DarkLordOfOptics

This was streamed live on www.darklordofoptics.com on April 26, 2022.

In this livestream, I am looking to go over how thermal imaging works, why it is fundamentally different from what we normally see with our eyes or even from what we see through night vision devices. I'll touch on a few thermal scopes I have been looking at lately and wrap up with the usual Q&A. In many ways I am testing the waters here because I do not know how technical you really want me to get. If there is interest, I can make it as nerdy as you want.

Join me at www.darklordofoptics.com for further discussion. Here is a review of Steiner's new MPS enclosed emitter red dot sight. It is a competent design with a few clever features and robust construction.

Join me at www.darklordofoptics.com for more details and censorship free discussion. In this video, we take a quick first look at the new AF-C from Alpha Foxtrot. It is an aluminum frame Glock 19 clone with improved ergonomics and excellent shootability.

For more discussion, visit me at www.darklordofoptics.com This short video is a wrap-up of a year long test of the CTS-1550 compact red dot sight from Crimson Trace. It lived on my carry gun for most of 2021 and gave me exactly zero problems. Naturally, just as I got done with it, Crimson Trace discontinued it, but the good part is that it is nicely discounted: https://bit.ly/3Jfe435

Tune in for a brief (ish) update on what's happening in the Ukraine War now that we are three weeks into it.

In this show, Eugene and I will go over the situation as it stands now, touch on US response to it, the way Russian and US media portray the situation and a variety of other issues. We will, of course, take questions. Budget on a couple of hours for the whole thing.

In this live show we catch up with the latest on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. To better understand the military aspects of this Eugene Fratkin who served in the USMC during the Iraq War and Dima Medved who was an offices in the paratrooper division of the Ukrainian armed forces join us for this show. Dima was wounded during the conflict in Donbass several years ago. He is now based in the US.

Travis of Silvercore Podcast and Alex of Affordable Rifle and Optics Reviews are both in Canada and they will join me to discuss what's happening there with the Freedom Convoy.

Will and I are going to give SHOT Show recap one more final shot (pun intended).

SHOT 2022 Takeaways

As we wrap with 2021, I want to spend a few minutes on how this year has been for me in terms of guns and optics and what I am looking forward to in 2022. A couple of fellow gun bloggers will stop by as well.

This one is going to get nerdy, folks! I am travelling this week, so this one is going to be done under field conditions from my hotel room near Boston. I'll talk a little bit about a few different ways reticles are typically illuminated in riflescopes and what applications these different illumination methods do best with. Naturally, I'll open it up to a Q&A. I'll limit this to two hours as I have been doing lately.

Visit www.darklordofoptics.com for further discussion

Bullet Drop Compensating (BDC) reticles vs Precision, which is the right choice for you? In this session, we're having a round table discussion with Jeff Gurwitch, of Modern Tactical Shooting, and Ilya Koshkin from the Dark Lord of Optics. Be sure to stick around for the Q&A lightning round! Powered by Restream https://restream.io/

For more information, please visit www.darklordofoptics.com Through the scope look at Brownells' CQ-NOMR reticle in their MPO 1-8x24 LPVO. I ended up liking this reticle quite a bit more than I expected based on originally seeing a drawing of it. It is a competent and easy to use design. The scope is only available through Brownells with either CQ-NOMR (https://bit.ly/3ADxI4x) or plex (https://bit.ly/3AI3ltz) reticles.

For additional discussion, please join me at www.darklordofoptics.com Here is the third installment of this series, recorded after a rather long break. Let me know if you have any questions. Here is the rough parts list: VC Defense billet lower BCM upper https://bit.ly/3wcHIQX Proof Research 16" CF barrel https://bit.ly/3whEg7I Odin tunable gas block https://bit.ly/3EJk8hO Bootleg adjustable BCG https://bit.ly/3BLeQAl Q HoneyBadger 12" handguard https://bit.ly/2ZRt7hr ACE UL Stock https://bit.ly/3mIWpbc Vortex Razor Gen3 1-10x24 https://bit.ly/3BJkR0j Aadmount Hiperfire 24 4Gun trigger https://bit.ly/3bCaykj Zero Bravo offset sights Crimson Trace CMR-301 light/laser https://bit.ly/2ZPQrfy Riflecraft RS-3 sling

This is the topic I try to re-visit once a year or so, starting with a discussion and followed with an article or two elaborating on different scenarios. Here is the optics portion that came out from last year's discussion: https://opticsthoughts.com/?page_id=1262 I will also extend this to firearms for this year.

