Not a few years ago, when a scope’s illumination was described as “daylight bright” that just meant that you could see a color cast on the reticle on a cloudy day. With advances in technology, daylight bright really means you can see it in daylight. Engineers embedded a fiber optic thread inside a reticle cross hair. This projects dot to in the center of the reticle that can be as bright as a red dot.
This fiber optic reticle was first rolled out on premium optics but in short order, budget tier optics like the Monstrum Banshee now offer daylight bright reticles. Some premium LPVOs like Vortex and Nightforce have developed a way to illuminate floating FFP reticles so that it is also daylight bright at 1x. This brightness does come at a premium with the Razor and ATACR costing around $2000. If a you don’t need a FFP reticle, a daylight bright budget fiber optic LPVO can be had for less than $200.
These optics are available on Amazon through these affiliate links which support my channel:
CVLife offers one of the most affordable multi reticle micro red dots I’ve found. While many budget companies make RMR-style micro sized red dots, almost none allow for the change in reticle style. The WolfCovert allows you to choose between a typical 2MOA red dot, to a 32MOA circle (with a sunburst), or a 32MOA plus red 2MOA red dot configuration.
Personal tastes in reticle design aside, the large 32MOA circle burst benefits shooters with astigmatism (such as myself) who have trouble resolving a pinpoint cleanly. To me most red dots have a smeared or star-burst appearance which can make pinpoint accuracy impossible when not wearing corrective eyeglasses. The unit has 9 levels of brightness and lowering brightness helps improve finer resolution of the reticle. CVLife only offers red illumination but is working on a greed version.
The WolfCovert has some premium features like motion-activation and 4-minute auto sleep to conserve battery life. The unit has a stated 50,000hr (10year) battery life. The battery chamber is accessible from the top of the unit so you don’t have to unmount it. It is built with an Trijicon RMR footprint and comes with an RMR to Picatinny and a RMR to Glock MOS adapter.
The reticle can be adjusted using a small flathead screwdriver (a flathead tool is included). The adjustment screws are faintly audible, tactical positive and distinct, with no slop. Each click is 1MOA. In my testing with 50rnds of 115gr 9mm on my Glock 17 the unit held zero.
Maven is a new optics company that is arguably makes the most stylish premium sporting optics available. They sent me their top of the line spotting scope to test. The S.1A is an angled 25-50×80 spotting scope with a removable 5x eyepiece. The checkerboard texture pattern on its focus and power rings, look like the fine workmanship of vintage European photographic lenses from the 1950’s.
In my testing this scope checked all of the boxes for a premium higher end spotting scope. It was clear and bright and exhibited only a moderate amount of chromatic aberration. On the USAF-1951 chart the S.1 was able to resolve details comparable to a 60x scope. Its large eyepiece provided a generous eyebox for a spotter. It can be swapped out for either an MOA or MIL reticle tactical eyepiece for spotting in long range precision shooting.
The standard model comes with a grey rubberized armored body with black or orange metal accent rings that form the joins of its body sections. The body armor and accent rings can be individually customized on the Maven website to allow the buyer the widest possible aesthetic selection. No other optics company or sporting good maker comes close, not even Nike.
While this customization may seem like a gimmick, if you’re going to spend around $2000 for a scope, why shouldn’t you have a say on how it looks? Given that most major brand scopes in this price tier perform remarkably similar (eg. Vortex, Leupold, Nikon, Kowa, etc.) aesthetics may be the most significant differentiator.
Discovery recently updated their premium scope ring and scope mount offerings with their new Lightweight Scope Mounts. The “Lightwenght” typo in the first batch of boxes was not an intentional Trademark name. I pointed this out to them to their embarrassment but I won’t judge given the number of typos in my articles.
The rings are made of 7075 aircraft grade aluminum and make extensive use of lightening cuts to reduce the weight. Technically these aren’t cuts but milled indents into the surface that do not go all the way through. This allows a thin wall of material that helps keep it stiffer.
The mount comes in 30mm, 34mm, and 35mm tube sizes in 1.5″ center height and higher profile 1.93″ heights. Its my understanding that more SOF trainers prefer higher profile mounting of optics to promote a more heads-up shooting position for operators. Discovery also offers mounts with a 20 MOA tilt for long range; the mounts I tested were standard 0 MOA.
On close surface inspection the milling and construction appears of high quality. The mounts have recoil lugs, use Torx screws (star), and a unique indexing pin on the rings which in theory provides more precise alignment of the ring tops and additional stiffness without having the rely on the quality and alignment of the screw/bolt supplier. Using my Monstrum laping kit, I found the mount to be nearly perfectly aligned, requiring no lapping (Those competing in ELR will probably still want finer tolerances). Overall the mounts look as good as those made by big brand mounts for a lot less.
In a survival situation, without a means to create a fire, can you slowly die of hypothermia. Cold is debilitating and demoralizing. Plus its hard to make a decent cup of hot chocolate.
Blackbeard is a small company that was founded by Kai and his brother, who are avid hikers and outdoorsmen in Utah. They invented the Fire Starter based on trail and experiments, setting up camps in rain or after crossing creeks and rivers with wet gear. They invented a special cloth rope impregnated with a secret blend of ingredients that are non-toxic yet easy to light even after getting them wet (by accident).
