I flew out to the East Coast last week and on Saturday, June 25, I produced another successful Operation: Bad Blood airsoft event at EMR Event Park in northeastern Pennsylvania. Over 800 players made it to the field this year despite the outrageously high gas prices and equally as high humidity and heat (90º). Evike.com sponsored the event for the 14th straight year and sent Matt and a camera crew to take part in the action.
The heat caused numerous heat-related exhaustion injuries which had to be evacuated by EMS from the field; 6 occurred within the first hour! The game ran non-stop all day, with the players forming 4 different competing factions and non-aligned Tribal forces warring it over 200 acres of woods, multi-leveled forts, and simulated villages. The objective of the game for the factions was to collect up to eight different blood sample stamps hidden in the field and on the person of each faction commander.
A bonus mission this year was the capture and extraction of Evike Matt in the last half-hour of the game. No faction won the bonus. The Black Shirts, who were the first to find him, chose instead to run out the clock. Due to safety concerns caused by the oppressive heat and humidity, I called for an early end of the game at 16:00 (much to the relief of all players).
At the end of the game, the sample cards were collected and Marxists and Deus X were tied for the most stamps at 6, but the win was awarded to Deus X because the Marxist CO was unavailable for a tie-breaker duel.
After all the players exited the field and recovered, they gathered around the EMR stage for the legendary post-Bad Blood raffle. Each player received a complimentary raffle ticket and over the course of nearly an hour we raffled off over 50 AEGs, pistols, plate carriers, weapon lights, gift cards, and accessories supplied by Evike.com, Jackal Tactical, Amped Airsoft, O-Light, and EMR. Evike alone supplied a variety of morale patches (over 1000!) that were tossed and distributed to the crowd.
The next morning, I organized a bonus game of OP: Dead Blood, a zombie game. The majority of the attendees camped on the field, too tired from the previous day’s game to drive home. I organized about 300 die-hard players spread out around Fort War and competed against each other to find bio-hazard markers. As players were killed they added to the ever-growing zombie hoard. The rest of the Sunday, EMR ran skirmish games for everyone.
The following Tuesday, while I waited for my delayed flight at Newark Airport back to California, I reflected on the event. Thanks to Evike, EMR, and many players who stepped up to volunteer to help me put on Bad Blood 2002. Despite the brutal heat, the overwhelming feedback I got was positive. I fly back with many lessons and thoughts about how to improve the event for OP: Bad Blood 2023.
UTG/Leapers is a Taiwan based maker of optics and firearms accessories that is often miscategorized as a cheap Chinese knock-off brand. But their most recent offerings are often original designs that often copied by the aforementioned knock-off brands. Case in point, their Recon Flex II bipod was one of the first direct attach M-Lok bipods to market.
I purchased the Gen 1 Recon Flex a few years back and found it to be an affordable, rugged, and stable bipod. In addition, its side-mounted M-Lok design made it exceptionally low profile when stowed. It’s major drawback was it’s slow speed in deployment compared to spring-loaded Harris style bipods.
This deficiency was the main feature rectified in the Recon Flex II. Like a Harris bipod, the Flex II has spring loaded lower legs which quickly extend the legs to max extension when the locking tab is pressed. The Flex II also features smaller metallic feet which can be user replaced with Atlas compatible pads.
The lower legs are sectioned to index when adjusting for height. The release tab must be pressed to retract or extend, unlike the Gen 1, which could be pulled out without depressing the release tab. Like the Gen 1 the Flex II has an adjustment wheel should you require a leg length between index stops to level a rifle on uneven terrain.
The Flex II still has not come up with a quicker means to deploy the legs. Unfortunately, the slight redesign of the locking collar with a less aggressive checkering, makes the legs harder to unlock and deploy compared to the Gen 1. A slightly flared collar or raised checkering might solve some of this but the short of adding spring loaded legs or creating an unlocked free swinging mode, this design will never be as quick to deploy as a Harris-style bipod. The trade off for the quick deployment its legs is a thinner profile when stowed and the option to angle the legs forward to pre-load the tripod.
