KelTec came out with KSG, an innovative double-tube bullpup pump shotgun a few years ago. I got a chance to shoot the single-tube KS7 model during a video review two years ago. It was very easy to maneuver and point due to its compact size but it’s light weight and polymer construction really transferred the recoil energy, making even birdshot feel like shooting slug.
In reaction to the desire for a lighter shooting defensive shotgun, KelTec developed a KSG chambered in the svelt .410 shell originally designed by Elley in the late 1800’s for backyard pest control, birding, and self-defense (in cane guns!). These shells are the size of chapstick tubes but shoot slugs bigger than a 9mm bullet. While shooting with the same recoil as a Sub-2000.
While small compared to a 12 ga. shell, .410 shells are still quite formidable at close range where the KSG excels. It’s not then surprising that KelTec (always the iconoclast), chose to chamber their next KSG variant in .410 instead of a 20 ga. This new pump shotty is due to hit retailers later in Q3 2023.
The contest Prize will be chosen from all entries submitted from May 21, 2023 through May 27, 2023. Entries must be received no later than 12pm EST on May 27, 2023.
2. Take a screen shot of the channel screen showing you have subscribed/followedand email it to me
3. Email me with the Subject:May 28 Contest • Attach the JPG or PNG screen shot • Include your full name and ship-to address in the email (so I can confirm you live in the US or Canada)
4. BONUS: Share this with a friend and get them to enter the contest too. Ask them to reference your name and email address in the body of their message ie. “My buddy johndoe@gmail.com clued me into the contest”, and I’ll award you an extra-bonus entry to the contest. It’s important that they reference your email so I can easily look up your entry. Each friend that subscribes and refers to you in their email will earn you another bonus entry for a maximum of 10 entries (including yours).
NO PURCHASE IS NECESSARY TO ENTER. YOUR CHANCES OF WINNING DO NOT INCREASE WITH A PURCHASE. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED.
1. Eligibility
Void where prohibited by law. Must be legal resident within the USA or Canada. Moondog Industries employees, subsidiaries, affiliates, suppliers, advertising and promotion agencies, employees’ immediate family members, are ineligible participate in the contest/giveaway.
Entrants must be willing and able to appear on YouTube to discuss the contest and post images of the prize on their social feed should they win the contest.
2. Sponsors and Platforms
Moondog Industries (known as the SPONSOR) is a video Edutainment producer and game promotor based in San Francisco, CA. YouTube, TikTok, Rumble, and online video platforms (known as PLATFORMS) are not SPONSORS or in any way affiliated with the contest or content.
3. Agreement to Rules
By entering your contest, participants agree to abide by the SPONSOR’s Official Rules and decisions. The SPONSOR retain the right to refuse, withdraw, or disqualify entries at their sole discretion. By submitting an entry, the participant agrees to accept the decision of the SPONSOR as final and binding.
4. Entry Period
Contest email entries must be received between: 12:00pm EST 21 May 2023 and 12:00pm EST 27 May 2023
5. How to Enter
This contest requires your skill in navigating your phone or computer controls to screen capture an image of the following YouTube channels/Social Media accounts. Subscribe or Follow and make a screen capture of those pages showing a greyed out Subscribe button or indicator that your account is Following that page. Send a screen capture image file of any of those sites to contest@moondogindustries.com . One entry per person or per Social Media account. Fraudulent methods of entry, photo retouched, or other methods of circumvention of the rules may result in the SPONSOR invalidating a participant’s entries.
6. Prizes
Winner must be able to receive the prize by e-mail or by physical mail. Prize may be substituted at the sole discretion of the SPONSOR. Acceptance of the prize grants SPONSOR permission to use the Winners entry, name, and likeness for advertising, promotion, and trade without further compensation or remuneration unless prohibited by law.
7. Odds
Odds of winning is dependent upon the number of eligible entries received.
8. Selection and Notification of the Winner
The winner will be chosen at random by the SPONSOR from among the entrants that demonstrated the skill to navigate the electronic entry and have met the minimum requirements. Winners will be contacted via the email used to enter the contest no later than December 31, 2023.
SPONSOR are not liable for the winner’s failure to receive notification of winning if he or she provided a wrong email address or if their email security settings caused your prize notification to go into the spam or junk folder. If a winner does not respond within 24hrs of sending a notification, the SPONSOR will select an alternate winner. Receipt of the prize is upon the condition of compliance with federal, state, and local laws.
9. Rights Granted by the Entrant
The SPONSOR, upon submission of an entry into the giveaway or contest, has the right to use the participant’s submission, voice, likeness, image, statements about the contest, etc., for publicity, news, advertising, promotional purposes, trade, and so forth, without any further notice, review, consent, compensation or remuneration.
