DarkLordOfOptics
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A generation nearly gone

My wife's grandfather, Meyer, passed away yesterday at the ripe old age of 98. He had the rare fortune of keeping his wits about him until the very end, so I enjoyed an opportunity to have many conversations with him about his life. It was one hell of a life and then some. He was a great example of the generation of Holocaust survivors and that is the generation now nearly gone. Coincidentally, as they pass on to the other side, antisemitism and Holocaust-denial are on the rise, even gaining prominence in the US Congress, aptly represented by the Squad and other assorted political thugs. Perhaps, it is not coincidental at all and we are now sufficiently far removed from the Holocaust that being an open Jew hater is politically expedient even in the US.
Either way, I remember about 15 years ago, my wife and I stumbled into a movie theater (those good old days, before kids, when we could just get up and go watch a random movie) and took a chance on a movie we had never even heard of, called "Everything Is Illuminated". It is a story of a guy descended from a family of Holocaust survivors. He goes back to the Ukraine looking for information about a place his family came from, called Trochenbrod. The place was completely destroyed during World War II by the Germans, so information is not so easy to come by. I thought it was an entertaining movie. If you have time, give it a shot.
What is relevant in this case is that Trochenbrod ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trochenbrod ) is a real place and three of my wife's grandparents came from there. That was one hell of a coincidence. All three are now deceased with Meyer being the last one. In some ways, his story is not too unusual for a Holocaust survivor, but it is definitely worth remembering.
Trochenbrod was a part of Poland before 1939. After 1939, when Hitler and Stalin gobbled up Poland, it magically became a part of Ukraine and the area still is.
In 1941, when Germany attacked Soviet Union, Polish Jews did not always believe that Germans were out to kill them all. Many thought that it was all communist propaganda, since they remembered World War 1, when Germans behaved in a more civilized manner toward the Jews than pretty much anyone else on the eastern front. History shows how much the Germans changed their tune in the 20 years between the two wars. We do not have exact statistics, but the consensus is that approximately 90% of the 3.3 million Polish Jews were exterminated.
The way it worked out with the Jews of Trochenbrod is that some number of youths, Meyer among them, headed in the general direction of Ukraine and Russia. Some of those survived. The adults, elderly and younger children stayed in Trochenbrod figuring that it won't be too bad and were all killed.
There were eight children in Meyer's family and by 1945 he was the only one alive.
Once he ended up in Russia, he fairly quickly picked up Russian (native tongue for Jews in that part of the world was Yiddish and most had a good knowledge of Polish), worked at a plant making mechanized vehicles for a few months and promptly ended up serving in the Soviet Army as a tank driver. He served with distinction and went through most of the war and most major battles with his tank regiment. Unfortunately, I only got to see his medals in a few old pictures. At some point after the war, his mother-in-law threw all his medals out for some unfathomable reason. He was wounded during the liberation of Warsaw and ended up staying there in the hospital while his regiment moved on to Berlin. In one of the pictures below, he is second from the right. It was taken a few weeks after the war ended. The wreath was for a memorial for the Jews who died in the Warsaw ghetto.

On the way to Warsaw, Meyer was one of the first people to set foot in the Majdanek concentration camp as it was being liberated. Unsurprisingly, what he saw there stayed with him through the years. Once the war ended, he was stationed in Poland for a little bit, but there was clearly no future in Poland for the Jews. Aside from the practical considerations of how to re-construct Jewish life in Poland when 90% of the Jews who lived there died, Polish government was not exactly itching to welcome surviving Jews back. The ones who wanted to return to Poland were politely told to keep moving elsewhere. When I say politely, I am being facetious. There were several postwar pogroms in Poland that were intended to carry a message across to surviving Jews that Poland was not home. With that in mind, Meyer headed in the general direction of the British mandate of Palestine, figuring that there Jews might have a homeland of their own some day. He made his way to France, boarded a boat and ended up in newly re-established Israel just in time to participate in the Israeli foundation wars. At that point, neighboring Arab countries decided to finish what their wartime ally Hitler started, but with less success than the Germans had. In other words, miraculously, the well equipped Arab armies got their asses handed to them. Meyer ended up involved in all the major battles of the 1948 war, but came out of them in one piece and decided that he is done being a soldier. He got married in Israel and his first child was barn there in the early 1950s (that was my wife's mom). They moved to the United States a couple of years later since he had some relatives here. They remained happily married for 69 years.
Despite both of them being Holocaust survivors, they built one hell of a life for themselves. I suppose nothing teaches you to love life more than surviving the worst that human history has to offer. When they first came to America, Brentwood country clubs still had signs on the gates that said "Jews and dogs not allowed". That was upsetting, but a definite step up from Treblinka gas chambers, so the Jews kept their nose to the grind and made something of themselves and their children.
In early 80s, his wife was diagnosed with stomach cancer. The surgery was successful and she is still with us forty years later. However, it was a bit of wake-up call, so they sold their business and decided that it is time to enjoy the fruits of their labor, do some traveling and make sure they visit the grandchildren who were growing up in Israel (their daughter moved back to Israel when she was 19).
I ran into Meyer in 2002, when someone introduced me to his granddaughter and we hit it off right from the start. He had some stories to tell and some of his war stories he only told in russian that none of his children and grandchildren know, but I do. It was an honor and a privilege to know him for this last stretch of his time with us. Every time another Holocaust survivor moves on, we lose a little bit of our history. This time the world has also lost an amazing man. May he rest in peace.