Because of the bipods M-Lok side-mounting, the bipod can not swivel or cant. For some shooters this is no loss and may be preferred. The Flex II offers a very rigid and strong shooting platform which just a slight amount of give for micro-adjustments required for precision shooters.
Overall the Flex II is an improvement on the Gen 1 but the changes are not all improvements. The two handed leg lock design and the smoother locking collar both make for a new design which can actually be slower to use than the original Recon Flex. But a retail price still below a $100, this is one of the most affordable high-quality, bipods available.
This Recon Flex II is available on Amazon through my affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3sL5ItE
Hawke is one of the top hunting optics makers in the United Kingdom and the largest maker of precision airgun optics in the world. But chances are, unless you shoot competitive or hunting airguns in the U.S., you’ve never heard of Hawke scopes. You should.
I meet the folks at Hawke at Shot Show this year and they showed me some of their newest products. The Sidewinder caught my eye because it had an unusual temperature gauge like window in the elevation turret, to indicate how many revolutions you turned. I wanted to get my hands on one to test at the range and Hawke was kind enough to send me a Sidewinder 30 6-24×56 FFP model.
The box had a clean, white design indicative of in high end European brands. Inside was a scope, sun shade, parallax focus wheel, throw leaver, cleaning cloth, allen wrench, and instruction book. The scope came with a modern update of old-school see-through caps, kept in place with an elastic band.
On close inspection the scope was of excellent build. The 30 in the name denotes the tube dimension which offers it a wider range of reticle adjustments from their older 1″ tube designs. My first impression was that the scope felt light and its stated weight of 27.3oz is approx 6oz lighter than my Athlon Helos Gen2. The tube has a smooth matte black finish and all the nobs and turning surfaces are well checkered and treaded to aid in manipulation for wet or gloved fingers.
The parallax focus and ocular fast focus turned smoothly. The parallax ranges from 10yrds to infinity. The eyepiece ocular/reticle focus has locking ring, an uncommon feature nowadays but a welcome one for hunters.
It’s most striking feature, and which originally caught my eye, is the elevation turret. At the base of the turret there is a witness window showing a red-on-white gauge numbered 0-4, which rises or falls with the turn of the turret cap. The turret clicks are clearly audible and tactile positive. Both turrets are locking, with a pull-to release allowing the cap to turn freely.
The elevation turret had a noticeable wobble when released. This concerned me enough to contact Hawke which suggested I send it back to have a Service Tech examine it. Hawke was a no-fault lifetime warranty, so this was done easily, with them sending me a mailing label to ship it back to them.
A few weeks later, I followed up and their Tech assured me that there was nothing wrong with my scope. The wobble is an unintended side effect to the unique design of the elevation turret. They shipped it back to me that same week.
I would like to note that the “wobble” did not effect the function of the scope in my testing. The windage turret, of a traditional design, had no wobble. Both turrets are resettable by unscrewing the cap.
The scope has an illumination dial on the parallax turret. The center third of the reticle illuminates red when activated. The dial has settings from 1-6 in intensity with an off-setting between the numbers. At its highest setting at 24x magnification, the reticle is bright enough for daylight use.
The reticle itself is exceptionally fine/thin to a fault. It is a cruciform, Christmas-tree style with MIL sub-tensions. At 6x it floats in the center of the field of view without touching the edges. As a First Focal Plane (FFP) reticle, it thickens up considerably at 24x to a weight more typical of a SFP reticle.
This reticle may appeal more to target shooters rather than hunters? At 6x it is so thin as to be easily lost in heavy foliage. Then again, some hunters may want a clearer field of view when wide scanning at 6x.
Most MIL or MOA target reticles (especially Christmas-tree style) have a few reference numbers along the reticle sub-tensions to indicated MOA or MIL radiant from center. The Hawke Sidewinder lacks any numbers or letters and is as naked as a duplex reticle. This has the advantage of offering the user a much less cluttered sight picture even for a Christmas-tree reticle but with the added challenge of carefully reading their user manual and remembering the size and distance each sub-tension mark.
As a primarily Precision competition shooter, this thin and simplified reticle very much works for me. The Christmas-Tree employs mini cross-hairs instead of dots to denote its holdover positions which makes shooting at paper much easier. But for an ELR or NRL22 shooter, you’ll have to devise your own cheat sheet and get very used to remembering and counting your marks.