Participants shall defend or settle against such claims at their sole expense, and shall indemnify, defend and hold harmless the SPONSOR from any suit due to damage of or by the prize.
10. Terms & Conditions
The SPONSOR reserves the right to modify, suspend, cancel or terminate in the event that non-authorized human intervention, a bug or virus, fraud, or other causes beyond your control impact or corrupt the security, fairness, proper conduct, or administration of the contest/giveaway.
11. Limitation of Liability
Entry into this contest constitutes the participants agreement to release and hold harmless the SPONSOR and PLATFORMS, subsidiaries, affiliates, employees, etc., against all claims liability, illness, injury, death, loss, etc., that occurs directly or indirectly from participation in the contest or use/misuse of the awarded prize.
12. Disputes
As a condition of participating in the promotion, the participant agrees to resolve all disputes with an arbitrator designated by the SPONSOR in the state of California, without resorting to any form of class action. Entrants waive all rights to punitive, incidental, or consequential damages, and waive all rights to have damages multiplied or increased.
13. Privacy Policy
Participants agree to abide by all privacy and NDA laws in the State of California and any federal laws of the United State of America.
14. Winners List
Participants may request a list of winners by submitting a request in writing to Moondog Industries for up to 30 days after the contest ends.
15. Social Media Platform Rules
Winners will agree to post a photo of the prize on their social media channels in such a way as does not violate any rules of that platform. The winners also agree to appear for an interview where they will discuss the prize and its performance. If there are functional problems with the prize, the winner agrees to make a good-faith effort to resolve all issues with the SPONSOR prior to posting reviews or opinions about the prize.
16. Affirmation of Acceptance of and Agreement to All of the Official Rules
By entering the contest, the entrant has affirmatively reviewed, accepted, and agreed to all of the them.
Konus is an Italian optics company based in Verona. I had an opportunity to visit their booth at SHOT Show earlier this year and examine their wide range of hunting and target scopes. Konus sent me their Absolute scope to test and I was surprised at its wide range of magnification going from 5x-40x. Prior to this the highest power scope I I have tested was the Leupold Mark 5 with a 7x-35x; the Konus exceeds the Leupold in both the low and high magnification, and at half the price.
The Absolute has a traditional profile, with a 30mm tube and tactical style exposed turrets. The scope tested has a half-MIL crosshair reticle that is illuminated in both red and blue light with brightness ranging from 1-5. It is powered by a CR2032 coin battery co-housed in the side parallax focus knob. The scope can focus as close as 10 yrds, which is much appreciated feature for airgun shooters and NRL22 competitors.
The elevation and windage turrets are traditionally sized turrets unlike the over-sized monster knobs that have become popular recently among ELR competitors. The Kronus turrets are push-to-lock and are zero resettable by loosening three set-screws around each turret. The scope tested was the MILRAD version and they offer an MOA as well.
The turrets turn 1/10 MILs per click and are nicely loud and audible. They provide good tactile feedback per click but aren’t the most positive turrets I’ve felt. Oddly the elevation turret provides 7.2 MILs per rotation rather than whole number? I suspect that Konus originally designed this scope for MOA and swapped out a MIL conversion turret, which is why the turret has 7.2 rather than 7.0 MILs per rotation.
I found the turrets to be accurate and repeatable. Overall sharpness was good from center to edge. At 40x the scope able to resolve twice as much detail as a typical 24x scope but with a much less forgiving eyebox (as to be expected by the reduced exit pupal at 40x). The image at 40x was clear enough to make out wrinkles on the target paper at 100 yrds.
The Konus Absolute is a 40x scope with the extra magnification not found in many scope brands. I don’t think this scope will appeal to ELR shooters who prefer first focal plane scopes with Christmas-tree reticles. But for long distance airgun competition, precision target shooters, long-range hunters, or older shooters with weaker eyes, this is a scope to consider.
Konus Absolute is available through this Affiliate Link Optics Planet:https://alnk.to/2Qu5Igb
At SHOT Show 2023, Leapers debuted their newest line of rifle optics: Accushot Pro. I wasn’t even aware of this new brand until I visited my buddy Kiyo at Leapers huge booth at the show. This new brand is positioned in in between their budget tier UTG scopes (sub $250) and their premium Integrix line (over $1000).
The Accushot scopes have many of the external design features of their Integrix scopes but with a few changes to lower the cost. These scopes will use Chinese HD glass and their turret design is similar to a beefed up UTG turret. They are expected to launch with an LPVO and a 3-12×44 model in later Q3 with an MSRP of around $500.
