

There is no center column, so height adjustment is done with the legs, which is one of the reasons I like the levers.  Locking the ballhead down is also done via a lever.  Lever operation is nicely smooth.  My preferred way to set it up for shooting is with the lever on the opposite side of the tripod from me:

Most people prefer to operate the lever with their thumbs, but I like to keep my hand a little higher, so this is how I use it.

When I first received it, I went to the range and the clamp starting flopping around under recoil.  I said some uncompimentary things abotu the design that turned out to be premature.  Whoever assembled it at the factory installed the clamp onto the spline coming out of the ballhead incorrectly.  See all that air under the clamp? You are not supposed to see that.

It was installed 90 degrees off:

Once I got it properly lined up, the spline was at 90 degrees to the recoil direction which is how you want this stuff to be.

Even when installed correctly, there was a touch of extra space that I ended up shimming with some aluminum tape.  It is a common problem with most tripods out there, especially with manufacturers that come into this from the photography side of things.  Recoil does introduce considerations that do not exist in photo/video applications.  That spline should really be mated via a tapered interface to avoid a potential tolerance stack up.  Still, once I stopped exercising my vocabulary, I got it to work properly in a matter of a few minutes.  Thanks to the thin shims and a little blue loctite, nothing loosened up afterwards.

I've spent a fair bit of time shooting off of the tripod at the range and a LOT of time glassing in the field.

With a low binocular adaptor, glassing standing was slightly uncomfortable.  I am six foot tall and the tripod was just a hair too low:

Most of the glassing I did was sitting down, however, so that was not an issue.  For glassing, a center column comes in helpful for small adjustments, but for shooting it would not be good for stability.   I think this tripopd's configuration is a good compromise of size, flexibility and stability.

The legs can be opened very wide to get low and increase stability.  I played with it at the range, but in the field, I had to get above tall grass, so I could not get that low.  

I was a little concerned that I could get a spring-like effect with the legs, but 32mm carbon fiber tubes are pretty stiff.  No issues there.  Each leg can be set up at three different angles, but given the terrain I really did not exercise that very much.

Note, that in most of these pictures I am using the rifle adapter from Spartan Precision since that is how the two rifles we've been huntin with this season are set up.  That places the gun a little higher than it would be if I were going direct to a weapon mounted arca plate.

Also, keep in mind that the tripod I have came with an Arca clamp.  However, SunwayFoto does make a clamp that can attach to both Arca and picatinny rails: https://adorama.rfvk.net/ORj1xN I might get one and swap it out on this tripod.  I assume it should work fine, but I'll doublecheck. 

Edited to add: They do offer it with the dual clamp now as well.

What are my conclusions so far?

Overall, mostly positive.  Nothing failed on me in the field.  Build quality is good.  I would prefer to see a combined Arca/Picatinny clamp on this tripod.  Given the application, it would give it a little more flexibility, but with Arca being so ubiquitous what I have is a good setup.

The low mounted ballhead is an unusual and rather effective re-interpretation of a traditional tripod head.  I'll keep using it and post any updates if I uncover anything new.

 

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That means I have been messing with this design for a bit under four months. That does not quite qualify as a long term test by my standards, but it is a fair amount of time and quite a few rounds shot, mostly 5.56 and 308.
I have both of the models of XTR PS and both work well.
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For matches and such, I would lean toward the 5.5-30x56 version, but for general purpose use, the smaller 3.3-18x50 model does have an edge. You can shoot a match with it, take it hunting in the mountains or slap a thermal clip-on in front to go shoot some pigs. While not light weight, it is a very flexible design owing to moderate size and mid-pack magnification range.

As I said in the video, I think XTR PS is a meaningful step forward in simplifying how we shoot at distance.

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Leupold Scope dump at CDNN.

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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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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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