The scope has a generous 4″ and the eyebox was better than most even at 24x. Looking at my reference targets at 24x at 100yrds, there were noticeable chromatic aberration but the image was evenly sharp from center to edge. The image was bright, though slightly warm in tinge and lacked a bit of contrast compared with Vortex and Leupold scopes I’ve tested.
Where this scope shines is in sharpness and resolution. You can easily make out .22 caliber holes on paper at 100yrds. On the USAF-51 optical resolution chart, I could make out the Element 1 / Group 0 element bars with my naked eye (my phone camera could only make out Element 6 / Group -1). This puts it on par with a comparably priced Leupold Mark 3HD and almost as sharp as much more expensive Leupold Mark 5HD.
I recently posted a video sharing my discovery of Rumble’s new automatic sync feature that automatically copies your YouTube videos to Rumble. This was a huge improvement from having to manually upload copies on Rumble and fill out descriptions, usage, rights, etc.
Some of the viewers of that video left me questions/comments worried about losing ownership to their videos and whether it would affect monetization on YouTube? I answered as well as I could. Some of the questions seemed to display a misunderstanding of rights and ownership of their videos. I thought it would be helpful to create a follow up video going over this.
DISCLAIMER
Before I get started, I am not a lawyer or a law expert nor do I claim to be. So this is not legal advice. These are my opinions of the legal documents posted by YouTube and Rumble so take that for what you will. But I do have a little experience on the topic. For 30 years, I was an Advertising writer and creative director so I was made well aware of the pitfalls of copyright infringement and skin in the game because I’m a content creator like many of you.
COPYRIGHT
As I mentioned, I worked in Ad Agencies for most of my adult life. I made commercials, magazine ads, billboards, websites and apps for brands like American Express, Volkswagen, Amtrak and others. †
Unlike most of you small content creators, big Ad Agencies and brands can’t just put whatever we want in an Ad. We can’t download any song and put it in a video commercial. We can’t use photos of celebrities or movies or shows we find on a Google search and slap a logo or a product next to it. Not without contacting the owners of that image or intellectual property without negotiating the use of their creation and paying them a license to use it.
That’s rights ownership. And that’s what you control with a Copyright. And I think I need to explain what a copyright is. It’s a compound word. It’s granting the right to make a copy of what you own.
What is a Copyright?
This definition comes from the Federal Govt.’s www.copyright.gov it’s actually handled by the Library of Congress interestingly enough.
“Copyright is a type of intellectual property that protects original works of authorship as soon as an author fixes the work in a tangible form of expression.” That includes books, articles, songs, movies, and there are many more things. And there are things you can not copyright such as book titles, Ad slogans, words but I won’t get into that because that’s a whole nother video itself.
What we’re concerned with today is digital streaming content. Videos you post on YouTube and Rumble. So as far as national laws are concerned, as soon as you create your video and post it on YouTube, Rumble, your website or just the cloud. You own an automatic copyright to that video that’s your Intellectual Property. Nobody has a right to stream, play, or copy that video without your consent.
This is with a caveat that the video you created was original. It wasn’t copying content from somebody else who owns their own copyright to it, unless you got their express written consent. That’s why you will get dinged with a Copyright claim on your video if you used a popular song and made a lip sync or reaction video, you don’t have a right to use it unless you actually got a copyright from the originator of that work.
There’s a whole subcategory in Copyright law of allowed use of some content known as the “Fair Use” doctrine. I won’t get into that now because that’s a long deep rabbit hole. But if you’d be interested in having me discuss that, leave me a comment and if there’s enough interest, I’ll do a video on that.
But lets get back to the bottom line here. When you create a video that is original or at least original enough that somebody else can’t claim you stole their shit to make it, then you own an automatic Copyright. That’s Intellectual Property. And like real property, you own it until you sell it to somebody else like Lucas sold Star Wars to Disney.
TERMS OF SERVICE
When you created your YouTube or Rumble account you had to Opt in and agree to their Terms of Service or User Agreement. Too many of us didn’t bother reading it (TLDR) we just clicked through.