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5x Prismatic Wrap-up

This is not the end of my commentary on 5x prismatics, but it is a wrap for an unintentionally very long term project I had. I spent an unhealthy amount of time evaluating these four prismatic riflescopes:
Element Immersive 5x30 https://alnk.to/gzXEPUr
Swampfox Sabre 5x36 https://alnk.to/aAPTubq
Vortex Spitfire Gen2 5x https://alnk.to/3co4hVD
Primary Arms SLx 5x https://alnk.to/2jOhnT7

Two are large prism designs. Two are small prism designs.

The order in which I list them above corresponds to the image quality, from best to worst, although there isn't a ton of difference between SLx and Spitfire Gen2. Purely on the merits of resolution, Sabre is comparable to them as well, but much wider FOV and forgiving eyebox does put it a step above in terms of performance (at the expense of about a pound of weight). Element Immersive 5x30 is a different beast optically and it should be at a higher price at which it sells. It resolves better, has higher contrast and widest FOV of the bunch. Side-focus adds ...

00:16:40
Blast From The Past: Millett ZoomDot RDS

I dug this thing up purely by accident. It has been a long time since I used it for anything, but I am thinking I should, especially as I work on a magnifier video.

MIllet's ZoomDot was a unique red dot sight that had auto brightness and variable dot size from 1MOA to 10MOA.

Early ones, like mine, were made in the US. Millett had some aspirations of selling these to the US military.

I do not think they got very far, then the company was bought by Bushnell and essentially shut down after a little bit. At some point, the manufacturing for the ZoomDot moved to China and it was not really the same.

00:05:44
Scout Scopes: Burris 2.75x20

Scout scopes are almost like a forgotten art form these days. There is an occasional discussion either on how they are the greatest thing since sliced bread because 1) THE colonel said so 2) if you do not think they are, refer to rule number 1.
Alternatively, the prevailing thought is that they are completely useless and if LPVOs existed in Jeff Cooper's time, there would never be such a thing as scout scopes.
The truth, as is usually the case, resides somewhere in the middle.
Scout scopes do have their place, but they are definitely a niche product. It is, however, an interesting niche.
Scout scope pickings are relatively slim in terms of what's on offer.
Leupold makes a 1.5-4x28 https://alnk.to/gKSibYj
Burris makes a 2-7x32 and 2.75x20
Vortex has a 2-7x32 in the Crossfire line
There are also a few out there from UTG, Aimsports, etc.

I strongly lean toward compact fixed power designs, so Burris 2.75x20 https://alnk.to/cSJCBQx is probably my favourite and is the subject of this ...

00:11:58
Independence Day, 2025

Publishing a "Happy Independence Day!" a day after independence day is probably bad form. It is also bad for posting affiliate links. Everybody and their grandmother is having discounts and I am not posting any links. To be honest, I do not particularly like posting general links and I simply did not have time to dig through everything and come with specific product links.
Still, if you plan to be buying something from one of the retailers I have an affiliate account with, I would appreciate it if you were to start with one of my links listed in the FAQ: https://darklordofoptics.locals.com/faq

I started writing the more substantive part of this post yesterday, but got sidetracked with thinking about the origin of the ideas that make America and ran out of time. I was only able to get back to it now. I suppose, better late than never.

We live in the world that, as far as the details go, is dramatically different from the world of the founders of the United States.

For the majority of this ...

July 04, 2025

Hi Ilya,

For many years I have been looking for a new spotting scope that has an FFP mil reticle for accurately calling corrections.  I have the angled version Kowa TSN-883 with 20-60 eyepiece that is great except it doesn’t have a reticle so the correction calls are not as precise or as fast as they could/should be. An ideal reticle would have a crosshair or L with a grid off of center but a simple crosshair, L or a tree would be sufficient.

I really like dual focus (can settle for single focus) that uses the small knobs that rotate very easily/smoothly so the scope can be focused on a v-bag while staying on target when it's impractical or a hassle to use a tripod. 

