I assume ‘PD’ in PD32R stands for Police Department because Fenix designed their entire PD flashlight line “professional” users such as LEOs, security, and first responders. First impressions of the unit are that it’s a ‘typical’ looking tactical flashlight with a 1″ barrel, tail click button, and crenellated bell. But looking at the Specs we can see it’s an evolutionary rather than evolutionary flashlight.
The PD32R runs off a standard 18650 lipo cell. An o-ringed screw down collar below the bell covers a USB-C port which allows you to recharge the battery inside the PD32R. The flashlight is IPX-68 rated means it can be submerged in down to 2m of water for up to half an hour. I tested it sealed in a water jug for an hour with no moisture leaking in.
It has a silent tail click button that activates the unit and based on the length and number of presses allows you to cycle through it’s brightness modes: low, medium, high, and turbo. The button is partially hooded to protect it from accidental presses but will not allow it to tail stand. mode has offers up to 1400 lumens of brightess that automatically dims to high and medium to avoid overheating the electronics.
There is a strobe mode which is activated by keeping the button pressed for 3 seconds. This is intended to be hide the strobe from accidental activation or activated under stress when a user crunches down on the button. I would have liked to allow the user to means to change this feature to switch out to Turbo instead of strobe for those who absolutely do not want a strobe on their EDC.
The Ruger Precision Rimfire (RPR) is an popular entry-level chassis riflePRS training or NRL22. It comes from the factory with a 30MOA rail which is perfect to compensate for the bullet drop for long range targets at 200yrds or more. But this 30MOA rail can make it impossible to zero a scope for targets at 25yrds or less. I was eager to replace my stock 30MOA rail with a flat rail to easily allow me the option to attach flip-up iron sights to train my kids.
Anarchy Outdoors sent me their 00MOA rail. This Picatinny rail has a built in bubble level that’s user replaceable and they offer a selection of colored levels on their website. This rail is also available in 10MOA, 20MOA, 30MOA, and 40MOA grades and for other popular rifle makes like Remington, CZ, Bergara, and Browning.
NOTE: We had to re-issue this prize because of Federal trade restrictions on shipping optics outside of the U.S. and the winner of the June contest was in Croatia.
Win an Athlon Talos 20-60×80 spotting scope with OSS lens cap, provided by OSS. Entries must be received no later than 12pm EST on July 31, 2024. Entrant must reside in the US. Buy your own OSS lens cap on Etsy.
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If you’ve feeling de’ja vu, it’s because I reviewed a nearly identical Monstrum Panzer 1-6×24 FFP LPVO two months ago. The main criticism I had about the Panzer was it’s middle reticle illumination (to be fair, it is typical for most LPVOs). Monstrum listed to the feedback and came up with a new illuminator and sent me a sample of their first daylight bright FFP reticle. This new illuminator only outputs in red (the original version offered both green and red) but improves upon the the original version by having an OFF setting between each of its 6 intensities.
Apart from the illuminator the rest of the optic remains unchanged. Same glass, body, tube, mount, and reticle. Which is why they’re choosing not to call out the change but instead quietly rolling out all new batches of Panzer with this illuminator. They won’t be calling this Gen2, the name remains simply the Panzer.
Panzer, is the German word for “tank” or “armor”. This is why the Monstrum Panzer has tank tread inspired designs to its turret caps and magnification ring. These ‘treads’ provides a useful grippy surface beyond its unique aesthetic.
The Panzers come with a user replaceable fin on the magnification ring which can be swapped out for the included throw lever. In addition, the package includes a quality, high-recoil, cantilever mount and basic flip up caps. The turrets are capped and resettable with a hex key.
The Panzer now offers two choices in FFP reticle. The Panzer 1-6x I tested has their new CM3 reticle which has a tactical style BDC reticle with a tree style set of windage holdovers below a circle dot. I previously tested the CM2 reticle which is an MOA range finding reticle.
The most common comment I get about this LPVO is does it hold zero? This test with a .50 cal rifle should prove that it does. https://youtu.be/J8sXKSiBIr8
Blackbeard is a small company that was founded by Kai and his brother, who are avid hikers and outdoorsmen in Utah. They invented a range of Fire Starters and fire starting tools based on trail and their own experience, setting up camps in rain or after crossing creeks and rivers with wet gear.
Along with Fire Starter rope cord and Fire Plugs, they include in their Pirate’s Pluder kit, possibly the largest ferro rod on the market. Ferro rods are sticks of magnesium metal that when struck by steel or iron produce sparks. This is the metal used to make sparklers and burns with enough intensity to ignite most kindling.
The Blackbeard Ferro rod comes with its own metal striker which has a built-in bottle opener. Both are connected with a paracord lanyard that can unwound for 6ft of emergency rope. If you’re a hiker or packing for an extreme bug-out-bag, adding a Blackbeard to your kit is good “fire insurance.”
I’ve tested the Monstrum Panzer against the military grade LPVOs. I compared it head-to-head against both the SIG Tango6T and the Vortex Razor HD Gen3 and discovered the Panzer was a surprisingly good for a budget FFP LPVO. No, it’s not just as good as the SIG or the Vortex for a street price under $200 its an amazing value.
One most common question about the optic is, does it hold zero? Over the course of five months, I’ve put the Panzer through hundreds of rounds of 5.56mm and it’s held zero. And it’s not just me, regular viewers of my channel have posted similar results shooting the Panzers on their .308 AR10s. But rather than argue the number of rounds shot or the caliber of rifle tested, lets just cut the chase and see if a Monstrum Panzer can hold zero under the biggest civilian rifle available, a .50 cal.