Let’s take a quick look at a key section of YouTube’s Terms fo Service
Rights you Grant
You retain all of your ownership rights in your Content. In short, what belongs to you stays yours. However, we do require you to grant certain rights to YouTube and other users of the Service, as described below.
License to YouTube
By providing Content to the Service, you grant to YouTube a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable, sublicensable license to use that Content (including to reproduce, distribute, modify, display and perform it) for the purpose of operating, promoting, and improving the Service.
There’s a lot more so you really should read it again. https://www.youtube.com/static?template=terms
What this essentially means is that by creating an account on YouTube and uploading a video to their platform/service, you agree to give them a “license” to your content “royalty free” (you don’t charge them to use it). That allows them to stream your video on their platform to the world and play ads in front of it. And if you’re monetized, allows them to interrupt your video with Ads. YouTube agrees to share a small percentage of that Ad revenue earned for that video.
If you’re watching this video on YouTube, it’s on my channel Moondog R&D which hasn’t yet reached the 1000 subscriber and 4000 watch-hour requirement for monetization so please hit the subscribe button now and help me get there. And share this video to other content creators who could use the info and I get more watch time.
Now on Rumble you actually get to specify what kind of license you grant Rumble, they have 4 different options. I plan to do another video getting into all 4 options but
the short answer is choose Option 3 because it’s essentially the same agreement you have on YouTube.
Rumble gets to play your videos on Rumble. YouTube gets to play your videos on YouTube.
SUMMARY I’m going to make some gross oversimplification for the sake of time.
• You own the copyright to your original creative work.
You grant YouTube a license for your work when you post it on YouTube.
By Syncing your YouTube videos on Rumble, you are granting Rumble a license to copy your work to their platform.
You retain copyrights/ownership to your work
You can cancel at any time (for now).
Read your Terms of Service agreement. Do it now.
1. Introduction
Rumble and YouTube syncing and licensing. What is “licensing”? We need to take a step back and explain what you’re licensing: your copyright.
2. What is a Copyright?
Copyright is a type of intellectual property that protects original works of authorship as soon as an author fixes the work in a tangible form of expression. In copyright law, there are a lot of different types of works, including paintings, photographs, illustrations, musical compositions, sound recordings, computer programs, books, poems, blog posts, movies, architectural works, plays, and so much more!
Titles, names, short phrases, and slogans; familiar symbols or designs; mere variations of typographic ornamentation, lettering, or coloring; and mere listings of ingredients or contents
2a. When does a copyright start?
2b. Authorship vs. Work for Hire
3. FAIR USE
It is a legal doctrine not a law. Types of uses—such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research—
YouTube and Rumble are social media platforms that you granted a license (a Copyright) to stream and make a profit from your creative work (your video). Look up and read the Terms of Service that you agreed to when you signed up for YouTube and uploaded a video.
You retain ownership rights in your Content. However, we do require you to grant certain rights to YouTube and other users of the Service, as described below.
License to YouTube
By providing Content to the Service, you grant to YouTube a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicensable and transferable license to use that Content (including to reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works, display and perform it) in connection with the Service and YouTube’s (and its successors’ and Affiliates’) business, including for the purpose of promoting and redistributing part or all of the Service.
License to Other Users
You also grant each other user of the Service a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to access your Content through the Service, and to use that Content, including to reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works, display, and perform it, only as enabled by a feature of the Service (such as video playback or embeds). For clarity, this license does not grant any rights or permissions for a user to make use of your Content independent of the Service.
Duration of License
The licenses granted by you continue for a commercially reasonable period of time after you remove or delete your Content from the Service. You understand and agree, however, that YouTube may retain, but not display, distribute, or perform, server copies of your videos that have been removed or deleted.
Right to Monetize
You grant to YouTube the right to monetize your Content on the Service (and such monetization may include displaying ads on or within Content or charging users a fee for access). This Agreement does not entitle you to any payments. Starting November 18, 2020, any payments you may be entitled to receive from YouTube under any other agreement between you and YouTube (including for example payments under the YouTube Partner Program, Channel memberships or Super Chat) will be treated as royalties. If required by law, Google will withhold taxes from such payments.