For this show, Matt, The Everyday Marksman, and Jacob, the Pro-gun Millenial, will join me to discuss whether an offset RDS has rendered the LPVO superfluous or not. We will cover a few other related topics including a discussion of BDC vs mrad reticles. Post show notes: We did not get to the subject of BDC vs mrad reticles. That will have to be addressed separately, perhaps in the coming inaugural Everyday Marksman livecast. The discussion meandered around a bit, but we largely focused on why LPVOs are there, why they give you nearly unrivaled flexibility and why it is not a bad idea to add an RDS to them, whether for redundancy or for speed. That having been said, if you want to save some weight at the cost of a little redunduncy and long range reach, one of the modern microprisms with an offset red dot can sneak in under 10 ounces altogether. An interesting question came up on whether to use open or closed emitter designs. For me personally, if there is no weight/size penalty, I'd lean toward closed emitter RDS, but I mostly use open emitter micro-red dot sights due to how small and robust they are. Some of the different sights mentioned and shown: If you want an LPVO to truly do it all, my current favourites for general purpose use are: SAI 1-6x24 https://bit.ly/3B5zkn4 and Vortex Razor Gen3 1-10x24 https://bit.ly/30SzdPm If you do not need 1x and simply want a red dot added to a general purpose hunting/precision scope, Vortex' new Razor HD-LHT 4.5-22x50 is a near ideal condidate given it's light weight and excellent performance https://bit.ly/30HGW2w As far as microprismatic scopes go, the upcoming Primary Arms SLx 3x might be the one to beat in terms of what you get for the money, but is not officially out yet. The GLx 2x is out and while marginally bigger, it is better optically and seems to be damn near bombproof https://bit.ly/3b2ZZq8. Burris' RT-3 has a reticle that is on the small side, but it really works well with illumination in low light and with/without illumination in daylight https://bit.ly/3E5Be91 Vortex's Spitfire Gen2 5x is really growing on me if you want little more magnification https://bit.ly/3ju2hD4 With red dot sights, nearly any compact RDS can be set up as an offset or piggybacked optic. I have a lot of them and most are robust and capable. On balance, I prefer the ones with autoadjust dot brightness simply form the standpoint that these exist to be deployed rapidly, so I want them always on and ready to go in any light without having to press buttons. I am really fond of Shield Sights' RMS and SIS series and have, at the latest count one RMS, one RMSc with plastic lens, one RMSc with glass lens, one RMSw (waterproof version), one RMS 2.0 (this one has a glass lens and for some reason the dot is perfectly round even with my astigmatism) and on SIS. While I do not intentionally try to destroy them, they have been through some rough treatment. I damaged two so far and Shield promptly fixed everything for me although it was my fault that they got damaged. One was dipped in caustic nitrocarburization fluids and another got smacked with rocks and flying brass which damaged the window. In both cases, only the window got damaged. The electronics kept working, I could still see the dot and point of aim did not change https://bit.ly/3G9Bvtv and https://bit.ly/3b1Prrd Another small red dot sight, though a little bigger than the RMS, I have grown to like immensely is Holosun 507C-X2 with ACSS Vulcan reticle. I'll do a separate video on it explaining why. https://bit.ly/3B5t3I5 Lastly, if you are on a budget, consider SwampFox Sentinel that fit sin the RMS footprint. It is proving to be nicely robust and compact: https://bit.ly/3b324lW

For more information, please visit www.darklordofoptics.com Through the scope look at Brownells' CQ-NOMR reticle in their MPO 1-8x24 LPVO. I ended up liking this reticle quite a bit more than I expected based on originally seeing a drawing of it. It is a competent and easy to use design. The scope is only available through Brownells with either CQ-NOMR (https://bit.ly/3ADxI4x) or plex (https://bit.ly/3AI3ltz) reticles.

