DarkLordOfOptics
Politics • Science & Tech • Sports
Guns, Optics, 2nd Amendment and resisting the Left in everything they touch.
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Burris XTR3i and XTR Pro scopes are finally here and other updates

I have been saying that these are coming for a long time now. They finally showed up. What I have on hand from Burris are XTR Pro 5.5-30x56 and XTR3i 3.3-18x50.
The XTR Pro will go onto my Fix 308Win for the time being. I am thinking about taking a class or two this year, time permitting, and this would be the rifle to use for that.
The Fix is a crossover design for me and I view it as something like a NRL Hunter type rifle. Normally, it has Vortex Razor HD-LHT 4.5-22x50 scope on it and that combination clocks in at around 9 lbs. It is a great general purpose bolt gun in that configuration.
When I want it to be more of a precision rifle, I pop my Tangent Theta 5-25x56 on it. That takes the weight of the gun up by about 20 ounces and really helps spotting my own shots.
This time around, I will use the XTR Pro in that exact way.
Interestingly, the version they sent me has the SCR2 1/4Mil reticle that is based, as the name suggests, on 0.25mrad based dimensions instead of the 0.2mrad. I am not sure how I feel about that since I am very used to the 0.2 base. On the other hand, it is not an entirely unreasonable approach and dividing everything by 2 is not a bad way to go. It will be interesting to play with it. https://bit.ly/3J8tQxW

XTR3i will go onto another Fix, except this one is 8.6Blackout version that I talked about a lot last year. That's the one I shot my elk with. For the majority of this year, I want to use it as a subsonic pig gun. I have a bunch of reduced capacity aluminum cases to experiment with subsonic loads. For now, my chosen subsonic bullet is accuracy oriented: 300gr SMK.

Normally, the 8.6 is equipped with my Tangent Theta TT315M, but after some consideration I decided to move that onto a different rifle (more on that in a moment).

Tangent is an amazing scope and, as I have said many times previously, if I had to pick one general purpose scope for all hunting and precision shooting that I do, this would be it. However, for long range subsonic shooting it is not ideal to a dual turn 6mrad per turn turret.

XTR3i 3.3-18x50, on the other hand, is very much suitable for my subsonic experiments, so that is what I will use it for. Given the price point and the spec sheet, this scope can really do a lot of things for a lot of people. I am really curious how it will do. The specific version I got is with the SCR2 Mil reticle: https://bit.ly/3Q7O6RN
On the reasons I never really tested the original XTRIII was that the reticle was too thin and non-illuminated. This one is a touch thicker and illuminated, so I have high hopes.

The 30mm Tangent, on the other hand, is going to end up, for a while at least, on a Mosin Nagant. Yes, you read it correctly. I am going to mount a $4k scope on a Mosin Nagant. Because I can.

Yes, this scope: https://bit.ly/33KJk74 on a Mosin. I might be the only one to do that.

Stay tuned...

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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
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 ...

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 ...

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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