Removing Your Content
You may remove your Content from the Service at any time. You also have the option to make a copy of your Content before removing it. You must remove your Content if you no longer have the rights required by these terms.
Removal of Content By YouTube
If any of your Content (1) is in breach of this Agreement or (2) may cause harm to YouTube, our users, or third parties, we reserve the right to remove or take down some or all of such Content in our discretion. We will notify you with the reason for our action unless we reasonably believe that to do so: (a) would breach the law or the direction of a legal enforcement authority or would otherwise risk legal liability for YouTube or our Affiliates; (b) would compromise an investigation or the integrity or operation of the Service; or (c) would cause harm to any user, other third party, YouTube or our Affiliates. You can learn more about reporting and enforcement, including how to appeal on the Troubleshooting page of our Help Center.
5. CONCLUSIONS
I hope this video was helpful. The key takeaways you should have are that both YouTube and Rumble don’t own your content, you do. But by using either platform you grant them the right to use your work; their right to copy and show your work, a copyright. But the most important thing from all this is, read the fine print before you opt-in.
Enter to Win an OLight weaponlight. Use your skill to SUBSCRIBE, JOIN or FOLLOW any or all of these Social Media Channels/Accounts. So there are multiple ways to enter.
1. Use the button below to email a screen capture of any of these pages to olight@moondogindustries.com
2. Include your full name and ship-to address (so I can confirm you live in the US or Canada)
3. Each subscription/follow is worth (1) entry per person. You may submit multiple screen caps in your email. Entries must be received no later than 11:59pm PST on June 15.
NO PURCHASE IS NECESSARY TO ENTER. YOUR CHANCES OF WINNING DO NOT INCREASE WITH A PURCHASE. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED.
1. Eligibility
Void where prohibited by law. Must be 18 years of older to enter and residing in the USA or Canada. Moondog Industries and OLight employees, subsidiaries, affiliates, suppliers, advertising and promotion agencies, employees’ immediate family members, are ineligible participate in the contest/giveaway.
Entrants must be willing and able to appear on YouTube to discuss the contest and post images of the prize on their social feed should they win the contest.
2. Sponsors
Olight USA and Moondog Industries are collectively known as SPONSORS. OLight USA7951 Angleton Ct. STE B, Lorton, VA, 22079 is supplying the prize(s) and shipping them directly to the winner. Moondog Industries is a game promotor based in San Francisco, CA is organizing the contest on behalf of OLIght to promote the OP: Bad Blood event for EMR Event Park and Evike.com
3. Agreement to Rules
By entering your contest, participants agree to abide by the Sponsors Official Rules and decisions. Moondog Industries and OLight retain the right to refuse, withdraw, or disqualify entries at their sole discretion. By submitting an entry, the participant agrees to accept the decision of the Sponsors as final and binding.
4. Entry Period
Baldr Mini entries must be received by between 12:00pm PST June 1 and 11:59pm PST June 15. Baldr Pro-R entries must be received between 12:00PST May 7, 2022 and 11:59pm May 31, 2022.
5. How to Enter
This contest requires your skill in navigating your phone or computer controls to screen capture an image of the following YouTube channels/Social Media accounts. Subscribe or Follow and make a screen capture of those pages showing a greyed out Subscribe button or indicator that your account is Following that page. Send a screen capture image file of any of those sites to olight@moondogindustries.com . One entry per person or per YouTube channel/Social Media account. Fraudulent methods of entry, photo retouched, or other methods of circumvention of the rules may result in the Sponsor invalidating a participant’s entries.
6. Prizes
The winner will receive an OLight Baldr Pro R weapon light shipped to them from Olight. Winner must be able to receive the prize by mail. Prize may be substituted at the sole discretion of OLight. Acceptance of the prize grants Sponsors permission to use the Winners entry, name, and likeness for advertising, promotion, and trade without further compensation or remuneration unless prohibited by law.
7. Odds
Odds of winning is dependent upon the number of eligible entries received.
8. Selection and Notification of the Winner
The winner will be chosen at random by the Sponsors from among the entrants that demonstrated the skill to navigate the electronic entry and have met the minimum requirements. Winners will be contacted via the email used to enter the contest during the week of June 6, 2022 and announced June 12, 2022.
