Shooting Sports, Social

TMI Live #241030

My notes from today’s livestream

Since 2004, the Fed Govt. declared October to be Cybersecurity Awareness Month
Aura Sponsorship: https://aura.com/moondog

FRESH VIDS

LIVE CONTEST: O-lloween #olight

MOONDOG 2A

Discovery Optics Rings and Mounts https://youtu.be/oojhvIJSdDs

MOONDOG GO
Election and Revolutionary History week https://www.youtube.com/@moondoggo/shorts

MOONDOG REVIEWS
OLight Arkfeld Ultra https://youtu.be/5Y8Wg2Fu4GE

Discovery Optics Costume Contest https://www.facebook.com/groups/1978152612658494/posts/2156755618131525/

THUMBNAIL THIS

• CCI Standard vs Aguila Super Extra

• Discovery LHD

• Primary Arm SLx

LIVE CONTEST: O-lloween #olight

VOCAB

Height vs Heighth
@PeanutEOD  I liked and subscribed for the simple fact that you pronounced the word height correctly. It drives me absolutely insane when people put the “th” at the end of height. And that word gets used a lot in firearms videos.

Pre-19th century pronunciation or probably a regional dialect. Benjamin Franklin and George Washington wrote the word as “heighth” sometimes https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/the-height-of-mispronunciation2014or-not

RABBIT HOLE

What did the Founding Father’s sound like?
Boston Accent or Tangier Island VA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIZgw09CG9E

Pirate Accent was invented in Disney’s Treasure Island: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7giyx13xcM0

Disney Leprechan’s : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQ2EaF8n6iA

Sean Connery sings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=So9yHpHOAiI

What movie Scared you?
Jaws
Phantasm
Invaders from Mars
Nightmare on Elm Street (story)

MOONDOG GO CHAT CONTEST: OLight flashlight name

NOVEMBER CONTEST

Feyachi QD TM22 vest https://moondogindustries.com/november-2024-contest/

LIVE CONTEST DRAWING ARKFLEX

#olight

Shooting Sports

Olight Arkfeld Ultra

The Arkfeld Ultra is an upgrade on the Arkfeld Pro, which I reviewed just a few month ago. The Ultra increases light output by 100lumens which isn’t a huge leap in output. The more notable changes are in the design of the body and a new aluminum alloy used in it’s construction, that Olight calls O-aluminum.

The Ultra has a slightly raised and beveled face on it’s body design, somewhat reminiscent of the Tesla Cybertruck. This serves a practical purpose, shielding the control ring and button from wear and tear. For extra credit, I tested the Ultra’s claimed extra strong design by running it over with my KIA SUV. It survived, though I did bend the belt clip noticeably and scratched up the lower body (though not as badly as I would have expected).

The Ultra also features a finely checkered pattern on the sides of the box-shaped flashlight, which provides more grip friction than the Arkfeld Pro’s ribbed pattern. In performance, the Arkfeld Ultra is nearly identical to the Pro. My testing did confirm a light output near its claimed 1400 lumens. The Ultra is rechargeable and uses the same magnetic recharging cable as the Pro and other Olight flashlights.

The Ultra costs about $20 more than the Pro but the latter offers a wider array of color selection in its body. At the moment the Ultra only comes in a olive-gold like color thats somewhat infused into the metal. In addition, Olight inlcudes a limited edition Olight challenge coin in the Ultra box.

BUY

Olight affliate: https://shrsl.com/4ploz

Amazon affiliate https://amzn.to/3U31JGQ

SPECS

ARKFELD ULTRA

OUTPUT: 1400 lumen

UV OUTPUT: 900mW

LASER: Green Class 3R

BODY: O-Aluminum alloy

WATERPROOF: IPX-7

BATTERY: Internal LiPo

MAX THROW: 103 meters (Turbo)

RUNTIME: 125 minutes (Turbo), 11 days (Moon)

LENGTH 4.72 in / 120 mm

WIDTH 1.06 in / 27 mm

THICKNESS 0.63 in / 16 mm

WEIGHT 4.19 oz / 119 g

Shooting Sports

6061 vs 7075 Scope Rings

If you own a pair of scope rings or really any firearms accessory that’s made of metal, chances are that metal is aluminum. And if you look at the marketing description it may describe it as “Aircraft grade” aluminum or “Aluminum Aloy” which means that chances are that type of aluminum is 6061.

