Category Archives: Shooting Sports

Firearms and shooting sports

Product Reviews, Shooting Sports

CVLife Rifle Slings

Nowadays everybody is customizing and modding out their PCCs, ARs and rifles with red dots, tac lights, thumb clamp rests, bipods, 45º BUIS, and every tactical accessory on God’s green Earth. But one of the most often overlooked rifle accessories is the humble sling. This is probably the most practical accessory for both accurate shooting and transport.

CVLife sent me some samples of their basic nylon slings, including their combo sling-and-swivel mount package. The combo package includes 2x M-Lok compatible QD sling mounts. These H&K-style slings have spring loaded hook ends allowing you to connect them to the QD sling mounts (somewhat redundant) or to traditional non-removable slings and weapons.

Having purchased similar slings in the past and narrow hook openings are a constant issue with these types of slings. These new hooks are an improved design with a cut-out that allows their mouths to open and hook onto larger diameter objects. In addition, these slings have cloth covered bungie ends which provide a little shock absorption.

Available on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3DSR7kc
20% discount code: 82ZPTM2H

Shooting Sports

SVBony Scope Rings

SVBony is a Hong Kong maker of budget astronomy optics, microscopes, and spotting scopes. I’ve reviewed a number of their budget hunting spotting scopes but to be perfectly honest, I never knew they made rifle scopes or for the matter, scope rings. They sent me a set of their 1″ budget rings to test out.

They sent me four pairs of rings, a low and high set of 11mm dovetail rings and a low and high set of Picatinny rings. They all fit 1″ (25mm) tube scopes and SVBony also sent me their 3-12×44 AOE scope to test them on.

My first impression was that they looked like every other no-name Chinese budget scope ring with their lemon shaped design. These kinds of rings are often packed with cheap budget scopes for free. But on closer inspection I saw a key improvement, the clamp block in the base were machined from a thick block of aluminum rather than cheap stamped metal.

I borrowed a ring lapping kit to check the alignment of the rings and was surprised to find that they were pretty accurately aligned. This really shouldn’t surprise me because most modern scope factories use CNC milling machines which churn out high quality mass produced rings. This means that lapping is mostly unnecessary except for the competition precession obsessed.

SVBony only sell rings for 1″ tubes (probably because their only rifle scope has a 1″ tube). The rings don’t have flat recoil lugs or the wide surface area I would think required to handle higher recoil. Though rings of this size and type were used on hunting rifles back in the 70’s and 80’s so it’s possible. The rings are best suited for light recoiling rimfire (22LR, 17HMR) or airguns. They currently retail $8 price make them among the cheapest available on Amazon.

SV185 scope rings: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08MTPC8F6?ref=myi_title_dp

SV177 rifle scope: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08LB4MNGG?ref=myi_title_dp

SVBONY store link: https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/DCFE958E-C429-4584-AEB9-10745E22703F?ingress=2&visitId=3624e090-28be-44d7-9332-2f4accd37f08&ref_=ast_bln

Shooting Sports

How do you pronounce: Aguila?

Mexico’s Aguila is the largest ammo maker in Latin America. Their ammo features in many of the .22LR ammo review videos on my YouTube channel, as have my various mispronunciations of their name. But I’m not alone, as evidenced in this video where I ask visitors and vendors at Shot Show 2022 how they pronounce, “Aguila.”

Shooting Sports

Athlon Helos BTR Gen2 4-20×50

The Helos is step up from my Athlon Argos. This first focal plane scope has more refined and precisely designed turrets with a rock solid brass zero stop. The reticle is finer and less cluttered.

In other ways it is very similar despite being over $200 more. It shares similar optics performance. Both are argon purged (argon is a heavier gas than nitrogen and that helps purge the tube of lighter atmospheric gases and water vapor). Despite the Helos’ higher price it is still a good value when comparing performance and features to similarly priced scopes from Vortex.

I chose the 4-20×50 because it is slightly smaller and nearly a 1/2lb lighter than the more popular 6-25x scopes. I don’t feel I’m losing performance because at most matches I seldom dial my magnification higher than 12-16x. Lower power settings also afford you a wider field of view, that is sharper, brighter and more vibrant.