Please visit www.darklordofoptics.com for further information and discussion. Observation optics is a pretty involved subject as is, further complicated by the fact that most observation optics are not made for shooters. Here is a live show I did on observation optics that touches on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TCUZGuCdTI This binocular is decidedly not intended for birders. As the name implies, it is squarely aimed at military and law enforcement applications. It is a very competent overall design, but there is a feature that is sorely missing. Let me know what you think once you watch the video. The binocular in question is the Steiner Military 10x50r LRF: https://bit.ly/2WA88hY

For more on optics, please visit www.darklordofoptics.com In this video we wrap up with the Brownells MPO 1-8x24 riflescope. It is a competent "across the course" design that is hampered somewhat by 25oz weight and day visible, but not daybright reticle. Still, it is very solid optically and mechanically. The scope is only available through Brownells with either CQ-NOMR (https://bit.ly/3ADxI4x) or plex (https://bit.ly/3AI3ltz) reticles.

Observation Optics for shooters. Let's have a discussion of how to look at binoculars and spotters if you are a shooter. Post show notes and links: The subject of good binoculars for kids came up. I really like lower magnification options for this. Budget and surprisingly decent option is Kowa YF 6x30 https://bit.ly/3F69q5W A little higher end and more compact is Maven B3 6x30 https://bit.ly/3meDYcO For LRF binoculars, for $1200 Delta Titanium RF 9x45 is probably my favourite if you are on a budget: http://darnfineshot.com/deop9xhdrfra.html As you go up in price a little, Meopta Optika LR is looking very promising: https://bit.ly/3A0EIaI If you can live with a large porro bino and do not need an angle indicator, the depth of field of Steiner 10x50 LRF is really something and it is the only one to combine LRF with a reticle in the other barrel: https://bit.ly/3zRBfuN I was surprised with how good it is optically. For a general non-LRF binocular, I have been using my prehistoric 6x32 Vortex Viper and the much newer Vortex Razor UHD 10x42: https://bit.ly/2WopuhJ Someone asked a question about vintage binoculars. If you want a vintage look and modern performance, consider Swarovski's GA 7x42. Amazing depth perception. https://bit.ly/3CSRoC6 If you are ready to spend some money on a truly world class bino LRF, I think this Leica is probably your best bet: https://bit.ly/2Y3W49H With spotters, the best currently available spotter for shooter is Hensoldt: -Spotter 45 https://bit.ly/2ZNR9dz -Spotter 60 https://bit.ly/3m9HoxM Swarovski STR (https://bit.ly/2Y1QDaC) is up there and I used it for several years, but Hensoldt's depth of field wins the day. Personally, my two "beater" spotters that use all the time are not as nice, but not priced like Hensoldt and Swaro. Athlon Cronus Tactical 7-42x60 https://bit.ly/3kUJuSC Athlon Ares G2 UHD 15-45x60 https://bit.ly/3D1ZNDc with 22x reticle eyepiece https://bit.ly/2ZDogQV

This topic came out of another forum discussion on what magnification riflescopes perform best at. There is no simple answer, so I thought an overview is worthwhile. Scopes mentioned in the discussion: Nightforce ATACR 7-35x56 https://bit.ly/3o6XgUc March 4.5-28x52 https://bit.ly/3uc6aAQ March 5-42x56 https://bit.ly/39CqyS7

For further discussion, please visit www.darklordofoptics.com This video is a quick overview of the Delta Titanium RF 9x45 laser rangefinding binocular. I have spent a significant amount of time with it and I am quite impressed with what you get for the money. Delta Optical dealers in the US are EdGun West, Annex Defense and Darn Fine Shot if you are interested. The carry case I happen to like the most comes from Marsupial Gear. Medium size carrier fits this binocular very nicely. The LRF binocular shown for size comparison is the somewhat more expensive Vortex Fury 5000 AB 10x42. That's the one I use most of the time these days, since it integrates with other electronics I use (like my watch) very nicely https://bit.ly/3tTVgzA