I’ve been long planning a broad test of various budget 22LR ammo to see which groups best in my factory Ruger Precision Rimfire rifle. Aguila Super Extra is (as the latter’s name implies) the slower velocity brother of Super Extra High Velocity. So toois CCI Standard the slower brother of the more popular CCI Mini-Mags. Both of these rimfire ammo’s are 40grn lead round nose bullets with a wax coating.
In my 100 yard tests, I was surprised at how inconsistently Aguila grouped. A good 1/3 of the Aguila rounds were flyers from the main group. CCI, while not amazing, had far tighter groups and more holes touching or overlapping. CCI Standard set the standard. I look forward to testing other ammo brands to see if any group better.
Athlon’s Argos line is their value tier product line, a step up from their budget/entry level Talos. But taking a look at the build quality and features of the Argos Gen2 8×42 binoculars, it looks more like a premium optic. The tubes are encased in rubberized armor coating with checkerboard textured panels to add further grip in wet conditions.
The Argos comes with soft plastic retained front lens caps which are one of the few disappointing features. The retaining strops too easily slip off the front of the tubes when flipping open the caps. The rear caps are spectacle style which can be retained to the optic, when used with a neck strap. The rear lenses have built-in retracting eye cups.
Indicative of budget level optics, there was some softness in focus and increased chromatic aberration along the other edge of the image. The Argos does not have ED glass like their more expensive Midas and Cronos optics but was nicely bright and clear. For an 8x scope, the field of view is nice and wide with good depth of field.
Arken took their EP-5 5-25×56 scope and bumped up the power for those that require the 35x to really reach out. This new scope shares the same Japanese ED glass, turret, zero-stop, and reticle of the previous EP-5 models. The only thing it doesn’t have more of is eye-box. Arkens are somewhat known for an unforgiving eye box and this scope is more so, even at its lowest magnification.
The scope has Arken’s VPR Christmas tree reticle which is quite information rich without being too cluttered. The scope offers 6 levels of illumination with an off in between each setting. Only the very center cross is fully illuminated so the overall look is somewhat muted and only twilight bright.
The turrets are high profile with large easy to read numbers. The turrets are non-locking but have a cog and tooth style zero-stop which is very solid and repeatable. Arken is known for their loud, precise, and tactile adjustment clicks. These turrets did not disappoint in that regard.
This scope seems to be a good value in its tier. While there is now more competition in the Arken price-range (eg. Discovery and DNT), but you’ll have to jump up quite a bit in price to get similar offerings from Athlon, Vortex, Leupold, etc. If you’re an Arken fanboy this scope has everything you love in the EP-5, just more of it. If you think Arkens are overrated, this new scope won’t change your mind.
At first blush, the reflex sight MidTen sent me looked like every other knock off of the Ultraflex PanAV. But taking a closer look, it lacks a rotary illumination and battery turret. Because this reflex sight is USB-C rechargeable. The reflex design traces its roots to competition optics from the late 1980’s. It’s not a combat optic, lacking ruggedness, lens protection, or weather proofing. The MidTen’s build quality looks budget and a bit outdated but it has modern updates that set it apart even from more recent designs.
This MidTen has a 4 reticle dial at the rear of the unit: dot, circle-dot, cross-dot, (no size for the dot is listed by the maker but my eye estimate looks like a fat 6 MOA). Arrow buttons on the left side control 5-levels of illumination. The center button manually turns the unit on and off; keeping it pressed cycles between red and green color. The unit automatically goes into sleep mode after 4 minutes of inactivity. Motion reactivates the unit which remembers its last brightness setting and color selected.
Testing the unit on my Ruger 10/22 TD, I went through a 250 round bulk box of 22LR and the unit held zero. While the MidTen build quality is unrefined but solid. The MidTen has shake-awake, a rechargeable power supply, and a price point lower than any other motion activated reflex.
5.11 worked with law enforcement SWAT teams to design the X.VI tactical pants. These pants were only available to Law Enforcement and Military until this year when 5.11 made them available to civilians on their website. I had my first look at them at SHOT Show in January, where I learned that X.VI was Roman numerals for 5.11.
These pants are robustly made with gusseted stitching to reinforce stress points, especially around the waist. The pants are loaded with well thought out performance features. All the pockets are oversized and the cargo pockets contain internal mag holders, zippered venting slits, and patented straps to adjust the height and position of the knee pads. The legs have built in knee pads with removable polymer knee covers and padding. The pant legs have boot hooks that anchor the pant ends to the top laces of your boots and keep them from riding up and exposing the top of your boots to debris.
In my week long testing of the pants, I found them comfortable but a bit heavy. The only disappointing feature were the knee pads. Though well built with a variety of adjustment, they never stayed where I wanted them when sitting the car. I found myself constantly repositioning them by hand. Fortunately, the pads can be removed to allow me to use them with my Hatch knee pads.
The other aspect that would make me balk, is their price of over $200. While these pants are now available for civilians, but those civilians probably drive Rivians and not Kia’s.
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CVLife is known for making very budget gear. Not crappy junk, but very basic budget gear. The kind of quality you expect from Bass Pro branded accessories. So usable enough for range use, weekend airsoft, or the occasional hunt. I’m not too proud to run a CVlife reflex sight on my 10/22 and a bidpod on my Savage Axis, but it’s not a brand you flex.
This new LPVO surprised me because it’s feature set is actually as good or better than the entry level LPVO’s of other brands. Certainly it’s not as sharp and clear as a Leupold or Vortex LPVO with ED glass. But the image was far more distortion free at 1x than some more premium LPVO’s I’ve tested.
The reticle design reminded me of Trijiicon or the Primary Arms ACSS. The EagleTalon has a SFP Horseshoe of Death and a small chevron (the latter was a wee bit too small IMHO). The reticle was daylight bright, though barely; but still more visible than than many LPVOs I’ve tested.
The turrets are exposed and user resettable. The clicks were a bit mushy feeling but tracked accurately. The magnification was a wee bit stiff even with the included screw-in throw lever. Most notably, the unit came pre-installed with a decent cantilever offset mount (not premo but decent enough that I wouldn’t replace it).
With this optic, CVLife has shown a step up in their quality and features. It’s good enough that I plan to run this at my next falling plates rifle match. Time will tell if CVLife can climb out of their bargain-basement perception. This LPVO with the mount is a good value, and is a good step in that direction.
The CS.2A 26-66×85 is the most powerful optic in Maven’s C-line of spotting scopes and binoculars. It features Chinese ED glass and construction. But before you turn up your nose, know that there is a wide range of quality between various factories and cities in China. This scope looks every bit as well made as Maven’s Japanese built scopes, so much so that I honestly couldn’t tell the difference were it not for the MADE IN CHINA printing at the bottom of the tripod adapter foot.
The main difference between this scope and their more expensive Japanese spotters is that the C-line has ridges on its focus and power wheel, whilst the Japanese S-series spotters have a fine checkering. Otherwise, the C-line has the hallmarks of Maven’s scopes: Dark grey polymer armor on the body and smooth turning focus and power rings.
Optically the scope is sharp, bright, and with good color rendering. At maximum magnification, the image was slightly darkened but exhibited little if no chromatic aberration at long distance.
