DarkLordOfOptics
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Guns, Optics, 2nd Amendment and resisting the Left in everything they touch.
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3x Prismatics: SwampFox Trihawk and Burris RT-3

This is not a true comparison in a sense that these two scopes only look similar on paper. When you put them side by side and look both at them and through them, it is immediately apparent that the fill a very different niche.
On terms of optomechanical quality, they are both quite nice and surprised me a little with how well they do for the money. It is also important that these have adjustable eyepiece (ACOGs and Elcans do not).
The Trihawk is faster on target, partly because of the wider FOV and partly because of a bold and visible reticle. If you do not mind the weight (and it is not really that heavy, until you put it up next to the RT-3), it is a really excellent option. I am about my TriHawk off to a friend of mine, so I am very curious what he thinks. If it has a MRAD reticle, I would have kept it.
Burris RT-3 is really tiny and light. It ended up being quicker in actual use than I expected and the FOV is still quite respectable. It is, for example, wider than the ACOG 3x30 (although eye relief is less flexible) and wider than the discontinued Elcan Spectre OS 3x that was previously my favourite 3x prismatic. I gave one to my brother, so I will do a comparison in not too distant future.
Where I think Burris may have made a mistake is the reticle. They kept the same basic design they have used across many products with a 3mrad diameter horseshoe circle and it is a little small for a fixed power 3x scope. However, the illumination is done pretty nicely and it compensates quite a bit for the reticle being on the small side. Overall, I am really liking the Burris and a big part of it is how tiny the bloody thing is. The reticle has a BDC designed for 5.56 and mrad mark on the horizontal for lead holds. That works quite nicely for me, although I would not mind another reticle option with a larger circle and mrad scale.
In many ways, one of the biggest surprises of the last couple of years for me was how good prismatic scopes from several Chinese OEMs have gotten.
SwampFox Blade 1x and Trihawk3x along with Burris RT-3, PA GLx 2x and
a few others are a testament to that as are some new offerings from other makers. More are coming as well. As much as I like several ACOGs and higher end prismatics, it is increasingly more difficult for me to make a case for them given how good these $300 to $400 options are. Time will tell how durable they are, but so far they are really holding up nicely.

00:11:27
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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
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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Tune in tonight for the 100th episode for DLO Live! and the scope raffle.

In this 100th episode of DLO Live! show we will wrap up with hunting scope recommendations starting where we left off last week.
I will also raffle off Swampfox Warhawk 2-10x44 riflescope that I used for the MPVO comparison.
In order to participate in the raffle, you have to be a member (free membership is sufficient) of my darklorofoptics.locals.com community and you have to be present during the livestream when I do the raffle.
If you want to be included in the drawing, please send me an email at [email protected] Make sure to include your full name and your Locals screen name in the email.

As of right now, there are very few entrants for the raffle, so they have a better than 10% chance of winning the scope.

This is your chance to screw it up for them...

Happy Labor Day, Y'all! and a new Raffle.

Well, the Labor Day is upon us. I will spare you my general thoughts on this holiday, given some of its socialist origins. It is still a nice day to grill a few steaks and enjoy a long weekend.
I added a few more notes to my somewhat limited agglomeration of Labor Day deals and many expire today: https://darklordofoptics.locals.com/post/7224686/labor-day-is-upon-us
Of all of the ones I have seen discounts on Tract Toric products https://tractoptics.com/toric-uhd-30mm-2-5-15x44-ffp-illuminated-mrad-eagleman-long-range-hunting-rifle-scope?ref=ILYAKOSHKIN,
Primary Arms' closeouts https://alnk.to/5Q7R6eK
and Anarchy Outdoors chassis discounts sorta stand out https://www.anarchyoutdoors.com/mdt-hnt26-chassis-system/?ref=fl0iza41 with the LABORDAY25 code.

On a separate topic, I went and listened to a little bit of my yesterday's livestream and it certainly looks like the video and audio are much smoother than what I had last week. Perhaps, one of those network changes did finally have an effect. ...

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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