DarkLordOfOptics
Politics • Science & Tech • Sports
Guns, Optics, 2nd Amendment and resisting the Left in everything they touch.
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The discount season never ends...

Apparently, Easter also qualifies for discounts. I glanced through my email and saw a couple of things that appeared to be of interest.

Palmetto is clearing out Crimson Trace Rad Max red dot sight for $89. It is pretty decent RDS and at that price is very worthwhile.
https://alnk.to/3J7YBql

Also at Palmetto, they have subsonic 300Blackout at a pretty decent price. I bought a few boxes last time they had it discounted and it has worked very well for me.
https://alnk.to/9bvt0Km

My home defense gun is a suppressed 300BLK Honey Badger set up for subsonic use. However, practicing with it gets expensive because of the cost of subsonic ammo. This stuff makes occasional practice a little less damaging to my wallet.

Tract has the discounted 4-25x50 with the MRAD Eagleman reticle on pre-order for under $1344. It is a good deal and I like the reticle.
https://tractoptics.com/toric-uhd-4-25x50-34mm-ffp-mrad-eagleman-long-range-hunting-rifle-scope/?dm_i=5GBO,OYQH,3ZZ4CE,2YC8N,1
I saw this scope briefly during SHOT and it looks to be very well calibrated. A little later this summer, I will try to get my hands onto the 2.5-15x44 with the Eagleman reticle to play with. My kids are beginning to hunt and we applied for a few tags for them this year. Depending on what tag either one of them gets, my plan is to outfit whichever rifle they carry into the field with the 2.5-15x44 Tract, and the Eagleman reticle looks to be just the right combination of "enough, but not too much information" to train a teenager.

Primary Arms has a 24 hour sale on AR uppers
https://alnk.to/3cnHF9Z
There is quite a lot of interesting stuff in there. A friend of mine recently started working at Geissele, so I have been paying a little more attention to their stuff beyond the triggers. He is a seriously competent precision shooter, so if what he says about their semi-auto rifles is correct, I should have been paying attention earlier. They have several Geissele uppers on a serious discount. https://alnk.to/2jNUL8L

Anarchy Outdoors, rather than focusing on your eternal soul, hearkens to the baser part of your nature and refers to it as a tax refund sale.
https://www.anarchyoutdoors.com/?ref=fl0iza41
"TAXSALE" code gets you a discount on a bunch of stuff and it is stacked with some pre-existing discounts.

I'll add more as new offers filter into my inbox.

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Burris XTR PS HUD

Here is a better look at the Heads Up Display (HUD) in Burris' XTR PS scopes. In this case, I am looking through a 3.3-18x50, but the HUD is the same in both models.
https://alnk.to/4qN7csi

AFF10 code gets you extra 10% off on just about anything on Opticsplanet website starting at midnight tonight.

The more time I spent with HUD equipped scopes, the more I think that this is a significant step forward.

If they ever get a WMLRF to connect to this thing, it will be amazing, but even as is, I think it is a meaningful advantage.

00:09:18
Through the scope view at the STR-MIL reticle in Steiner H6Xi 2-12x42

Here is a quick look at the reticle through the scope. As I watch the video, it looks thinner in the picture than it does in real life. I have a suspicion that those relatively dense 0.2mrad hashmarks make the primary stadia stand out more than they would otherwise.

One one hand, I'd prefer for this reticle to be a little bolder or have some high visibility features.

On the other hand, it is pretty usable as is and the scope is quickly becoming one of my favourite MPVO designs currently on the market.

Next step will be to get it back on the gun, mount a piggy-backed RDS and do some shooting from 10 yards to 800 yards.
https://alnk.to/9bvy9a9

00:04:19
Zeiss SFL 12x50

Zeiss makes quite a few binoculars. Aside from an occasional misstep (Terra...), most of them are pretty good.
As with any product line, some models come together better than others.
Zeiss' SFL product line is something I looked at briefly, but never dwelled on it too much. They seemed like nice binoculars, but I never really looked at them carefully.
Imagine my surprise when the folks at Zeiss reached out and asked if I want to take a look at their new 12x50 version of the SFL.
They know I live out west, so they must have heard I have the space to really work out where the limits of a 12x50 binocular are.
Given that sending me a product to look at involves certain risks (until I am pretty much done with the review, I ignore marketing literature and any and all attempts from any company to tell me what to say), I figured that they either decided to live dangerously or that they are pretty damn confident of how good the product is.
I do not know for sure which one it is, but the ...

