Category Archives: Shooting Sports

Firearms and shooting sports

Shooting Sports

Nitecore NPL25 GL

Nightcore’s new NPL25 GL is one of the brightest compact weapon lights available. Its adjustable clamp allows it to be used on a variety of pistols. In my tests, my unit could output a maximum of 825 lumens, close enough to its rated 900 lumens. In addition to its brightness and CCW-friendly size, it also features a laser and removable built-in battery pack.

Its removable battery has LEDs which indicate its charge level. In theory, you could buy extra battery packs to swap out. But replacement battery packs are not available for sale on Nitecore’s website which seems like a huge oversight. A fresh battery pack can run the NPL25 for over 35 minutes in high mode.

My key issue with the NPL25 isn’t the battery pack, but with the proprietary magnetic USB cable used to recharge the pack. Unfortunately, Nitecore did not design the NPL25 to use a USB-C cable or a phone-compatible wireless charger. I spoke to them about this at SHOT Show 2025 and they revealed to me, they will be releasing a USB-C charging station that ships with 2 spare batteries. Problem solved.

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SPECS

NPL25
Max Output: 900 Lumens
Max Beam Distance: 255 m
Max Beam Intensity: 16000 cd
Max Runtime: 0 h 35 m / 0.02 d
LED: NiteLab UHi 20 LED
Battery Detachable: 500mAh Li-ion Battery
Dimensions: 56.0mm x 33.0mm x 32.0mm (2.20″ x 1.30″ x 1.26″)
Weight 66 g / 2.33 oz

Shooting Sports

SHOT 2025 New Athlon Optics Scopes

Athlon Optics is known for making a wide range of high-quality scopes on par with other Leupold, Vortex, and Burris at a more reasonable price. At SHOT Show 2025 the displayed design and packaging updates to their entire scope line. They have enlarged turrets to allow more visible markings, added screw-on throw levers, and added sunshades.

Like Vortex and other brands, I suspect Athlon is addressing competition from new Chinese-built budget scopes like Discovery and Vector, and even budget US brands like Monstrum. Those new brands include high-quality accessories with their scopes such as flip-up covers, sunshades, throw levers, and even scope mounts and rings.

As Dustin said, Athlon has been offering shooters great value, and with these updates, even more so. I look forward to trying out all of these new products in the coming year.

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Amazon https://amzn.to/3Eh96p3

Shooting Sports

TMI Live 250319

*CORRECTION* The co-host of The Dark Horse Podcast is Brett Weinstein, not Eric Weinstein as I mistated on the show. Eric Weinstein is a Mathematical Physicist and older brother of Brett Weinstein. My apologies to Dr. Brett Weinstein.


Too Much Information live chat show with special guest Allan from the YouTube channel @benchrestmarksman. We’ll be talking about growing up in Queensland, Australia. This video is sponsored by Aura. Stop leaving yourself vulnerable to data breaches. Go to my link https://aura.com/moondog to get a 14-day free trial and see if any of your data has been exposed. Read my notes https://moondogindustries.com/tmi-live-250319/

SPONSOR

Aura https://aura.com/moondog

EARLYBIRD Clue: logo

THIS WEEK

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NAME THE BRAND CLUE

Founded in 1920 this brand is one of the oldest airlines in the world. It was featured in a memorable scene in the movie “Rainman” where Dustin Hoffman’s character Raymond identified this brand the only airline that has never crashed.

THUMBNAIL THIS

DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE

Queensland
Queensland is an Australian state covering the continent’s northeast, with a coastline stretching nearly 7,000km. Its offshore Great Barrier Reef, the world’s largest coral reef system, hosts thousands of marine species. The city of Cairns is a gateway to the reef and tropical Daintree Rainforest. The capital, Brisbane, is flanked by the surfing beaches of the Gold and Sunshine Coasts. 

CONTESTS

NAME THE BRAND CLUE:

This airline is the official national airline of Australia and a founding member of the Oneworld airline alliance,[18] it is the only airline in the world that flies to all seven continents.

HASHTAG DRAWING #bitcoin

Multixel Travel Charger Contest

Next Livestream Wed March 26

Shooting Sports

Discovery Scope Bubble Level

It’s hard to believe, but you can improve your long range accuracy for less than $20 by simply attaching a spirit bubble level to your scope. Discovery Optics makes such an accessory. It’s a spirit level mounted in a metal ring which you can clamp onto your scope tube to you can read the angle and levelness of your scope and rifle setup.

If your scope is not 100% directly above your rifle bore, which can happen as you press your cheek to your stock or simply adjusting your shooting position, or when setting up a hasty shooting position, this can create a slight canted angle either to the right or left of center. This will in turn can make your shot land ever so slightly to the right or left of your aim point. By assuring your scope is level to your bore with a spirit level, you can avoid this simple mistake.

This scope level is made of aircraft grade 6061 aluminum alloy with an easy-to-read bubble bead in the spirit tube. It comes with two ring adapters allowing the bubble level to be mounted on either 1″ (25.4mm), 30mm, or 34mm scope tubes. It is probably the best $20 you’ll spend on your scope set up.

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10% discount code Moondog7075

Amazon https://amzn.to/3D8MfvD

Discovery Optics website https://discoveryopt.com/ 

Shooting Sports

SHOT2025 Primary Arms HTX-1

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

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Primary Arms website https://alnk.to/1C8yIFX

Shooting Sports

SHOT 2025 Arken Outlier Micro-Action Rifle

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.

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Outlier https://www.getoutlier.com/search-products

Shooting Sports

SHOT 2025 March FX PRS 5-42×56

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.

MARCH SCOPES

https://marchscopes.com

Shooting Sports

CVLife Eagle Blaze 5-25×56 FFP

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.

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EagleBlaze 5-25×56 FFP Rifle Scope: https://bit.ly/3EHVhQG

15% discount code: UNBWS5AV

Amazon https://amzn.to/4kxDxHX

RESOLUTION

Group -1 / Element 3

SPECS

EAGLE BLAZE FFP

Magnification: 5x-25x

Objective: 56mm

Tube: 34mm

FOV: 26.2′-5.24’@100 yds

Eye Relief: 3.6”

Wind Adj: 160 MOA

Elev Adj: 160 MOA

Click Value: 1/4 MOA

Parallax: 30 yrds – Infinity

Length: 14.6″

Weight :32 oz

Shooting Sports

SHOT 2025 Monstrum Tactical

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.

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Monstrum Tactical https://monstrumtactical.com/archangel-1-6×24-first-focal-plane-lpvo-series/

Shooting Sports

CVLife WolfCovert X M01

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.

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Amazon https://amzn.to/438fZmM

40% Discount Code: 3MISAEYJ  

SPECS

Objective Window: 22mm x 16mm

Reticle: 2 MOA dot / 32 MOA circle

Footprint Type: ‎RMSc

Length: 1.81″

Width: 1.06″

Height: 1.02″

Weight: 0.77 oz

Click: 1 MOA

Waterproof: IPX-7

Battery: CR1632

Battery Life: 50,000 hrs

Warranty: ‎3 years