But there is also 7075 aluminum which was secretly invented in Japan before WWII and used in the famous Mitsubishi A6m “Zero” fighter. This aluminum is technically lighter and harder than 6061. But also harder to mill and work with, which makes it more expensive than 6061.

Discovery optics new line of scope rings and mounts are surprisingly well designed and constructed, with features like lightening cuts and recoil lugs. Moreover they all feature clearly printed informative labels with useful information like the height and diameter or the rings, the amount of torque to apply to the star Torq screws, and the sequence to tighten them down.

The 6061 “lightweight” cantilever offset mount features an index pin to more precisely align the top and bottom halves of the rings together and provide reinforcement against recoil sheering sheering forces on the screws. As the name implies their 20MOA Heavy Duty mount has a 20MOA cant built into the base for Extreme Long Range shooters and features “Pre-Lapped” rings that are polished down to the bare metal providing the mirror smooth contact surface with your scope tube. It also offers 6 screws per scope ring which offers more clamping power if you’re mounting a heavy scope on a big bore (ie. 50BMG) or magnum cartridge rifle.

If you don’t need the 20MOA for pushing out to Extreme Long Rang shooting, you probably don’t want it because that also means you’ll need to compensate by adjusting your scope 20MOA to counteract that ballistic drop of the mount for “normal” range setups.

Both the 6061 and the 7075 rings also feature this pre-lapped treatment. In fact, I’m a bit hard pressed to find a use case for the 6061 rings over the 7075 rings. Certainly the 6061 rings are lighter and 40% cheaper than the 7075 rings but both are under $100 and therefore so affordable as to make the difference in price negligible.

In general you should choose scope rings for the most versatility in scope setups on bolt action and semi-automatic rifles. Discovery Scope mounts will only fit on Picatinny 1913 rails due to their triple recoil lug bases. But if you’re mounting a scope on an AR or a rifle with limited rail space, you may need a mount to provide enough forward offset to push your scope eyepiece far enough forward to provide you with sufficient eye relief to use the scope safely and effectively.

No matter which you choose: scope rings or an offset scope mount, Discovery’s offers exceptional value and by all appearance, exceptional engineering and construction. In all but the most extreme conditions, either 7075 or 6061 should provide you with a strong enough mounting system for your scope.

BUY IT

Discovery Optics: https://discoveryopt.com 
10% Off code: Moondog

20 MOA mount https://amzn.to/3U2OFBi
10% Off code: Moondog1021

Lightweight Mount https://amzn.to/4h4WkZG

7075 Rings https://amzn.to/4eDpP3d

6061 Rings https://amzn.to/401S7jm

WIN IT

Enter to win

Shooting Sports

Klarus E5

The Klarus E5 looks like a flashlight Apple would design: a cross between a highly functional EDC and an overpriced minimalist fashion accessory. But the E5 is anything but overpriced. Flat EDC lights are a mini-trend in flashlights. The Olight Arkfeld is probably the best-known example. Klarus has staked out its position by offering the lightest, flattest EDC.

The 1.4 oz E5 weighs less than a pair of Apple AirPods (with charging case). It’s about the size of 3″ bladed EDC knife and shares about the same pocket space. It has a magnetic tip that allows the E5 to tail-stand as a work light or be attached to the roof of a car as a warning signal. The EP5 comes in 6 different colors, with matching colored belt clips.

The EP5 has two light emitters. In function, it’s intended to be primarily a clip-on lapel light. Its main LED emitter is its larger round light on its side. Its auxiliary light forms the top end opposite its magnet. Both lights are activated and controlled by a single side button the light. Tapping on the button after the light unit is activated switches the main light from low-medium-high-flash/signal modes. Keeping the button pressed after activation switches between the Main and Aux light emitters. Double tapping the button activates the Aux light in strobe mode. Triple tapping the button activates the Main light in Turbo mode, outputting a maximum of 600 lumens

The EP5 trades off ergonomics in controls and function for minimalist aesthetics. The EP5 is stylish and lightweight, making it appealing, but it lacks features like mode memory, which are required in a real EDC work light. But its low price, lightweight, and packability make it a great every-day-carry light, just not an every-day-use light.

