It took some planning, pulling a string or two and the entirety of my powers of persuasion (on my wife), but the kids and I made it to Burris Optics Team Challenge competition in Wyoming. The competition officially starts tomorrow morning. Today started with a tour of Burris' offices and manufacturing facility in Greely, CO followed by a longer than anticipated drive out to Douglas, WY.
I have visited Burris in the past, so I can attest that they are beefing up their capabilities in the US. Every time I come here, the facility is a bit better than before. Still, the main purpose of this visit was to show my kids how stuff gets made. Modern day children are convinced that products come out of an Amazon box. It was nice to see them develop an understanading of what goes into making these htings, from CNC machines to assembly labs to R&D facilities, etc.
It was also nice for the kids to realize that there are places in this world with more riflescopes than my workshop.
Then, we headed out to Wyoming. A three hour drive became a 4+ hour drive because we got hit with a massive hale storm a couple of times (my rental car is now all dented up which will make returning it in a few days unnecessarily involved).
It was a perfectly normal summer drive through Wyoming. Then it got dark. Rain dropped visibility down to a few feet. Quail egg sized hail hammered the car (it felt like sitting inside a drum while God wa playing a percussive solo). A freeway that was dry 15 minutes ago turned into a river of ice.
Eventually, we made it through after having to stop and wait it out a couple of times. The third time hail hit that day was when we were are the range.
Today was sorta prep day: Burris brought a bunch of stuff for people to shoot. Competitors were checking their zeros. Because of the bloody hail, we got there a little late, but we did to a little shooting here and there. I got to spend some more time with Beretta 92xi that surprised the hell out of me at SHOT. I really liked it back in January and liked it even more this time around. I'll have to pick one up. I did not get a chance to shoot any long guns, but I'll rectify that over the next couple of days. We are here until Sunday.
It is a nice facility, so I look forward to some shooting once the comptitors are done each day.
My plan is to roam around, watch competitors shoot the stages and take a few pictures. There are three field stages and four assault stages. Each team has two shooters, one with a boltgun and another with a semi-auto. If you are not familiar with this competition, here are the basics: http://competition-dynamics.com/burris-optics-team-challenge-2024/
I'll do a livestream after it is all done to talk about what I saw. It sounds like a blast, but it is a difficult competition.
Since we flew here, I tried to go light. Burris loaned me three binoculars to play with: Signature HD 12x50, Signature HD 10x42 and Signature LRF 10x42. I have not seen any of these before (outdoors), so I plan to spend some time with them while I am here. https://alnk.to/74uDLld
Since we got soaked earlier today, they ended up going through an impromtu waterproofnes test without any issues.
Today, I was mostly using the 10x42 LRF bino and I have to admit it looks earily similar to Leupold BX-4 Range LRF bino and Meopta Optika LR for a lot less money.
Opticsplanet has the Signature LRF 10x42 for $819 https://shrsl.com/4kzs1 at the moment.
The way the LRF bino is constructed, I bet it is from the same OEM. I do not have a ton of experience with the BX-4 Range, but quite a lot with the Optica LR. The Signature LRF looks eerily similar except for a lot less money. Optically, it is very respectable, especially given that had a built in LRF.
I have only looked at the 12x50 and 10x42 conventional binos briefly, so I do not have any strong opinons yet. They looked pretty decent for the $500-ish price. FOV is not super wide, but the image seemed well corrected.
