DarkLordOfOptics
Politics • Science & Tech • Sports
Guns, Optics, 2nd Amendment and resisting the Left in everything they touch.
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Live Streamed on April 23, 2023 6:01 PM ET
Tripods everywhere...

Taking a quick look around my workshop brings several things to mind. One is that tidiness is not one of my virtues. Another is that I have a significant number of tripods of all sorts on hand.
I plan to make a few dedicated videos on the specific models and, indeed, I have already talked about quite a few of them.
Still, it seemed like lining them all up to talk about the features, quality and performance would be a good idea. There are a couple that are at my brother's house and he happens to be out of town, so I'll skip those for now (Athlon Midas CF29 and SunwayFoto T2540CT).
The Sunway tripod is a lightweight travel tripod intended for photography. I have had reasonable success shooting off of it when fairly low to the ground (i.e. without extending its legs), but for shooting you generally want something beefier. It is an excellent travel tripod though.
Athlon's CF29 is essentially a scaled down version of the CF40 that I do have on hand, which is close enough.
Here is what I will have for the livestream:
Spartan Precision Ascent Gen II $1150 https://amzn.to/41w1uWp
Field Optics Research Pro32 $950 before discount https://bit.ly/3UWgA53
Field Optics Research Sequoia Dome Top $575 before discount https://bit.ly/43QoXmR
SunwayFoto T3650CM $738 with IB-65 head before discount https://bit.ly/3N33YqT
SunwayFoto T3240CS $589 before discount https://bit.ly/43T1vFs
SunwayFoto TL2840CC $349 tripod only +$159 for the IB-30 head https://bit.ly/3H2nr71
Athlon Midas CF40 $700 https://bit.ly/3KWxM3u
Vortex Ridgeview $500 https://bit.ly/3KTvKTO with Spartan Davros head $89 https://amzn.to/3orNJcv

I have a few other older designs here and there like an older Swarovski re-brand of a Manfrotto tripod. I switched the head to FOR design a while back and it stils soldiers on. Some other old video tripods I have will probably remain in the background somewhere. They weight more than the rifles, so they do not get out much any more.

Affiliate link disclaimer:
I do have an affiliate account with SunwayFoto and a discount code DLO gets you an additional 5% off https://sunwayfoto-store.com/?ref=Oy5imslq
With Field Optics Research, the discount code is dark20, which gets you 20% off.
For the larger retailers like Brownells, Eurooptics or Opticsplanet, if you see a link from me, it is an affiliate link, but I do not have any personal discount codes with them.

01:01:09
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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

Shana Tova achi!

Shana Tova!

Tonight is the Jewish New Year, Rosh HaShana. Jewish holidays run sunset to sunset, so technically Rosh HaShana is tomorrow, but it starts tonight.
It marks the beginning of the High Holy Days.

The High Holy Days, also referred to as the Days of Awe are all about judgement, repentance, forgiveness and renewal. This ten day period ends with Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, which is the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.

Even for a rather bad Jew like me, this part of the year has spiritual significance that I do not always like to admit. Normally, I live and breath sarcasm and cynicism, but neither one of those is really appropriate for the season.

During the ten days between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, G-d opens the Book of Life, evaluates our misbehaviors and writes in our fate for the next year.

On Yom Kippur itself, I will likely log off and stay away from the computer for 24 hours, but beyond that, I'll be around and my form of repentance, forgiveness and renewal is likely to ...

Weekend Roundup, of sorts

Weekends is when I catch up on the political stuff and I am not convinced that brings out the best in me.
https://open.substack.com/pub/darklordofoptics/p/weekend-roundup?r=y4q3j&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Still, there is a lot happening and I do not like most of it.

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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