BUY IT

Amazon affiliate https://amzn.to/4gtwE8L

SPECS

• Maximum Brightness：600 lumens
• Weight: 37g
• Thickness: 8mm
• Battery Capacity：450m
• Charging port: USB-C
• Max runtime: 12hrs
• Waterproof: IPX4

Shooting Sports, Social

TMI Live 241023

My notes from today’s livestream

Aura Sponsorship: https://aura.com/moondog

Contest: #maven Sticker Package

FRESH VIDS

Evike Timelapse https://youtu.be/344UnhfX2Sc

Klarus E5 https://youtu.be/hIjoNwFPLdg

Feyachi QD PC https://youtu.be/w3Py5uilP1s
Contest early access: https://moondogindustries.com/november-2024-contest/

Maven RS4 https://youtu.be/zaA9dQsN3Qc

Contest: Discovery Optics scope rings and mounts https://youtu.be/BDYjHoSEadE

Discovery Optics: https://discoveryopt.com 
10% Off code: Moondog

20 MOA mount https://amzn.to/3U2OFBi
10% Off code: Moondog1021

THUMBNAIL THIS

• Maven CS2A

• Primary Arm SLx

LIVE CONTEST

• #maven

VOCAB

Cheering Guide – When a KPop or JPop group puts out a video when they release a new title track, and it’s so the fans (if they want) know when and what to cheer at specific times.

Vocaloid – A singing voice synthesizer software product. Its signal processing part was developed through a joint research project between Yamaha Corporation and the Music Technology Group in Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona.

RABBIT HOLE

F5ve https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opMa_L52z0I

Rock Horror Picture Show https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-T3wrbOr68w&t=95s

Professor of Rock: Hall and Oats https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=N_h5UhQp4xQ

Comet A3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulBTMI9dP0I

OctoSquigglez Vocaloid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zey7jzfQcJc

Hatsune Miko

Leek Song (Finnish!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrgO_9ey53M

LIVE CONTEST

• #march

Shooting Sports

Maven RS.4 5-30×56 FFP

Maven has some of the sexiest looking scopes on the market in terms of build quality, materials, and styling. But don’t let a hot body fool you. Like an exotic sports car the Maven RS.4 has serious engineering under the hood.

The RS.4 is Maven’s scope for PRS competition or long range Western hunting. It offers many features optimized for long range enthusiasts. Maven offers it in MIL or MOA with a variety of Christmas tree and specialty reticles. I got the CFR-MIL reticle which is similar to the PR2 reticle on the Leupold Mk5.

The turrets are oversized and large diameter to provide quick turns to adjust dope and fine adjustments. The turret have a hidden tool-less locking top to allow the user to reset them. Under the elevation turret you’ll find a black metal ring that can be dropped to engage a pin on the turret base to engage a precise zero-stop.

All the nobs and rings turn smoothly. The turrets offer precise tacticle clicks that are audible. The reticle illumination is powered by a CR2032 coin battery and is split between red and green settings with an off in-between brightness settings. The illumination dial layout is a little unusual with the highest settings in both red and green are on the same side of the dial. Unfortunately it’s illumination is only so-so. Only the very central cruciform of the reticle is illuminated with a faint glow on the Christmas tree. The RS.4’s brightest isn’t noon-day daylight which a liability for certain lighting conditions.

The RS.4 has ED glass which gives it excellent sharpness, clarity, and color balance. Chromatic aberration was greatly minimized in all but the highest contrast conditions. Even in those extreme cases, I noted an orange fringe rather than a purple or green one. The eyebox was a bit unforgiving, even with the magnification dialed down to 10x. At 30x it’s very tight, so it’s imperative the shooter have a firm and comfortable cheek weld on their rifle.

The RS.4 is a beautifully designed scope with long range shooters in mind. Especially the kind of shooter who step out of their custom Cybertruck wearing their ironed T.A.D. outfits and matching Canadian Goose parka.

