Like many Americans, I’ve always been conflicted when buying products made in China because of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party). The sad reality is that most red dot optics are made in China. I was surprised to learn that Primary Arms was producing a US-made micro-reflex sight.
I was excited to see it firsthand. It promises to be a very advanced design with one of the lowest bases of any MRD. This one is low enough to use factory iron sights on a MOS cut Glock slide. It is also one of the more expensive MRDs on the market at $650. It will be available on the Primary Arms website later in April
At SHOT Show 2025 Outlier Micro-Action rifle won “The Most Innovative Rifle” award. I stopped by the Arken booth to see it. Bobby, one of its principal designers, walked me through the features.
Outlier started with a Mini-Action receiver, which allows for left or right handed loading of cartridges into the chamber, and minimized it even further to a 1″ wide arch that holds the 3-lug bolt to the chassis. This reduces the cost and weight of the rifle by removing unnecessary parts. Moreover, they added their patented Backdraft suppressor barrel which uses the barrel sleeve as the primary dissipation chamber for the suppressor can.
The entire rifle weighs less than 6lbs yet provides the stiffness of a standard rifle system. Perfect for backcountry hunters or military sniper units. My only concern was the possibility of building up heat in the barrel which Benchrest and F/Class shooters avoid but Outlier promises a sub-MOA rifle or your money back.
March Scopes makes some of Japan’s highest-performance competition rifle scopes and true World Beaters. At SHOT Show 2025, they showed off a refinement of their flagship PRS scope and a new concept prototype, the March Tracking Scope.
The PRS has been updated with a PRS-specific reticle and new turrets. A brilliant and practical feature is the writable white-board surface treatment allowing competition shooters to write notes and symbols onto the turrets using pencils or erasable markers. Shooters no longer have to mess around with attaching masking tape to their turrets before each match.
Before I knew anything about high power scopes, I purchased a CVLife 6-24×50 AOR scope for my AR15 and happily used it at 100 yard targets. It was basic, out-dated, but cheap, and surprisingly reliable. “Walmart” quality is where I’d position their scopes, but recently they’ve attempted to bring themselves up to the level of “Target” or “Sheels”.
The Eagle Blaze is CVLife’s most ambitious attempt to date to put out a true long-range optic. The scope has 5-25x magnification range, a usable first focal plane (FFP) Christmas tree reticle, a zero stop, and using Japanese ED glass. On paper this looks like a legitimate PRS-style scope with an eyebrow raising $299 street price.
To achieve this low price, there must be compromises. The turrets are user resetable with a coin, come with a zero-stop ring lock, and have audible and tactile positive clicks. But they have a flaw. Unless the turret top is insanely cinched down, the turret will turn lose after locking down losing, rendering its push-to-lock feature useless.
In my testing I found that twisting free a “locked” turret does not move the reticle. It essentially makes the turret free floating. You are better off leaving the turret in the up-position at all times, otherwise your numbers will not sync to your zero.
Optically, the ED glass did reduce chromatic aberration. But in low light (in a shaded target cove), the scope lost a lot of detail and contrast. While this is a liability to hunters who need the ability to take game after sunset, the Eagle Blaze is a surprisingly good scope in broad daylight.
CVLife continues to improve the quality and features of their long-range optics line. This scope fumbled the execution but the play was solid. I look forward to a correction and improvement soon.
Founded in 1876 in Lecco, Italy, Fiocchi is one of the oldest ammo brands in the world. Range Dynamics (RD) is their everyday ammo line intended for training and target practice. Their 22LR cartridge is loaded at the Fiocchi USA plant in Ozark, Missouri.
Testing both in my factory Ruger Precision Rimfire Rifle (RPR), Range Dynamics zero’d out quite easily. RD grouped quite well, but not as tightly as CCI Standard.
Monstrum Tactical makes some of the most underrated budget scopes available. Many cost less than $300. But they are one of the most innovative optics companies in the industrial design of their scopes.