I asked my buddy Mark on the GD Boomer Channel if he would try a Monstrum Panzer on his Barrett M107A1 rifle to see if it could handle the recoil of 50BMG. I contacted Monstrum Tactical and they agreed to sponsor the video to reimburse GD Boomer for the ammo he would use. Monstrum ordered a brand new Panzer 1-6×24 from Amazon and shipped to him directly.
At his local rifle range, GD Boomer zero’d out the scope with a lazer and set up a two small targets at 100yrds. The challenge with a 6x SFP LPVO at 100yrds, is that the center dot of the reticle covered up the target bullseye. The groups he printed were not his best but they were consistent; proving the Panzer held its zero through all 10 shots. The budget Panzer could handle the recoil of event the largest bullet cartridges.
One of my range buddies brought out an oddball rifle to the range the other day: his pump-action AK-47. You heard that right, pump-action. This is a Romanian PAR-1, chambered in 7.62×39. It was developed in the 90’s as a result Clinton’s Administration’s Assault Weapons Ban.
As odd as it looked and seemed in concept, it functioned as you’d expect. It fed from a 10rnd CA plugged 30rnd magazine. Everything else on the rifle was standard, including the AK’s notoriously thin leaf iron sights. I was able to get all of my shots on paper at 100yrds without any difficulty.
I can’t say that I know how to feel about this rifle. On the one hand it’s cool that somebody built a unique rifle. But putting a pump action on an AK only makes sense in a post-apocalyptic Fallout setting.
Monstrum Tactical asked me to compare their new Panzer 1-6x FFP to the LPVO that was chosen by the US Army, the Sig Sauer Tango6T 1-6x FFP. Monstrum sent me samples of both LPVOs new in the box. You can about each LPVO in greater detail in my previously posted reviews of the Tango6T and Panzer 1-6x
As a quick overview, the most striking difference between the two optics was the color. The Tango6 comes in a metallic Flat Dark Earth (FDE) color which was a US Army requirement. Their was far less difference between the two LPVOs when looking at their specs. One notable difference was that the Tango6T comes in MRAD and the Panzer comes in MOA. Moreover, the Panzer’s turrets have a range adjustment more than double that of the Tang6T.
Optically both are great but the Tango6T was ever so much better in brightness, flatness, detail, and sharpness despite having more visible chromatic aberration than the Panzer. Both had pretty good eyeboxes (for LPVOs) but again the Tango6T was just a little bit better, a bit more forgiving.
All in all both LPVOs preformed quite well in my range and live fire testing, holding zero. The Tang6T offers true daylight bright illumination of it donut-of-death. This new release (Gen2?) of the Panzer, just months newer than the model I tested in March, now offers daylight bright red illumination on par with the Tango6T.
Whilst the Tango6T is hands down the better optic, the Panzer is still a solid LPVO. But the Tang6T costs more than 10x the price of the Panzer. Yes, the Tango6T is a better but I don’t think 10x better. If given $2000 and the choice between the two, I’d pick the Panzer and use the left over money to buy Level 5 body armor, digital night vision nods, and extra ammo.
In 2019 the US Army selected the SIG Tango6T as the optic for their HK Designated Marksmen Rifles and for use by Special Forces. The model I tested is the civilian version, differing in its markings but effectively identical to the Army version. I have read conflicting articles stating that the DMR rifles is an SFP version of the Tango6T but I can not confirm this. Of the two Tango6T samples I tested, one lent to me by Monstrum Tactical and another was the personal optic of a friend in law enforcement.
The Tango6T is finally built with subtle body details that speak to extra time milling. The Tango6T has an Flat Dark Earth (FDE)/burnt bronze flat anodized finish specified by the Army. Its control surfaces have fine diamond checkering pattern for grip.
The scope came pre-installed on a SIG Alpha4, a high quality cantilever mount with convenient printed torque specs. Contrary to internet scuttlebutt, the Alpha4 is not a Geiselle mount (though superficially similar in look). The Alpha4 was designed by SIG for the Tango6T, fabricated in California and assembled at SIG’s factory in Oregon.
I had an opportunity to compare the newest model of this LPVO to a pre-DOD selection model of this optic. Superficially it appears identical save for a slightly darker shade of FDE which appears more burnt than bronze. After contacting the folks at SIG, they were very helpful in giving a historic background on the various versions of this LPVO. There are a number of configurations available from SIG, the current Mil and civilian reticle is the Hellfire DWLR-556 reticle.
The Tango6T has 11 levels of brightness on its illumination, 9 visible settings and 2 which are night vision compatible. It has a unique illuminator locking ring on which prevents the knob for changing or turning on or changing setting when engaged. The reticle appeared daylight bright though not quite the “red dot bright” intensity found on the Nightforce ATACR or Vortex RAzor. The unit is powered by a common CR2032 coin battery.
It has capped turrets which are wide diameter but low profile; the down side is that the area only allows for small font numbers which may be hard to read for some folks. Each click is 0.2MIL and is audible and tactile positive so you can infer your changes by click feel if you can’t do so visually.
The Tango6T’s DWLR6 is a BDC design with a Christmas tree of holdovers for long range shooting beyond 500yrds. As with most FFP LPVO’s the 1x seems to be an afterthought, feeling a bit too thin and easily lost against a dark or complicated background. The bright illumination makes up for this. It’s central horse shoe of death is intensely illuminated with a slight outline on the rest of the stadia elements.
Optically the LPVO had excellent brightness, and clarity. Even though it had noticeable chromatic aberration, I was still able to resolve detail at 6x that would only see in LPVOs that were 10x. At 1x the image was flat and much better than Razor or Riton FFP LPVO’s I’ve tested. This scope is world’s better than SIG’s similarly named Tango MSR 1-10x LPVO which I was underwhelmed by a few months ago. Save for it’s thin 1x reticle this is one of the best LPVO’s I’ve tested.