BUY IT

Maven affiliate: https://alnk.to/7X4TGjC
Maven Custom builder (use code: moondog): https://alnk.to/3J6z2Dh
Amazon affiliate: https://amzn.to/3MByMgU

SPECS

Focal plane1st
Magnification range5x – 30x
Obj. Lens diameter56mm
Tube diameter34mm
Objective outer diameter65mm
Eyepiece outer diameter43.6mm
Overall length325mm / 12.79in
Weight (without battery)35.4oz / 1004g
Max Elevation35.5 MIL
Max Windage14.6 MIL
Click value0.1 MIL
Adjustment per turret revolution10 MIL
Parallax adjustment15y-Infinity
Exit pupil diameter@30x: 1.9mm
Eye relief@30x: 86-92mm
Field of view @ 100y@30x: 3.9ft
Effective objective lens diameter@30x: 56mm
Field of view@30x: 0.74°
Field of view, apparent@30x: 22°
Light transmission91.84%
Twilight factor@30x: 40.98
Submersion tightness / waterproof rating3m depth
Gas purgedNitrogen
Reticle constructionEtched Glass
Reticle optionsMOA/MIL
IlluminationRed/Green
OriginMade in Japan
Shooting Sports

Athlon Midas LE Gen2

Clint Eastwood’s first leading role was in “A Fist Full of Dollars“. Not many people know this, but that Western was a remake of the Japanese film, “Yojimbo” by Akira Kurosawa. Even fewer realize that Kurosawa was inspired to write his samurai film, by his love of American Westerns.

All this came to mind when I opened up the Midas LE Gen2 box sent me by Athlon. I was struck by how much the LE looked like a giant micro red dot. I realize that RMRs (Ruggedized Miniaturized Reflex-sight) are themselves shrunk down reflex sights. Like the Clint Eastwood Spaghetti Westerns: the original was great, the copy was just as good and different enough to be its worth it.

The LE has a reticle that can be changed from a 2MOA red dot, a 65MOA circle-cross, or combined. Activation, brightness, and reticle are controlled by two function buttons on the left-hand side of the LE. Pressing both button simultaneously changes the reticle. The unit has motion activation (aka Shake Awake) and Athlon claims the LE can run for up to 50,000hrs in medium intensity off its CR2032 battery.

The LE was designed as a rifle top red dot. Despite its giant RMR appearance, the LE only a little bit wider than a typical tube-style red dot and about the same weight; it’s smaller than an EOTech X. It offers a nicely designed locking QD Picatinny mount and relatively low profile sitting less than 1.5″ above your rail.

Everyone who tested it remarked on how light it felt on the rifle and how easy it was to sight in. The large reticle and its wide field of view made it easy and fast shooting, thanks to its massive 26x35mm objective lens. Its rare for me to test an optic and then have those who tried it asked me later for links so that they could order one themselves! If Athlon ever roll out an LE Gen 3, I hope they offer a green illumination option and add a 25MOA circle reticle.

BUY IT

Amazon affiliate https://amzn.to/3XnSiDC

SPECS

RETICLE SIZE: 2 MOA, 65 MOA

WEIGHT: 7 oz

MOUNT: Picatinny Rail

RETICLE COLOR: Red

LENGTH: 3.4″

MAGNIFICATION: 1x

BATTERY: CR2032

CENTER HEIGHT: 1.29″

OBJ. LENS: 28 x 36 mm

Shooting Sports

Feyachi Magnetic Quick Release Tactical Vest

Putting on a Plate Carrier (PC) tactical vest can be easy or moderately challenging to the user who customized its setup. But for anyone else, that PC can be a puzzle of buckles, straps, and velcro, that can vary widely by brand and by each user’s customization. Easy enough if the user is conscious but good luck if that user is knocked out or cognitively incapacitated.

Feyachi came up with what may be the easiest way to take off a PC: magnetic buckles. They came up with a unique system that connects the shoulder straps and cummerbund to the front plate that easily disconnects using a cable actuated magnetic buckles. These buckles snap into locking position mechanically. Pulling the cables, moves the magnets which unlock the buckles. This disconnect process is nearly instantaneous and while not always 100%, disconnects enough of the 4 buckles to easily pull off the PC vest of the user.

But that does bring up the question, what’s the use case for this super fast disconnect? Is it in case of a vehicle rollover? Perhaps if the PC is on fire? Or in the case of a water accident, to ditch the heavy PC? Feyachi doesn’t say and if I was their lawyer I probably wouldn’t want them to claim what it does for liability reasons.

For casual PC users such as airsofters who use a vest on a regular basis, having a quick release between skirmish games is pleasant, though most airsoft vests have pretty easy buckle systems. As a PC it is light duty vest that is cheap at around $120.