At last year’s SHOT Show they showcased their Archangel concept LPVO which looked like a prop out of Mass Effect or HALO. Due to positive interest and comments to my booth visit video, Monstrum pushed forward with changes to create an affordable producible Archangel 1-6x and 1-10x LPVO for this year’s show.
This year, the concept LPVO was the Terminator, with a crazy large sun shade that makes it look like a prop out of Star Trek. Like the Archangel, if there is enough popular support of this design, Monstrum will create a production model for next year’s show.
Micro-reflex sights with reticles that can be changed between dots and circles are rare. Rarer still are compact red dots that fit on a compact pistol. CVLIfe’s WolfCover X M01 has that rare compact MRD with a changeable reticle that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg.
The M01 compact MRD has built-in fiber optic rear sights that are a bit too high to use with factory sights but can be used with raised front sights. The box comes with an MOS adapter plate and a Picatinny adapter. The CVLife was a bit small for my slide, so I opted to test it with the Glock EOM RMSc adapter plate.
I ran 50 rounds through my pistol and the M01 held zero. The 32MOA circle looked just a tad smaller than the 32MOA circle on my OSight and I found myself wanting a bit more visual separation between the 2MOA dot and the sunburst circle. I hope CVLife offers a 40MOA or 60MOA circle option in the future.
One other minor nitpick was that the white paint they used to fill in the logo and lettering was a bit sloppy and smeared in places. This is not unusual for a budget product as compromises have to be made and corners have to be cut to lower production costs. If it’s just the paint job, I can live with that.
Telson is a new optics company out of Texas that I’d never heard of prior to making this video. A fellow Pewtuber asked if I’d be interested in reviewing a premium, mid-range scope with Japanse ED glass. A few days later, I got a box sent to me from @GunTotinMinnosotan
The plain white sample box is not the retail version and I can’t confirm what sort of accessories a consumer will receive such as lens caps, throw levers, etc. My sample was the actual production version, albeit with scope rings attached (which may not be present in the retail version either).
Physically the scope reminded me of a Leupold Mk5 or a US Optics. It had a unique diamond-weave design motif in the contact surfaces of the turrets and rings. It came with a removable throw lever with a diamond-shaped design. The rings turned smoothly and the turrets were crisp, audible, and tactile positive.
The elevation turret has a zero-stop which is engaged by lowering the turret onto an internal pin. The turret has a pop-up indicator when the turret is turned past its second revolution. This indicator is actuated by the zero-stop pin under the turret and does not function when the zero-stop is deactivated. Neither the windage or the elevation are locking.
The image through the glass is impressive owing to its quality ED glass. Bright, clear, and color-accurate with minimal chromatic aberration. I liked its thin clean Christmas tree reticle with a small floating central dot. The only disappointing aspect I found was its tight eyebox.
I had one other disappointment: I had to return the Toxin. I handed this scope back to Telson at SHOT Show so that they could display it at their booth. But they did give me something back in return: a coupon code to share with my readers to get 6% off buying one for yourself.
Telson is a new Premium Optics company based in Texas. I had never heard of them prior to testing their Toxin 3-18×50 scope. I met their founders (Canadian precision shooters) for the first time at this year’s SHOT Show.
Their scopes are all over a $1000 but have features usually found on scopes that cost many times more. Telson scopes feature high end Japanese glass, practical design features and quality construction. I was also impressed by the thought they put into the quality of their mounts and accessories.
Only time will tell if Telson succeeds in the crowded and competative PRS optics market but the quality of their products, design, and marketing are on target and all center X.
At SHOT Show 2025 UTG Pro released the Goliath bipod. This is a heavy-duty bipod designed for PRS, bench rest, and F/class shooters. The Goliath is notable for its extra low 6-inch stance when collapsed. Like all UTG Pro gear, this bipod is made in Michigan, in the good ol’ USA.
