DarkLordOfOptics
Politics • Science & Tech • Sports
Guns, Optics, 2nd Amendment and resisting the Left in everything they touch.
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The Rack Rifle

A while back, I wrote a piece I called "The AK of ARs" to talk about a general purpose AR build to hand out to your neighbors in case of a temporary societal collapse: https://darklordofoptics.locals.com/post/4262131/the-ak-of-ars

Matt @TheMarksman put together his own version of the gun here: https://www.everydaymarksman.co/equipment/the-rack-rifle/

Somewhat disappointingly, we are mostly in agreement. Still, it is a good read. He approached some of this from a different angle and largely arrives to the same conclusion.

I have been looking around to see what amount of money it would take to get a properly equipped AR and stumbled onto this one from Radical Arms at PA: https://alnk.to/clVqsUc for $420 with proper furniture and free floating handguard.

Put GLx 2x on top of it https://bit.ly/44IHQb0 and for $800 plus tax and shipping you are all set.

That's mindbogglingly inexpensive given that these are actually pretty decent guns. The trigger is a basic GI, but that smooths out over time and can be replaced in the future anyway. The barrels are perfectly adequate for the job. These are budget guns, but they are not cheaply made.

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PA GLx 2x Final Resting Place

Here is a final, likely, wrap up of where I think the GLx 2x from Primary Arms belongs.
It is likely the best general purpose optic for AKs and ARs I have seen in a while for shooting inside of $200. Definitely the best for the money and per ounce.
Now, when I say "inside of 200 yards" I do not mean trying to shave a hair of of a mosquito's left testicle. Assume shooting at typical subjects the size of a human torso, or a hog's vital zone.
Most of the time, I have the GLx sitting on a 300BLK pistol. I used it to teach one of my kids to shoot and it was a very easy and forgiving optic to use for a 7 year old. It is equally easy and forgiving for adults as well. It is just that easy to get behind and moderate magnification helps with the ease of use tremendously.
Now that pistol braces are verbotten, the GLx ended up on a 7.62x39 AK (a somewhat tricked out WASR-10) and I think it is going to stay there permanently.
https://alnk.to/ge40PLW
The ACSS reticle on this one is done just ...

00:12:30
SwampFox Sentinel red dot sight

This one is a very simple review:
-it is small
-it is robust
-it works they way it is supposed to
-it does not cost a huge amount of money
-the Ironside shield is a good idea
-RMSc footprint is a good idea

I messed up on price in the video. It is about $50 less than I thought at Brownells: https://alnk.to/a41u5D4

Ironsides stainless steel shield adds $40 to it: https://alnk.to/hDo4gJf

00:07:04
Kicking things off with 5x prismatics: SwampFox and Vortex

I plan to examine a few more prismatics as I go along, but here is the first installment that discusses SwampFox Saber 5x36 and Vortex Spitfire Gen2 5x25.
The interesting part is how little they have in common and how they do compromises differently.
Saber used a large CR123 battery, for example, but the housing gets in the way of a conventional offset red dots or irons should you choose to use one. However, the red dot mounted on the body of the sight, I think, works better.
Vortex, unlike the SwampFox comes with two different mount heights, so I was able to use it on both AK and AR platforms. It is more at home on a lightweight AR though.
The approaches to FOV, reticles, packaging and mounting are very different, which makes it all interesting to me.
The next video on 5x prismatics will talk about the Element Immersive 5x30 and Primary Arms SLx 5x Micro in some length.

00:24:28
19 hours ago

Meopta Meostar R and/or Optika5?

I am building up a backup and/or “loaner” all-round hunting rifle… the basis of this build is a gently used Sauer 100 in .308 that I procured for a deal.

I am considering a basic 2-10x40ish or 3-15 ish, prefer quality and reliability over other considerations…

The Meoptas have peaked my interest (again).

The MeoSport R 3-15x50 seems to have a lot of features (PA/illum) and dialable (locking, no stop) turrets for a reasonable price. https://alnk.to/fHlyBbE

The Optika 5 in 2-10x42 or 3-15x44 also seem to have good (yet few) reviews. I would prefer PA, but that is not universal across the line.
https://alnk.to/e76JLQ0

Some inherent tradeoffs - weight is a bit higher than others, and the MeoSport allegedly has slightly degraded low-light performance vs the Optika5. All claim to be “assembled” in the Czech Republic.

