Last month, I participated in the Budget Rifle and Ammo Challenge created by BoomStick @FukuYTmark6 and LongRilfe @MnShootingSports. This challenge target has six 3/4″ target rounds which are small but not unusual for a 50-yard rimfire challenge target. The real challenge is the limitations on the price of the gear and ammo you can shoot it with.
This challenge is limited to factory rifles (no upgraded trigger or barrel) and optic must have a retail price of less than $700 combined. Moreover, the rimfire ammo used must be bulk box 22LR and excludes more premium ammo types such as CCI Standard and Norma Tac22 (CCI standard is premium? love it!).
I accepted this challenge with a smile. My rifle is a factory Ruger Precision Rimfire which I bought on a Black Friday sale. I’m going to count the average sale price today which is about $400. That means the scope I choose has to cost less than $300. Fortunately for me, I recently reviewed the Discovery Optic LHD 8-32×56. A very high magnification scope for a very budget price of about $249 https://youtu.be/Jn7LcnJBsbg. For the challenge, I shot it with Federal AutoMatch a 40grn LRN round.
During the challenge run, my 3rd shot was a wildly off flyer. This inconsistency would plague the rest of my run. My best target was the 2nd with two shots going through the same hold. The rest were inconsistent. I ended up with a score of only 7 of a possible 18. Federal AutoMatch was even worse ammo in my rifle than Aguila, with which I scored 11.
I reviewed the Midas G2 Pro 12×50 over a year ago and found they produced some of the clearest images I’ve tested from a 12x binocular under $500. Over the course of the year, it’s helped me spot my targets at the range and been a solid performer. Last week I took it to watch a major league ballgame at San Francisco’s Oracle Park.
Watching a ballgame is a different experience with this optic. I didn’t have a tripod or mount to steady and it was constantly scanning the field, fast panning to follow the ball and plays. In this use case, I found that the Midas was a bit more finicky to find its best focus. I found myself adjusting the focus and diapoter. I also found the exit pupil’s sweet spot to be slightly past the maximum extension of the telescoping eye-cups, so I’ll probably add some extended rubber cups if I want to use these at another ballgame.
This prize supplied by Discovery Optics and is awarded at their sole discretion and direction.
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Void where prohibited by law. Must be legal resident in the USA. Moondog Industries employees, subsidiaries, affiliates, suppliers, advertising and promotion agencies, employees’ immediate family members, are ineligible to participate in the contest/giveaway.
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Discovery Optics (known as the SPONSOR) and Moondog Industries (known as the CO-SPONSOR) is a video Edutainment producer and game promotor based in San Francisco, CA. YouTube, TikTok, Rumble, X and online video platforms (known as PLATFORMS) are not SPONSORS or in any way affiliated with the contest or content.
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Contest email entries must be received between: 12:00pm EST 1 April 2025 and 12:00pm EST 30 April 2025
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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.
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Too Much Information live chat show. This episode we’ll be covering 2025’s most anticipated movies. 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-250326/
This brand is a German footwear and apparel company. It is the second largest athletic and fitness brand in the world, behind Nike.
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DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE
Crunch Fitness is a worldwide fitness brand. Crunch was founded in NYC’s Greenwich Village in 1989 by Doug Levine, a former stockbroker. It’s tagline and philosophy “No Judgments” was ment to remove the intimidation factor from going to the gym.
I started working on Crunch Fitness advertising back in 1995. I designed an wrote headlines for a variety of print and billboard ads. Today I work on freelance creative projects for Crunch.
Special Guest: Tony Harl Author, serial entreperneur, Tony Hartl founded Planet Tan in Dallas in 1995 and built the company from the ground-up before selling it for millions. He has been a guest lecturer at The Caruth Institute of Entrepreneurship at SMU’s Cox Business School. He is a Partner and CEO of Crunch Fitness Texas.
CONTESTS March Multixel contest drawing
April 5 Contest
NAME THE BRAND CLUE:
This brand was named after it’s founder Adi Dassle. It first attained popular awareness in the early 1980’s among the hip-hop community. Rappers Run-DMC wrote a song estolling their name and footwear. Unfortunately they perpetuated America’s mispronouncication of the brand.
April Fools! The Bear Creek Arsenal does produce the Grizzly Glock-alike in a variety of sizes, including a compact 9mm. The pistol shown in the video by Patrick isn’t a real one. But they were gracious enough to let me film this at their booth at SHOT Show to mad props to them.
Alto’s Adventure is a free-to-play sports/action game for Android and iPhone, released in 2015. In this game, you play as a snowboarder in the Andes. You start the game playing as Alto. You can unlock additional snowboarders with modified abilities like faster top speeds.
The developers wanted to create a game that captured the “flow” state feeling when carving down a slope on a snowboard. They’ve succeeded. This game is one of the most beautiful games I’ve played. Both in the design of its graphics as well as its atmospheric procedurally generated soundtrack.
During the game, you constantly ski “downhill” from left to right on procedurally created terrain. You can jump or back-flip by tapping or pressing on the screen. As you play, the time-of-day, lighting conditions, weather, and visibility can change.
As you ski, you can spank llamas you pass, pick up glowing coins, and power-ups such as feathers and magnets. Alto must avoid random chasams, rocks, campfires, and “Elders” who chase you down to punish you for spooking llamas. You can grind on aqueducts and decorative bunting draped on poles.
Just in case you’re wondering, this is a legit review of the game. But this video was an April Fools. But if you do want to see more Lets Play videos, let me know and I might start creating content.
Last year, Discovery impressed me with the ED-PRS Gen2 5-25×56 scope with its high-quality glass, features, and street price under $500. They told me they were working on a 6-36x version but had delayed production until they were satisfied with the results. The wait is finally over with the XED 6-36×56 with a street price of just under $700.
This scope is share many of the features of the new ED-PRS Gen2 MOA like its new throw lever design and its tool-free turret screw tops. The XED is slightly longer and heavier overall with a noticeably wider parallax dial than the ED-PRS. The biggest change is the XED’s 35mm tube which allows a wider range of adjustments.
The XED utilizes Japanese ED glass for excellent optical clarity and brightness while minimizing chromatic aberration. Most high power scopes have tight eyeboxes, the XED is unforgiving at 36x. Tight eyebox aside, for those that require a bit more magnification than the ED-PRS 5-25x, the XED is tough to beat.
Luxgun is a shooting sports tripod brand made by Sunwayfoto. My buddy Slavguns introduced this new brand to me at SHOT Show 2025 where a sample of this new hunting and shooting tripod was displayed at Christensen Arms. He helped design and put together this product.
The Hunt Tripod is a 65″ tall carbon fiber tripod (it’s taller than me) with a 28mm inverted ball-head, and a quick detach ARCA/Swiss base. The tripod comes pre-mounted with a wide-expanding Sunwayfoto saddle mount. The Hunt kit is more than just the tripod and mount,, it includes all the accessories a new hunter or shooter needs to start shooting, including a MLOK-to-ARCA adapter, feet spikes, and a Picatinny-to-ARCA adapter.
Too Much Information live chat show. This episode we’ll be covering 2025’s most anticipated movies. 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-250326/
This brand is one of the oldest motion picture studios. This studio has produced such classics as Gone With the Wind, Ben Hur, Singin in the Rain, Rocky, and James Bond.
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WORD OF THE WEEK
“Ars Gratia Artis” Art for Arts sake; a French phrase meaning l’art pour l’art, signifies the belief that art’s value lies solely in its aesthetic qualities and not in any didactic, moral, or political purpose.
This brand known by its initials, was originally Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures. It has passed through a number of owners and is currently owned by Amazon.
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.
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