For professionals the vest feels a bit bit too lightly reinforced and the included pouches are cheaply constructed. The stitching looked budget, with loose thread ends around the velcro, and no gusseting reinforcement in critical straps. Surprisingly the vest’s internal plate pockets have pretty good with extra straps to hold plates in place. The biggest gripe expressed by my tester was that the cummerbund does not have stretch panels, so you have to suck in hard to attach the buckles and put on the vest.

One issue in the design is that he quick release cables are exposed and could snag in real battle situations. The quick release actuator is positioned directly in the center of the chest for easy access but does mean that you can’t position an Admin panel or equipment that would cover it. The vest’s impact padding has air flow channels but the foam pads are a bit too thin to allow for uniform fabric not to fill them in.

This PC vest isn’t bad but it has it’s trade-offs. For tactiCOOL types, having a unique whizz bang bit of of unique gear to flex is its own reward.

WIN IT

Enter for a chance to win this vest (contest ends 12/1/24) https://moondogindustries.com/november-2024-contest/

BUY IT

Amazon* https://amzn.to/4eIthcP

Social

Name spammed on YouTube

https://youtu.be/V7nBubZe_Ao

One of the first video reviews I posted when I started my channel Moondog2A (nee Moonog Industries) has been getting a lot of attention lately. This was a review of a cheap CVLife reflex sight that I posted over 3 years ago. About two weeks ago I got a strange comment posted that simply read “Triston Mountains” from @RolandaPierzchala-h3l.

I try and respond to every comment posted to my videos, at least with a thumbs up. I even respond to the negative comments when appropriate. But this one was somewhat nonsensical. I Googled “Triston Mountains” which turned out to be on an island in the middle of the South Atlantic and administered by the British Commonwealth. I asked the poster if Triston Mountains was where they lived? They didn’t answer.

But I would get one or two posts a day from other different accounts posting a comments that were simply a random place name, like Garrison Falls, Connelly Valley, or a list of random first and last names. I thought these names may be attempts to tag people but they lacked an @ symbol. These appeared to be random bot accounts simply posting random names. Why?

I asked some fellow YouTubers if they recently had similar posts on their videos and some replied, yes they were bots. We suspect they may an attempt to validate bot accounts by generating a patina of legitimacy by accumulating posts on those fake accounts (building up post counts on YouTube analytics?). Or they could be trojan posts, that are innocuous words now but will later be edited to add in phishing or spam links later. Whatever the case, they do not appear legitimate and we agreed that it would be wise to delete or hide the posts.

Unfortunately I have about a hundred such posts to now go through and manually report to YouTube and delete. The only positive news to report is that so far this spamming has only happened to one of my videos. Be careful out there. The internet is only getting less trustworthy and it’ll only get worse as automated bots and A.I. get better.

Social

TMI Livestream #241016

My notes and links from the October 16, 2024 Livestream Chat

THIS WEEK IN MOONDOG

• Hazzbro’s Hammer Time https://youtu.be/bnliPbTOCWY
https://www.hazzbroshide.com/

• Falling Plates Match ED-AR https://youtu.be/g11_dNKjRW0

• MIFMIA LED headlamps https://youtu.be/98yJ6uD2Mvc

• Name Spambots https://youtu.be/whLzYm7h5P8

• Discovery Optics Contest: https://youtu.be/g6Qysdcf4Iw

• Interview series from the Freedom Benchrest 1000yrd Match: https://youtube.com/shorts/FSHBB4K5wMI

• AirsoftCon Oct 19 https://www.evike.com/airsoftcon/

• #airsoft Prize Package

WIP THUMBNAIL THIS

• Feyachi Tactical Vest

• Klarus E5 EDC

• Olight Arkfeld Pro

• Discovery Optics Rings and Mounts

LIVE CONTEST

• #airsoft Prize Package

THE WORLD

ZERO DELTA HURRICANE RELIEF RAFFLE 
https://zrodelta.com/product/hurricane-helene-relief-raffle-2-entries-per-ticket/

Hurricane Helene Relief Raffle – 2 Entries per Ticket

Falcon Heavy Booster Capture: https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1845958325948895425

VOCAB

Hypergamy https://youtu.be/WEP5ubPMGDU?si=Ymx1tDrdYGKHNKVe

LOST IN THE EDIT

• Feyachi mag and pistol drill

Gear Reviews, Education, and Adventure