I also like an angled eye piece because it’s easier to establish a comfortable position in many situations as compared to straight eyepiece where you need to be directly behind the scope.  

I haven’t found anything with these attributes with max magnification and glass quality at least “good enough” for clear ...

A morning with a chronograph

When I tell people that I am using Hornady's factory ammo for matches, I get occasionally surprised looks.  Occasionally.  Most of the time, I get fairly condescending looks from handloaders who would not let a factory round pollute the chambers of their precision rifles if their lives depended on it.

To be fair, if I had the time, I might be reloading as well.  I might be able to do better than modern factory ammo, but the truth is that I am not a quarter MOA shooter, so a lot of that would be lost on me.  The UKD matches I fidn most interesting can be done by a competent shooter with a 1MOA gun.  I am working on that first part.  I reload when I have to, but if I can get factory ammo that's not outrageously expensive and that shoots well, I will go with that every time.

I looked around and realized that I have about 600 rounds of Hornady 147gr 6.5CM factory ammo from two lots.  400 rounds from one that I will use during the match later this month.  The remainder I will likely use up practicing prior to that.

I woke up early and snuck out to the range while my family was still asleep earlier today.

I set up in the 100 yard tunnel we have.  I took my four shots to zero with the lot I plan to use for the match.  Then I fired a six shot ~0.7MOA group.  That's accurate enough for my purposes.

Here are the chronograph results:

It is slow, but accurate and consistent.

Then I shot a five round group of Hornady 147gr ammo from the other lot.

Both of those lots are not too shabby for factory ammo.  POI was within 0.2mrad between the two lots, all laterally.  

 

I had some other ammo on hand, so I fired two five shot groups with Berger 144gr hybrid target ammo and Sako TRG 136gr.

Here is what I got for five rounds of Berger:

That's not a ton of statistics, but it is a data point.  The group was ~1.1MOA

 

Here the data for the Sako TRG 136gr ammo:

This ammo showed some mild pressure signs, but not too significant.  

Again, this is not a ton of data, but Hornady is looking pretty decent here.

I'll repeat the zero retention and consistency tests a couple more times between now and June 18th when we head to Wyoming.

I might pick up a couple more boxes of Hornady 147gr from a different lot to get some more data.

More to come.

 

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First PRS Match is behind me
High Noon at Del Norte

My first PRS match is officially behind me.  It was, I think an officially sanctioned regional PRS match at the shooting range called Del Norte about an hour from me (just east of Rio Rancho).
As I discussed previously, rather than using the rifle I originally prepared for it, I ended up having to change gears at the last moment and slapping a 5-25x56 Tangent on my daughter's 6ARC MiniFIx.  A lightweight 16" Proof barreled 6ARC is not an ideal set up for PRS competition, but, in the grand scheme of things, the rifle did hot hold me back at all.  I had a couple of weights that fit the Q-cert handguard, so I slapped them on there as well, which got the rifle to right around 12lbs.  The balance point was almost where I want it, but not quite.  In all other ways, this was a very handy rifle to shoot.  I am actually thinking of getting a couple more weights that I can stack on it (Sawtooth weights are stackable), so that I can shoot some future local matches with it.  It shoots Hornady's Black 105gr ammo very well (it also shoots 108gr ELD-M and 103gr ELD-X well, but I had a larger supply of Hornady Black ammo on hand).

It chrono'ed pretty consistently for factory ammo.  Here are the measurements for a 20 shot group.

If I were to take out the fastest shot, SD drops down to 8fps.  

In terms of wind performance, it is a 5mph rifle, so slightly better than the 308 ammo I was going to use originally, but not as good as the 6.5CM that was my intended match rifle for this year (we make plans, but then life happens).

I do have to admit that I really enjoyed shooting the match with the MiniFix.  So much so, that I am seriously thinking of building another one for myself, since this rifle is technically my daughter's.

The closest shot we had was a bit over a couple of hundred yards.  The furthest was around 1150.  That was a bit challenging for the 16" barreled 6ARC, especially since the terrain there is tricky and wind is doing strange things.  Morning was relatively quiet wind-wise, but then the wind becamse gusty with changing directions.

It was a one day match with about 30 shooters (six squads) and ten stages.  The 17 year old kid who won the match was in my squad with his dad.  Apparently he is on the US team, so it should not be surrpising that he won.  He was very good.

Overall level of the shooters in the match was quite good.  I really was not sure what to expect.  Somewhat paradoxically, the only matches that I have shot in so far are the much larger two day NRL Hunter matches.  In those, I am just out of the bottom third in terms of skill level.  In this match, it was pretty much in the same spot, I think.  

The terrain was a little bit like Cameo, I think (I have been there, but not shot there), with some angle changes and sufficient vegetation to make getting on target occasionally troublesome. 

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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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