DarkLordOfOptics
Politics • Science & Tech • Sports
Guns, Optics, 2nd Amendment and resisting the Left in everything they touch.
Interested? Want to learn more about the community?

Learn more first
Livestream later tonight and upcoming raffle

I made it back to some semblance of civilization in Colorado, but only for one night. Tomorrow, we will head into the Rocky Mountain National Park for a few days of camping and I am not sure how spotty internet connectivity is going to be.

My original plan was to do an impromptu sort of a livestream on my takeaways from the match I just shot, but given what has been happening in the Middle East, it is probably more pertinent to talk about that.

I am going to start by rehashing a little bit the narrative of how we got to the current situation and where the latest events are likely to taking us.

As far as the match goes, they did a random drawing for the prize table, so Ethan and I both walked away with something. Since both of us are very much industry insiders, I am not sure how appropriate it would be for either one of us to keep stuff off of the prize table.

That means that I will raffle off the items we picked up during the next couple of livestreams.

One is a $2000 OFF certificate for Burris XTR PS 5.5-30x56 courtesy of Q, since Ethan works and Q and it is his prize table find.

The other is Burris Fastfire 4 red dot sight courtesy of yours truly.

The drawing will be random. I will set-up a an email specifically for it: [email protected]

Once the email address goes live, I will give you the cutoff date until when to send the email. The emails will be assigned a number in the order in which they were received. Then, I will run a random number generator to see who wins.

The two items will be raffled off separately.

To be eligible, you have to send an email to [email protected] with your name and the item you want to be bidding for. You can only go for one or the other, not both.

Interested? Want to learn more about the community?

Learn more first
What else you may like…
Videos
Posts
Articles
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
Weekend Roundup, of sorts

Weekends is when I catch up on the political stuff and I am not convinced that brings out the best in me.
https://open.substack.com/pub/darklordofoptics/p/weekend-roundup?r=y4q3j&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Still, there is a lot happening and I do not like most of it.

Question:

I am looking for a pair of Binoculars for Total Archery Challenge.
So spotting targets from 16yd to 130yd.
I don't need range finding, I don't need imagine stabilizing.

What are good options to look at under 1k?

Uncooled Thermal with a little bit of history

There is, as always, an entertaining discussion happening in the Hide, but I do not feel like getting into another protracted argument about comparative merits of different uncooled cores with people who do not know a whole lot about them. I mentioned that BAE is getting out of the uncooled core business. The responses were interesting.

Still, I thought some of the background on uncooled cores is worth rehashing since I was around for most of it and involved in some of it. Hopefully, you'll find it informative. If not, this post will fade like many others before it.

Here is a little history on uncooled cores from an eyewitness.

I was working at Raytheon when it was starting out and one of my first projects over there was trying to figure out how to calibrate early uncooled cores for a military project that eventually ended up going into ENVG.

The uncooled technology was first developed by Honeywell and after a while they licensed it to a bunch of people. Honeywell developed the technology, but did not ...

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.

Only for Supporters
To read the rest of this article and access other paid content, you must be a supporter
Read full Article
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.

Only for Supporters
To read the rest of this article and access other paid content, you must be a supporter
Read full Article
post photo preview
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.

Read full Article
Available on mobile and TV devices
google store google store app store app store
google store google store app tv store app tv store amazon store amazon store roku store roku store
Powered by Locals