Sponsors are not liable for the winner’s failure to receive notification of winning if he or she provided a wrong email address or if their email security settings caused your prize notification to go into the spam or junk folder. If a winner does not respond within 24hrs of sending a notification, the Sponsors will select an alternate winner. Receipt of the prize is upon the condition of compliance with federal, state, and local laws.
9. Rights Granted by the Entrant
The Sponsors, upon submission of an entry into the giveaway or contest have the right to use the participant’s submission, voice, likeness, image, statements about the contest, etc., for publicity, news, advertising, promotional purposes, trade, and so forth, without any further notice, review, consent, compensation or remuneration.
Participants shall defend or settle against such claims at their sole expense, and shall indemnify, defend and hold harmless the Sponsor from any suit due to damage of or by the prize.
10. Terms & Conditions
Sponsor reserve the right to modify, suspend, cancel or terminate in the event that non-authorized human intervention, a bug or virus, fraud, or other causes beyond your control impact or corrupt the security, fairness, proper conduct, or administration of the contest/giveaway.
11. Limitation of Liability
Entry into this contest constitutes the participants agreement to release and hold harmless the Sponsors and its subsidiaries, affiliates, employees, etc., against all claims liability, illness, injury, death, loss, etc., that occurs directly or indirectly from participation in the contest or use/misuse of the awarded prize.
12. Disputes
As a condition of participating in the promotion, the participant agrees to resolve all disputes with an arbitrator designated by the Sponsors in the state of California, without resorting to any form of class action. Entrants waive all rights to punitive, incidental, or consequential damages, and waive all rights to have damages multiplied or increased.
13. Privacy Policy
Participants agree to abide by all privacy and NDA laws in the State of California and any federal laws of the United State of America.
14. Winners List
Participants may request a list of winners by contacting Moondog Industries for up to 1yr after the contest ends.
15. Social Media Platform Rules
Winners will agree to post a photo of the prize on their social media channels in such a way as does not violate any rules of that platform. The winners also agree to appear for an interview where they will discuss the prize and its performance. If there are functional problems with the prize, the winner agrees to make a good-faith effort to resolve all issues with the Sponsors prior to posting reviews or opinions about the prize.
16. Affirmation of Acceptance of and Agreement to All of the Official Rules
By entering the contest, the entrant has affirmatively reviewed, accepted, and agreed to all of the them.
It’s become more common to find affordable first focal plane (FFP) variable optics scopes. But it’s rare to find one that’s 4-16x that’s less than 10.5″ long. The Texas Precision Optics Sniper VT 4-16×44 MFFP First Focal Plane (FFP) Scope is that unicorn.
Any scope with the brand name “Sniper” leaves many a tad dubious. But my review of Sniper ZT 5-25×50 left with with a positive impression, especially with the high quality accessories that came with the package. I opened the box more hopeful than skeptical.
Reflective of the lower price point, the VT comes with far fewer accessories than the ZT. The box like the scope was unexpectedly small containing the scope, flip-up lens covers, CR1620 button batteries, an Allen key, cleaning cloth, and a scope mount. The scope came pre-mounted on a skeletonized cantilever mount.
I’ve never seen a scope mount design quite as squared off as this one but it appeared well made and strong enough to handle full-sized rifle cartridge recoil; though the cross bolts were rounded and lacked any lugs or stop blocks.
One glaring issue with the mount is that the locking screws are the right-hand side (as installed). The mount designers made a confounding decision to place the screws where they did and I suspect were not avid shooters. This puts the screws in the way of many rifle bolt lever or charging handles.
More than once I banged a knuckle while working the action of my Ruger 10/22. I had to take off the scope and reverse the direction of the mount which worked on my 10/22 rail but may not work for other rifle setups. I would recommend Texas Precision Optics change the position of the screw bolts or request the factory to reverse the direction of the scope when installing it.