00:11:45
Vortex Razor Gen3 6-36 Reticle Pictures

I was asked a question about what the EBR-7D reticle in the RG3 looks like. I am pretty sure I have posted these photos in the past, but rather than look for them, I figured I can just as easily repost them here. These are at 6x, 10x, 15, 20x, 25x , 30x and 36x.
This is clearly a precision oriented reticle and on lower powers I mis the thick outer bars.
Illumination does help a lot in low light.

Zeiss S5 prices have come down to 3k at eurooptic and $2700 at mile high.

Do you know if the S5 is about to be replaced by something new?

PA's Spring Clearance

Apparently, I am not the only one who has an occasionally spring clearance (which reminds me that I need to do some inventory again since I have scopes stacked in multiple layers in my safe).

Primary Arms also has a spring clearance going on and it is a tiny little bit more extensive than mine.

https://alnk.to/5Q7eb2Y

There is a tone of stuff in there. The link above is to the riflescope section, but they seem to have a few thousand items earmarked. Most interestingly, they have a bunch of open box and cosmetic blem items. Those are usually a very good deal.
They also have a bunch of discount codes on Vortex scopes that seem to be mostly in the 20% off range.
I have a couple of items I need to so I'll be looking through it somewhat carefully. I'll add to this post if anything unusually interesting pops up.
https://alnk.to/5Q7eb2Y

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Getting back on the horse, little by little

My original plan was to do a livestream on Thursday of this week, but I think I'll push it out to next week.  A few days at home is doing wonders for my recovery, but my voice is still not quite there.  I do not think any of you are looking to listen to me cough for two hours straight.

Also, I am going to try to shoot that local PRS match this coming Saturday, so doign a livestream next week after the match is likely to be more productive.  It is my first one, so I fully expect that I will screw it all up.  It should be a good learning experience.  I do not have a dedicated PRS rifle and I am not looking to set one up jsut yet.  If I like it, I'll put something together, but as far as competition goes, my focus is really on UKD matches like NRL Hunter, Competition Dynamics, etc.  My 6.5CM is not back yet, so I'll just shoot it with my 308 FIx.  It is not ideal, but it will do just fine for my purposes.  I am in no danger of winning anything either way and this will stress my ability to read wind.  A secondary purpse here is that I am not 100% certain what rifle I will take on a mule deer hunt with later this year, but it will be either something new to test or this 308.  Now that I think about it, the 308 is going with me regardless either as a primary rifle or as backup.  The rifle shoots, so if I miss, I know it is on me.

For the match, I have Burris XTR PS 5.5-30x56 scope on the 308 Fix.  I think the way they did the heads up display in these is a meaningful improvement over conventional riflescopes.

https://alnk.to/d3EjPHC or https://alnk.to/8iVRlGN

Optically, I think XTR Pro is a little better, but the EO integration in the XTR PS is, I think, in advantage.

In parallel, I am looking at the replacement AAC ammo (they replaced the faulty ammo and I have chrono results on it) and testing the optics of the 40mm scopes in parallel.

 

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A first look at Steiner H6Xi 2-12x42
MPVOs are finally getting some attention

Here are some initial thoughts on the Steiner H6Xi 2-12x42.

I finally had a chance to shoot with it both supported and unsupported, which is an important part of figuring out how usable an optic is.

I found what looks to be more accurate specifications in the manual that came with the H6Xi, so the spec table is now updated:

To re-iterate from an earlier post, Eurooptic is selling the H6Xi 2-12x42 for $1350 and at that price, it is easily the best deal going in this category: https://alnk.to/90ALO3C

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AAC Ammo: Trouble In Paradise
I think this is the almighty telling me to start reloading again

Well, since I was running a little low on AAC Precision 175gr 308 ammo, I ordered another batch.  This one came from a different lot than the batch I had before.

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