The braid of black rope is in a plastic wrapper. The ends are open so the wrapper itself is not a weather seal. Cutting and peeling back the wrapper, the rope end felt like soft cotton to the touch and does not have a petroleum smell as I expected.
As a torture test, I dropped a Fire Starter cord into a pitcher of water and let it soak for an hour. During that time, the cord took in water and sank to the bottom of the pitcher. After 62 minutes I took the wet cord out of the water pitcher and gave it a quick shake and cut off about 1/2 an inch of the rope end and captured the cut fibers.
Blackbeard’s online demos advise users to rub the cut fibers together into a loose ball with the palm of your hands to fluff them. Despite the fibers being damp, to my surprise the tinder lit up without too much effort. Despite it also being a gusty day, I was able to get a small fire started.
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 Banshee and discovered it was a surprisingly good for a budget LPVO. No, it’s not just as good as a Leupold, Vortex, or [INSERT YOUR FAVORITE PREMIUM OPTIC BRAND HERE]. But optically, features, and performance it checks the boxes, especially for a street price under $200.
One most common question about the optic is, does it hold zero? Over the course of five months, I’ve put the Banshee through hundreds of rounds of 5.56mm and .22LR and it’s held zero. And it’s not just me, regular viewers of my channel have posted similar results shooting the Banshee on their .308 AR10s. Regardless I still get the occasional doubter challenging the number of rounds shot or the caliber of the rifle used.
To address doubters I proposed a torture test. I asked my buddy Mark on the GD Boomer Channel if he would try a Monstrum Banshee on his Barrett M107A1 rifle to see if it could handle the recoild and hold zero after 10 rounds 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 Banshee 1-10×24 from Amazon and shipped to him directly.
At his local rifle range, GD Boomer zero’d out the scope at 100yrds and set up a two targets. He was able to print a decent 5 shots group on the first and a similar sized 5 shot group on the second, with one flyer on the 9th round. He was shooting military surplus rounds so nothing close to match grade or hand loaded cartridges, or user error jerking the shot, or both. Ok, it was user error.
Hopefully this test will satisfy most folks that the Monstrum Banshee is capable of holding zero on their rifle.
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The M4E1 lower has been one of the most popular components made by Aero Precision. This year they’ve released an upgraded design which offers true ambidextrous controls on this popular lower receiver. I had a chance to shoot an Aero AR build during Industry Range Day and it was indeed easy to shoot and intuitive.
Ideagle sent me a set of their adjustable target stands to test. These steel square tube bases allow you to clamp up two vertical wooden planks to staple or hang archery or firearms targets. Unfortunately no instructions or photos were included in the generic brown cardboard box, so I had to figure it out on my own. I contacted Ideagle and they said they were still working on downloadable instructions.
The two main arm sections are square tubular frames that can adjust from 16″ to 24″ apart. The sections telescope into each other and allow the mounting of full sized and letter sized targets. At the end of each arm, one screws in perpendicular bar to form the legs to create an overall “H” like base. At each end of the H base, two rectangular sockets allow you to insert up to a 1″x2″ wood plank or steak to form the vertical stand for your target. Knob screws at the sockets lock the planks in place.
My first impression was how rough, spotting, and minimal the welding was in its construction. The edges were not finished leaving sharp edges which almost sliced open my thumb during assembling so take caution and I recommend deburring it with a file before assembly or using thick work gloves. Thick black paint covers this to provide rust protection but the spottiness of the welding, I would not recommend leaving these stands out year round exposed to the elements.
The weight of the mount should be sufficient to keep a target up. Should you be in gusty conditions, the base has slots to insert ground stakes. The box came with a bag of steel ‘U’ lawn stakes. The wood for the vertical planks can be purchased at any lumber store. Overall, it works well as a target stand at most ranges and does its job. You get a set of 2 stands so it’s a reasonable price for the pair.
While chatting at their booth at SHOT Show, I asked my buddy Matt at Athlon what his favorite new product was and he surprised me by showing me a Talos 10×42 scope. This fixed power scope is old school without illumination. But has thoroughly modern precision MIL reticle.
The turrets are surprisingly good for an “entry level” scope. Loud clicks and very tactile positive. The elevation has an updated version of Athlon rock solid zero-stop locking ring.
The advantage to a fixed power is that all things being equal has less glass elements and internal gearing than a variable power optic. This translates to less weight and in theory better light transmission, durability, and sharpness. At the range I was able see my targets as clearly as higher power scopes albeit with less detail due to the lower magnification.
For fixed bench competitions at 100yrd, 50yrd rifle or 30yrd air gun having a fixed power scope is not a negative as the target distance doesn’t change. For reliability the adage K.I.S.S. (Keep it Simple Stupid) is an explanation for why having a dependable and capable scope like this Talos has its advantages.
MAGNIFICATION: 10x OBJ. LENS : 42 mm TUBE: 30 mm EYE RELIEF: 3.6″ FOV @ 100 YDS: 11.5 ft PARALLAX: 10 yrds–Infinity CLICK VALUE: 0.1 MIL ADJ PER ROTATION: 6 MIL MAX ELEV ADJ: 35 MIL MAX WIND ADJ: 35 MIIL LENGTH: 13.3″ WEIGHT: 24.6 oz