I found some minor issues with the scope and turrets. The etching of the numbers and lettering along with the metallic gold point used to highlight it, made it annoyingly hard to read some of the numbers on the turrets. The turrets had some slop and weren’t as tactical or audible as the ZT. In fact the first sample Texas Precision Optics sent me had some tracking issues but their customer service quickly sent me a replacement and return label without issue.
The optics quality were underwhelming; not very bright and with noticeable chromatic aberration at its highest power setting. About on par to a similarly sized UTG Bugbuster in terms of clarity though with higher magnification. Where it did exceed the Bugbuster was the VT’s more detailed first focal plane reticle, which has MIL hashmarks and a LPVO style central dot and horse shoe design.
Regarding the aforementioned UTG 3-9×32 scope, the VT is essentially a better Bugbuster. The VT is 1.5″ longer but still short enough to fit inside a Ruger 10/22 Takedown case. It has a better illuminated reticle and higher magnification power which makes it far more usable at ranges of 100 yards or more. And while I would like a scope with better optics than the VT, in the case of my 10/22 Takedown, size matters.
Biometric gun safes have gotten cheaper but some of the cheapest are cheap for a reason. I’ve seen a video of the biometric sensor activating when another finger or even just the palm of the hand was pressed down upon it. One Amazon reviewer reported that their son was able to open his safe, presumably because of the similarities in fingerprint between father and son due to genetics.
So I wanted to make sure that in testing a RexMeo biometric gun safe, that it couldn’t be defeated by genetics. After keying in my fingerprint into the sensor and confirming that only my thumb would open the lock (and another finger). I asked my 9-year old son to try and open the lock using his thumb and other fingers on the sensor. I’m happy to report that he was unsuccessful.
As a parent, I’ve taught both of my children gun safety and have taken them shooting at the gun range. They know I keep guns in the house and not to touch our firearms without my direct supervision. But I know that I can’t watch them all the time or any child that may enter my home as a guest. That’s why I keep firearms hidden, in safes and in locked cases. While no solution is completely fool proof or child proof, it is a fool relies on technology to keep his family safe. The first and most important step you can take is education.
I received these back-up iron sights (BUIS) to test and review, which was quite timely because I was looking to add iron sights to my Ruger Precision Rimfire which I’ll cover in another article. These are pretty generic AR-style flip-up iron sights. You’ve seen these BUIS designs sold under a variety of US brands including Troy Industries, Midwest Industries, etc. I believe the design originated from Heckler & Koch, though I can’t be certain of this?
This design has been copied by Chinese EOMs and sold under countless brands like Feyachi, CVLife, Marmot, and many more brands you’ve never heard of, like Nelahol. Despite not knowing anything about this brand, I went under the assumption that they’re all made by the same handful of factories using the same copies of CNC milling specs. The only difference is the quality of the screws and aluminum stamped components. Plus, they were fairly inexpensive and covered the Amazon no-fault return so I figured I had nothing to lose trying it out.
The BUIS came in a thin black plastic case. Inside were the the front and rear sights and an allen wrench. No instructions and no branding.
On close inspection, they seemed well machined. No blems on the finish, pits or unfinished edges of the parts. The spring loaded flip-up sights deployed without issue. The front was an A1 AR-style post and the rear was a 2-position CQB and small aperture peep sight. The rear windage peep sights are finger adjustable with tactile positive indexed clicks.
Like most HK-style BUIS, the sights and spring loaded and lock in the elevated position, when flipped up. A small side pun near the hinge is pressed to unlock the sight. The sights may be pushed down flat against the hand guard/receiver providing a very low profile when not in use (hence the their use as ‘back-up’ sights to red dots and other optics).
The bases mount to Picatinny rails with enough clearance to rock them onto a slot. They required a bit of extra finger torque to clamp down solidly on my rail. I suspect the screws could use a bit of lock-tite to keep them from loosening.
I zero’d and tested them at 25yrds and found the sights were repeatable and didn’t lose zero in a limited sample of 50rnds. My only issue was that the front sight pin’s screw lacked sufficient clearance around it to use my AR sight tool to seat them below the base of the screw well. The need for that depression was specific to my Ruger RPR and may not effect most AR users.
I was fortunate that this brand put out very workable BUIS that do the job for an affordable price. Are they as durable or rugged as German-made HK sights or similar US made sights; probably not. But for your average home owner who wants a BUIS for their home-defense gun that will probably only see range use, this should work.