This scope has a street price under $600 and is available on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3L5cPnR

RESOLUTION

Element: 3-4
Group: -1

SPECS

Weight27.6 oz
Length13.3 in
FOV @ 100yds27.9 – 5.6 ft
Eye relief3.6 mm
Objective size50 mm
Zoom range4x-20x
Main tube size30 mm
Parallax adjustment10 – Infinity
Zero stopYes
Total elevation travel32 MILs (100 MOA)
Total windage travel25 MILs (80 MOA)
Turret travel per rotation10 MILs

OVERALL RATINGS

Build: 5
Glass: 4
Reticle: 5
Holds Zero: 5
Box Test: 5
Turrets: 5
Eye Box: 5
Value: 4.5

Shooting Sports

Shot Show 2022: Cutting Edge 22LR Bullet Kit

In 2020, Precision rimfire shooters were equal parts, intrigued and dubious of photos of circulating on the interwebs of 22LR bullets with fantastically elongated sharply pointed bullets, not unlike those on a 6.5 Creedmoor or similar speciality ELR ammunition. As it turned out, these bullets were real, solid-copper spitzer-style bullets created by custom bullet manufacturer, Cutting Edge of Idaho.

I saw photos of these pointy spitzer-style bullets last year and they looked pretty wicked, but I wondered if these were some gimmick or just experimental? Regardless, I’m sure many of us thought, I’d give it a try if could get my hands on some?

These bullet were first shown off at Shot Show 2020 but due to the pandemic shutting down the show in 2021, I hadn’t seen or heard about them until I saw Josh of Pursuit of Accuracy posted a video about them. His initial tests seemed positive but he wasn’t convinced that their performance were worth the cost.

I got a chance to visit the Cutting Edge booth and learn a bit more. They only bullets and not as boxed cartridge ammo so strictly for Loaders/Reloaders. And given the unusual nature and barrel requirements, probably strictly for competition .22LR loaders.

Still I’m curious if anybody has bought this kit or have had a chance to load and fire them? So far it’s been second-hand word-of-mouth about their performance. For those who are reloaders, these bullets are sold in kits which include the bullets and brass for about $80 for 200rnds.

Shooting Sports

Sniper ZT 5-25×50

The Sniper ZT was sent to me by Texas Precision Optics of Dallas, TX which markets the brand. Any scope with the brand name “Sniper” either has the stones to actually live up to the name or just a poseur brand. With a price just under $300 for a 5-25x first focal plane, I suspected the later.

The ZT comes with a wealth of accessories in the box including a parallax focus wheel, sun shade tube, anti-flash filter, and heavy duty scope mount. In general, a budget scope that is loaded with this many accessories is a huge red flag that the product is pig in makeup. The scope and the accessories did appear well constructed but I was still not convinced.

The scope has an integrated throw lever of sorts, in the form of a raised skeletonize fin on the magnification ring. It features a red and a green reticle illuminator with 5-intensity settings. While almost daylight bright, it illuminates only the center T-shape of the reticle.

The First Focal Plane, reticle is configured in a german-stye ‘T’ with 1 and 0.5 MOA sub-tension hash marks for precision shooting. At 5x it appears very fine and light which may be hard to use in a hunting application as it is easily lost in the background, but the thinness is ideal for precision shooting, especially for rimfire. But for rimfire precision, I would have wanted the center ‘T’ to have had a gap for better target placement.

The eye-relief was more than fair at 3.7″ with a decent eye-box that did become a bit unforgiving at 25x. The image quality was somewhat typical for a budget scope: milky, with low contrast and detail, and chromatic aberrations. But what did surprise me was that scope had exceptionally good resolving power beating both my Athlon Helos and Vortex Diamondback Tactical in this regard (though the later has a brighter and cleaner image).

All in all, the Sniper ZT was a surprisingly good scope for a street price under $280. Its turrets tracked and returned to zero. The optics are a mixed bag with very noticeable chromatic aberration. As to it’s durability and reliability, that I’ll need to discover over time.