Fenix is best known for making affordable EDC tac-lights, used by LEOs and EMTs. At SHOT Show, I visited the Fenix booth and got a walk-through of their newest products. They sent me their new GL19R to test and evaluate. This is an update to their GL19 featuring a user-replaceable CR186350 lithium battery that can be recharged internally through a USB-C port in the side of the GL19R.
The unit itself has a matte black anodized finish and a solid all-metal body. The unit comes with a Glock-sized recoil lug pre-installed and an optional Picatinny 1913 recoil lug. The GL19 controls are ambidextrous pressure paddles/pads on either side of the rear of the unit.
The GL19 has a “Turbo” mode and a lower power “High” mode which is a bit of marketing spin since they are effectively identical to a “High” and “Normal” mode on any other light. Fenix’s stats claim the GL19R outputs 1200 lumens in Turbo; in my testing a recorded 1840 lumens. It’s rare to find a Chinese flashlight maker whose lumen numbers are overly inflated and even rarer to find one whose products actually perform better than their stated claims. This bodes positively to the performance of Fenix’s other products.
The GL19R is IPX 68 with the 8 in that rating denoting that the unit can survive immersion in up to 3m of water. I tested the unit’s run time while submerged in a pitcher of water. In Turbo mode the unit stayed on for approximately 35 minutes before shutting off. The unit survived the test without any observable moisture entering.
Overall I was pleased with the GL19 which performed as well as higher-end lights from Surefire and Streamlight and costs slightly less O-Light (the budget flashlight king). I would have preferred slightly more resistant controls requiring more pressure to activate. What may be a deal-breaker is that the GL19 has a strobe mode that can not be disabled. Fortunately, the strobe is not easily activated, requiring the user to first activate the unit, and is a ‘Momentary’ mode. I suggested to Fenix that they could fix this issue by incorporating a lock-out mode with some sort of ‘easter-egg’ style key combination (ie. holding down both activation buttons for 20 seconds).
The contest Prize will be chosen from all entries submitted from April 30, 2023 through may 6, 2023. Entries must be received no later than 12pm EST on May 6, 2023.
2. Take a screen shot of the channel screen showing you have subscribed/followedand email it to me
3. Email me with the Subject: “May 7 Swag Bag” • Attach the JPG or PNG screen shot • Include your full name and ship-to address in the email (so I can confirm you live in the US or Canada)
4. BONUS: Share this with a friend and get them to enter the contest too. Ask them to reference your name and email address in the body of their message ie. “My buddy johndoe@gmail.com clued me into the contest”, and I’ll award you an extra-bonus entry to the contest. It’s important that they reference your email so I can easily look up your entry. Each friend that subscribes and refers to you in their email will earn you another bonus entry for a maximum of 10 entries (including yours).
NO PURCHASE IS NECESSARY TO ENTER. YOUR CHANCES OF WINNING DO NOT INCREASE WITH A PURCHASE. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED.
1. Eligibility
Void where prohibited by law. Must be legal resident within the USA or Canada. Moondog Industries employees, subsidiaries, affiliates, suppliers, advertising and promotion agencies, employees’ immediate family members, are ineligible participate in the contest/giveaway.
Entrants must be willing and able to appear on YouTube to discuss the contest and post images of the prize on their social feed should they win the contest.
2. Sponsors and Platforms
Moondog Industries (known as the SPONSOR) is a video Edutainment producer and game promotor based in San Francisco, CA. YouTube, TikTok, Rumble, and online video platforms (known as PLATFORMS) are not SPONSORS or in any way affiliated with the contest or content.
3. Agreement to Rules
By entering your contest, participants agree to abide by the SPONSOR’s Official Rules and decisions. The SPONSOR retain the right to refuse, withdraw, or disqualify entries at their sole discretion. By submitting an entry, the participant agrees to accept the decision of the SPONSOR as final and binding.
4. Entry Period
Contest email entries must be received between: 12:00pm EST 30 April 2023 and 12:00pm EST 6 May 2023
5. How to Enter
This contest requires your skill in navigating your phone or computer controls to screen capture an image of the following YouTube channels/Social Media accounts. Subscribe or Follow and make a screen capture of those pages showing a greyed out Subscribe button or indicator that your account is Following that page. Send a screen capture image file of any of those sites to contest@moondogindustries.com . One entry per person or per Social Media account. Fraudulent methods of entry, photo retouched, or other methods of circumvention of the rules may result in the SPONSOR invalidating a participant’s entries.