I would let one any feedback or comparison on these scopes… or other options/brands worth considering ($600 ish).

Many thanks!

Shooting Tripod question:
One OEM guy was visiting my office yesterday and they were talking about OEM tripod products for Sig, assuming trying to compete against Athlon's in the more budget price range.
I was told that the one made for rifle shooting has a CF tube diameter of 46mm which I thought was really bigger than usual.
What is the minimal tube diameter for shooting a tripod in your opinion?

This makes me scratch my head about what do I use 60x for since it is an FFP design with an SFP MOA option on as it stated on their website.
https://www.schmidtundbender.de/en/new-products/10-60x56-cm-ii-high-performance.html

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Element Immersive 5x30 Reticle Dimensions

The question of the reticle dimensions comes up occasionally.  I have shared them here and there, but figured I should post them in a more searchable post.

There are two reticles LPR-1D MRAD and LPR-1D BDC

The mrad reticle is more of a general purpose design.

The BDC/MOA reticle is calibrated for 62gr SS109 ammo out of a 16" barrel and 200 yard zero.  It can be adapted to other loads with small modifications in zeroing process.

If you need help figuring out how either reticles works with a particular ammo/load you are working with, let me know.

They are designed to look veyr similar to each other when you have to quickly acquire the target: horseshoe is of very similar size, as is the primary aiming point.

If you have a chance to slow down and aim varefully, there are wind and lead holds in both designs.

I did a livestream on these when production samples first showed up here:

 

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Non-magnifying Optic Parallax Error
A Dose Of Reality

The discussion of how much parallax red dot sights have pops up all the time.  It gets very emotionally charged.  Measured parallax error gets converted to MOA.  Everyone knows that MOA is right around one inch.  Large parallax error in MOA at close distances looks like a huge problem.
What is frequently forgotten is that 1MOA is exactly one inch at only one distance: ~95.5 yards.
At closer distances, it is a lot less than an inch.


Here is a table that calculates linear parallax error at different distances for a given angular error in MOA:

One of the problems is that most manufacturers of red dot sights claim their sights are parallax free.  What they really mean by that is that they are parallax free in the sweetspot (some center region) at one particular distance (usually 40 or 50 yards).

EoTech, apparently and to their credit, actually posted some numbers that are about right based on what I have seen:

The only othe rhologrpahic sight on the market, Vortex UH-1 is slightly better than that at the edges.  However, with both EOTech and UH-1, I can only see parallax error fairly close to the edges.  Most of the center portion of the window has sufficiently low parallax error that the natural dispersion of my shooting completely conceals it.  

Suppose you are doing a CQB drill and go really fast.  You end up taking a shot where the aiming point is somewhere toward the edge of the window of the sight.  Worst case, you are picking up about 10MOA of error from the optic.  That is 1.5 inches at 10 yards.  Does that constitue a problem for a CQB scenario?  Not in the slightest.  The only time I can think of when it might be an issue is a hostage-type drill, but every time I have done it, there was enough time to roughly center the aiming point in the sigh tpicture.  That brings parallax error down to zilch and you get to concentrate on dealign with gun wobble, accelerated heart rate and general stress (and that assumes noone is shooting back at you).

As the distances increase, so does the magnitude of linear parallax error, assumign a fairly constant angular error.  However, I am rapidly getting past the point where I should be taking shots at anything much beyond two hundred yards without magnification (I will be hunting deer with an iron sight muzzleloader in the fall, so I will test this out in preparation).

If I am shooting at something 100+ yards away, chances are I will have an extra second to center the aiming point.

Now, none of this means that we should not check for parallax with our holographics and red dot sights.  However, what I care about the most is the size of the sweetspot: the center area of the sight picture where parallax is negligible.  As long as it is not too small, I do not get too hung up on the parallax performance at the edges.

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HET8: Top Level Summary

Since I am pathologically late on everything, I figured I should release at least a summary as I try to put the final video content together.  I plan to do a livestream as a wrap up as soon as I organize all the data.  Below is a run down of a few categories.  Let me know if I missed something and I will add more detail.

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