This scope is available on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3up8K6V

Learn more at Texas Precision Optics: ZT 5-25×50 FFP First Focal Plane (FFP) Scope

USAF OPTICAL RESOLUTION PERFORMANCE
Group -1 : Element 4

SPECS
MODEL: ZT5-25x50FFP

MAGNIFICATION: 5X-25X

WEIGHT/OZ: 27.2

MODEL: ZT5-25x50FFP

MAGNIFICATION: 5X-25X

WEIGHT/OZ: 27.2

LENGTH: 14.4

TUBE SIZE: 30

EYE RELIEF: 3.8~3.7

EXIT PUPIL/MM: 8.3~2.1

FIELD OF VIEW@100YARDS: 16~4

CLICK IN@100YARDS: 1/4 MOA

ADJUSTMENT RANGE: ±30

PARALLAX SETTING: 10 yd.- infinity

OPTICS COATING: Fully-multi coat

Fog PROOF: Yes

Shock PROOF: Yes

Water PROOF: Yes

Shooting Sports

Shot Show 2022: Aguila Ammunition

For most of last two years, Aguila ammo was absent from my stores in Northern California. I had read rumors of big-rig shipments getting hijacked in Mexico by the drug cartels. So when I went to Shot Show this year, I thought I’d ask the source.

Aguila had one of the largest booths at Shot Show. While not a well known brand in the US, it is one of the largest ammo producers in the world. Super Extra HV has been my go-to plinking ammo in my Ruger 10/22, H&K G36/22, and Marlin 60 due to it’s better than average groupings and relatively low CPR versus CCI Mini-Mags or Federal AutoMatch. Chatting with Kaleigh at Aguila’s large Shot Show booth, I was surprised to learn that Aguila makes 22LR match ammo. Though it really shouldn’t surprise me since outside of the U.S., they are the largest munitions manufacturer in the rest of the Western Hemisphere. But their match grade 22LR was never sold in California as far as I know.

I’m hoping that more of Aguila’s wide line of ammo, especially 22LR, makes to my local gun stores.

Product Reviews, Shooting Sports

Pinty 4-12×50 Scope Kit

This Pinty scope is the epitome of Tacticool tropes, featuring a decent 4-12×50 rifle scope but tacking on both a full-sized reflex sight and a green laser designator to create a top-heavy scope/optics package. This is an example of the whole being less than the sum of its parts. Any one of these three accessories would be fine on its own but together it is ridiculously unnecessary.

Still, if you buy the package you can detach and use each part separately for good effect. The scope isn’t bad optically; well not great. It held zero with a .22. Will it hold zero on a .308? Who knows, but would you expect it to?

A big shortcoming about the scope is when you attach the reflex sight, you can’t read the elevation knob. And the reticles is the generic Chinese “range finder” that was common in the 70’s and 80’s for buck hunting but that never adequately explains how you use it to determine the range to your target for other applications.

Purchased separately the various pieces would cost more than buying this package. Is it a “bargain” well… my daughter won this in a fun match so yes, I guess it was since it only cost $10 for her to enter the match. Your milage may vary. This scope is available on Amazon: https://amzn.to/30k8GdE

RESOLUTION

Group: -2
Element: 3

OVERALL RATINGS (out 5)
Build: 3
Glass: 2
Reticle: 2
Holds Zero: 5
Box Test: 5
Turrets: 2
Eye Box: 3
Value: 3

Shooting Sports

Shot Show 2022: Leupold Patrol 6HD

I was fortunate to get an early look at the soon-to-be released Patrol 6HD LPVO scope at the Leupold booth. This +$1200 scope features Leupold’s legendary glass and quality in a lightweight LPVO with a choice of illuminated reticles. Old school hunters will prefer the simple firedot duplex but most modern shooters will prefer the tactical CM-R2 reticle which is perfectly usable for hunting as well. The additional advantage to the CM-R2 is that the illuminated horseshoe is bright and fat enough to be usable as a red dot at the scope’s true 1x power setting.