6. Prizes
Winner must be able to receive the prize by e-mail or by physical mail. Prize may be substituted at the sole discretion of the SPONSOR. Acceptance of the prize grants SPONSOR permission to use the Winners entry, name, and likeness for advertising, promotion, and trade without further compensation or remuneration unless prohibited by law.
7. Odds
Odds of winning is dependent upon the number of eligible entries received.
8. Selection and Notification of the Winner
The winner will be chosen at random by the SPONSOR from among the entrants that demonstrated the skill to navigate the electronic entry and have met the minimum requirements. Winners will be contacted via the email used to enter the contest no later than December 31, 2023.
SPONSOR are not liable for the winner’s failure to receive notification of winning if he or she provided a wrong email address or if their email security settings caused your prize notification to go into the spam or junk folder. If a winner does not respond within 24hrs of sending a notification, the SPONSOR will select an alternate winner. Receipt of the prize is upon the condition of compliance with federal, state, and local laws.
9. Rights Granted by the Entrant
The SPONSOR, upon submission of an entry into the giveaway or contest, has the right to use the participant’s submission, voice, likeness, image, statements about the contest, etc., for publicity, news, advertising, promotional purposes, trade, and so forth, without any further notice, review, consent, compensation or remuneration.
Participants shall defend or settle against such claims at their sole expense, and shall indemnify, defend and hold harmless the SPONSOR from any suit due to damage of or by the prize.
10. Terms & Conditions
The SPONSOR reserves the right to modify, suspend, cancel or terminate in the event that non-authorized human intervention, a bug or virus, fraud, or other causes beyond your control impact or corrupt the security, fairness, proper conduct, or administration of the contest/giveaway.
11. Limitation of Liability
Entry into this contest constitutes the participants agreement to release and hold harmless the SPONSOR and PLATFORMS, subsidiaries, affiliates, employees, etc., against all claims liability, illness, injury, death, loss, etc., that occurs directly or indirectly from participation in the contest or use/misuse of the awarded prize.
12. Disputes
As a condition of participating in the promotion, the participant agrees to resolve all disputes with an arbitrator designated by the SPONSOR in the state of California, without resorting to any form of class action. Entrants waive all rights to punitive, incidental, or consequential damages, and waive all rights to have damages multiplied or increased.
13. Privacy Policy
Participants agree to abide by all privacy and NDA laws in the State of California and any federal laws of the United State of America.
14. Winners List
Participants may request a list of winners by submitting a request in writing to Moondog Industries for up to 30 days after the contest ends.
15. Social Media Platform Rules
Winners will agree to post a photo of the prize on their social media channels in such a way as does not violate any rules of that platform. The winners also agree to appear for an interview where they will discuss the prize and its performance. If there are functional problems with the prize, the winner agrees to make a good-faith effort to resolve all issues with the SPONSOR prior to posting reviews or opinions about the prize.
16. Affirmation of Acceptance of and Agreement to All of the Official Rules
By entering the contest, the entrant has affirmatively reviewed, accepted, and agreed to all of the them.
When I was a boy, my uncle let me borrow his B+L Discoverer. I used this scope to spot my hit on paper . It’s a straight tube refracting telescope of the kind that looks like a classic telescope. In fact I used to see the rings of Saturn for the first time.
Last year, I indulged in a little nostalgia when I purchased a 1980’s vintage B+L Discoverer spotting scope on Ebay. This 15-60×60 spotting scope was made by Bausch and Lomb, a brand best known today as a maker of contact lenses but back in the 1980’s, B+L was better known as a maker of military grade optics. B+L made binoculars and target scopes for US Army tanks and planes in the WWII, and invented RayBan sunglasses for bomber pilots.
The Discoverer dwarfs most modern 60mm spotting scopes. It is over 17″ long and weighs 3lbs due to its all metal tube construction and glass. Modern spotting scopes typically utilize a prism to bend the light and make the overall length, shorter. Most modern scopes are far lighter using more plastic parts. And most importantly, modern ED glass has higher light throughput, specialized coatings to reduce chromatic aberrations.
Most modern spotters over $250 in the 60x class will offer better image quality due to advancements in computerized glass fabrication and optical coatings. But compared to budget scopes, the Discoverer can still hold its own with superior sharpness and detail. If you’re lucky, you can still find this scope on Ebay, estate sales or garage sale for under a $100 (mint condition in box models go for much more). Just be sure you give the glass and the body a good inspection.
While visiting the Pardini booth at SHOT Show 2023, I was introduced to their partner Vanguard Outfitters which had a display case of bullets with an almost sci-fi looking construction. Blackfang (aka Black Dragon Fang or Obsidian Dragon) ammo originally came out in 5.7x28mm, the PDW round developed for the FN P90. While the original 5.7×2 military specs had armor penetrating constructions, the round was neutered for the civilian market.