I mounted my Vortex Diamondback Tactical 6-24×50 scope on my new CZ 457. Rather than waste my limited supply of CCI Standard which I was saving for the match, I opted to use some extra (“Blue Box”) I had, figuring I could waste it to get a rough zero on paper before fine tuning with the CCI Standard.
In the process, I noticed that the Federal Champion was printing surprisingly tight groups. As good as good as the CCI Standard I was planning on using at an upcoming 100yrd match. I was down to 40 rounds of CCI Standard (since the COVID pandemic 22LR has been in limited supply at any gun store near San Francisco). Rather than risk running out of CCI Standard during the match, I went out on a limb and used the Blue Box instead and son-of-a-gun, I took 1st place!
Match-grade 22LR has still hard to find and due to California’s inane laws, mail-order ammo is both a hassle to get and with extra State fees tacked on to boot! While not specifically marketed as “match-grade”, has recently become available at my local Big-5 Sports. This high-quality 22LR sold by the US subsidiary of the Swedish ammo maker, Norma.
But look closely and you’ll see that the Tac-22 cartridges have a RWS headstamp. It’s rumored to be rebranded RWS Target Rifle or RWS Rifle Match ammo; sharing their black oxide colored bullet and thick European wax coating. Like some strange Euro-Pop Band, it’s a German made product, sold by a Swedish company, packaged under a US brand.
RWS 40gr ammo was the type used by CZ to proof test my CZ rifle. If the rumors are true, Tac-22 should perform pretty close to that. As a benchmark I chose to compare Norma Tac-22 vs Federal Champion.
I put up a paper target at 100 yrds and fired 20 rounds in 4 groups of 5. I started with a clean barrel, fired a single fouling round before each test, and snaking the barrel before switching to the next ammo brand. Federal Champion shoot better, printing sub-MOA groups on average. Tac-22 printed an average group of 2MOA. The groups were getting progressively smaller by the time I shot the last 15-20 rounds on my 4th target. But that group was still 2x large as the smallest Champion group.
VeGue sent me their VS-0606 Bluetooth Party Speaker / Karaoke Machine to test and review. This is their least expensive Karaoke machine which they specifically market as a “Kids Karaoke Machine”. We’re going to see if this is just a kid’s toy or can you use this at your next party with “grown ups”?
In the box, it comes with a wireless microphone, remote control, 3.5mm audio cable, Micro-USB cable (for charging the unit), and instruction manual. The first thing that struck me was how cheap the microphone looked and felt. Like knock-off toy quality. The mic runs of 2x AA batteries and has a manual power switch but no controls for changing the operating channel. Despite its budget appearance, it sounded better than a toy microphone. Not professional quality by any means. Not the best but not the worst. It automatically connected to the speaker without issue.
The speaker itself felt and looked like a kids toy. The exterior reminded me of the plastic one finds on a camping/party cooler. The seams had irregular gaps and the front grill was painted to appear metallic but was plastic. The speaker wasn’t heavy which is convenient for portability but anybody who knows speakers, knows that light speakers seldom sound better than heavier ones. Worse, some part of internals rattled inside the case (I contacted VeGue and they informed me this was not normal and offered to send me a replacement for this defective speaker).
The unit would not turn on out of the box. It would power up when connected via Micro-USB to a .5V charger. For testing, I let it charge it overnight.
The speakers controls and connections were all located on a control panel above the speaker grill. It had an RCA type 1/4″ jack and a 3.5mm audio jack as your Line-In to device. In addition, you can insert a micro-SD card into a slot and play MP3 files directly into the speaker. It also featured a digital FM radio receiver and Bluetooth connectivity.
Comparing it to the JYX BT61 speaker, the audio quality was less true to the source with a tinny quality to the sound. The VS0606 was louder but neither speaker would be loud enough for a typical house party, pool side, or backyard party. This unit is best suited for small rooms like dorm rooms, class rooms, or small coffee shops. I can understand why they would market this as a “Kids Karaoke Machine” as it’s ideal for a Kid’s sized room.