The Blackfang was developed as a workaround that met civilian ammo restrictions, while delivering higher tumble damage and the ability to defeat soft-armor and hard-armor at CQB distances. This round is made of solid copper with a black iron anodized coating. At SHOT this year, they showcased a 300 Blackout version of the round.
Since I don’t own any firearms in this caliber (nor have any plans to) I won’t be testing any of this ammo in the near future, but I appreciate the engineering and ingenuity that goes into making this ammo.
I was contacted by Discovery Optics a few months ago to review their new ED-PRS scope. What I got was a scope in a large box filled with accessories. Usually when you get a ton of stuff with a scope this is a bad sign; they are cheap accessories designed to distract you from a mediocre scope. The Discovery ED-PRS on the other hand contained some high quality accessories that were a step above what you’d often get with some other scope brands.
Instead of a simple sheet of fabric cleaning cloth, the ED-PRS came with a soft chamois. In addition to the chamois, it also included a photography lens cleaning pen with an optical nano carbon cleaning tip. It included a set of high-profile scope rings with recoil lugs and printed torque markings.
In the box was an all metal scope level kit which helps you level and square your scope to your rail. I’ve only seen this tool is usually sold as an after-market accessory. And perhaps the most unusual items was a 3-piece sun shade tube which ads about another 10″ to the 13″ long scope.
The scope itself was sizable. It weighs 24oz but feels heavier. Its most notable feature are its oversized turrets. The ED-PRS’s turrets are even wider and taller than an Arken EP5. The turrets are non-locking, resettable and contain a cog wheel style zero-stop similar to Athlon’s Gen2 scopes. The turrets have brass cores and were loud and tactile with no slop.
The turrets, wheels, and nobs feature aggressive fine knurling, which along with being oversized make them generally easy to turn even when wearing gloves. All except for the magnification power ring which was exceedingly stiff and difficult to turn; even with the removable throw lever attached. I found myself really having to manhandle the lever to change magnification which severely impact performance for hunting or competition.
Not that I would take this scope hunting. I think it’s probably too bulky and heavy for most hunters (except those shooting from pimped out blinds or truck beds). The ED-PRS is probably best suited for precision bench-rest shooting with its easy to read markings and fine lined first focal plane reticle. While the scope features a ELR style Christmas tree reticle, serious long range shooters may be disappointed with the glass.
The ED-PRS has what they call a SFIR reticle, which looks a lot like the Arken VPR reticle but with more subtension markings. Like the Arken, the Discovery’s reticle only illuminates the very center cruciform of the reticle, creating something of a red-dot effect when used in low magnification. The illuminator has 6 brightness settings each separated by an OFF setting.
The first unit I received also had a very dim illuminator. Even with the scope cap on I could barely see the illuminated center cross at its highest illumination setting. Discovery sent me and a replacement scope and return label for the defective scope but the process took 3 weeks. They did warm me of the delay due to Lunar New Year which causes many delays in factory production in China. The new scope had a much brighter illumination but even this was not quite daylight bright.
Looking through the scope the image was surprisingly good for a budget scope. Bright with good center to edge sharpness. The other edge of the sight picture had only a hint of distortion even at 25x. The scope kept focus and point of aim throughout its magnification range. The eye box and eye relief were good for a budget scope.
The scope advertises ED glass but I noted some softness in detail at long range that I attribute to chromatic aberration. This was noticeable in mid day light with the target backlight. Overall resolution was better than average for the scopes price tier but not the best in its class. The ED-PRS was still sharp enough to allow me to pick out .22cal holes on paper at 100yrs.
The ED-PRS’ glass is not in the same league as a Leupold VX, Athlon Argos, Vortex Diamond Back Tactical, or even an Arken EP5. But when comparing what you get in the box for a street price of $399 (as of this writing) I would still consider the ED-PRS a good value. If you’re a beginning long-range shooter with a limited budget, this scope is something to consider.
This scope is available through my Affiliate links
Athlon is the name of a Greek city which is one of the oldest cities in Europe. But no that’s not what the company was named for. So what’s the deal? I asked the staff at the Athlon booth this question and got their answer.
The answer was more straight forward and aspirational. The engineers who left Bushnell to found a new company named it after the Greek word for a “prize or sporting competition”; where we get the root of many Olympic sports like Decathlon and Biathlon. They wanted a name that sounded like they were a contender in a competitive market. And in the world of sporting optics they are.
