The Fastfire4 is the multi-reticle red dot in the Burris Fastfire family. It is feather light at under 2oz with a doctor/vortex footprint. It has a unique set of features designed for 3-gun, action shooting, and mounting on shotguns for bird and clays.
The Fastfire4 has an oversized objective window allowing for a more forgiving field of view for action shooters in unusual shooting positions. While small and light, Burris managed to fit in ambient light sensor. When placed in auto-brightness mode, the Fastfire4 will automatically dim and brighten to compensate for lighting conditions. The Fastfire4 offers 4 different reticle options which can be cycled by pressing the button on the right side of the optic: A 3MOA precision dot, an 11MOA dot, and two 50MOA circle dots, one with a horizon line, which Burris calls a wing-dot reticle. I think the latter reticle looks more like a Pokeball. The horizontal line is presumably for shotgun users, who might use it as a guide for their shot spread.
I prefer multi-reticle red dots in Falling Plates matches. I like to switch between a precision dot and a circle dot reticle at different target distances or stages. Large circle reticles allow me to bracket my steel targets for faster follow up shots.
Burris also included a plastic hood which can be fitted to the rear of the reflex sight, converting it into a closed emitter red dot. This allows the red dot to be resistant to rain and dirt that can plague reflex sights. Anybody who’s struggled to wipe off the wet inside of a reflex sight, will know how useless they can become in the rain. This hood can be especially useful when mounting this sight on a shotgun.
The Fastfire4 is not perfect. While it has a rated 26,000 runtime on a CR1632 battery, and an auto shut-off after 8-hours, it lacks motion-activation. The unit has to be manually activated before use, precluding my consideration for its use for Home Defense firearms or Concealed Carry. As a minor peeve, the front lens bulges past the frame and I often found my palm print on the lens after racking my pistol slide. This could have easily been fixed by extending the lip of the lens frame a few millimeters. And finally, the Fastfire4 isn’t cheap with a street price around $360 which makes it one of the more expensive MRDs on the market.
Despite these drawbacks, the pluses definitely outweigh the minuses for this optic, especially for action shooters. The Fastfire4’s reticle options are ideally suited for the falling plates and bullseye matches I compete in. I just wish it were cheaper and offered in RMR or MOS cut for my other pistols and mounts.
The CVLife sent me their new tube enclosed red dot sight which may or may not be named the “Eaglefeather”. That name was present in the manual but on Amazon is simply called the “3MOA/65MOA multi-reticle red dot.” “Eaglefeather” isn’t a strong name for a red dot anyway, so I’m just going to call it the “3/65” which such a better name. Even better for a concealed carry micro red dot. They really should hire me to be a brand consultant.
The 3/65 looks a lot like a SIG Romeo5 but has the advantage of a user-selectable reticle, either a 3MOA dot, a 65MOA circle/sunburst, or a combination of the two. It has motion-activation and a 50,000 runtime off a CR2032 coin battery. I comes attached to an AR co-witness height Picatinny mount and comes with a low-rise Picatinny mount should you want to run it lower to your rail.
The 3/65 is fully enclosed tube helped to make this an all weather optic for harsh outdoor conditions. On the top of the unit there are “+” and “-” buttons which control brightness. The “+” button when pressed for 2 or more seconds, cycles through the various reticle styles. In my testing, the 65MOA circle reticles bracketed an 8″ bullseye from 7 yrds, so could be useful in a 3-gun or action shooting matches. The reticle’s adjustments are under Holosun-style flat-head topped turret caps; 1MOA/click that are audible and tactile positive.
In my testing, the unit proved to hold zero even after I accidentally dropped from 5ft onto concrete. Twice. I was attempting to simulate months of range time and abuse by banging the red dot up with my ammo can. When I hit the red dot from the left side, it came off and fell onto the concrete range floor. I remounted it and began to hit it again with my ammo can repeatedly and when I hit it hard from the left side, the red dot again went flying.
I was ready to call the unit or at least a mount a complete fail when I noticed that I had accidentally installed the clamping nut backward on the Picatinny mount. When I hit the red dot from the left side, it lacked the clamping force to say on my rifle and was knocked off. I remounted the red dot to my rifle correctly this time.
Test firing onto a target from 25yrds, I examined my 5-shot groups before hitting the red dot, after dropping it twice, and after reinstalling it and hitting it again. I was shooting off a tripod so not the most most repeatable of a shooting platforms. All three groups looked about equal in size and spread.
Despite my accidentally abuse test, I was surprised that the CVLife 3/65 red dot not only survived but for a budget optic with a street price under $90, this optic performed better than anyone could expect.
Sunwayfoto makes a wide range of carbon fiber, light weight photography, video, and hunting tripods. This is the opposite. This is a heavy weight all aluminum table top tripod. That isn’t in reference to its weight which is over 3lbs (remember this is a tabletop tripod that at its max is only 18 inches high). This tripod’s strong enough to hold up to 55lbs of equipment.
Sunwayfoto sent me both a tripod and a XB-52 ball head to test out. The tripod legs extend with a classic design where the leg extension is sandwiched between the support legs above it. The extending legs are double-headed with spikes on one end which can be removed and reversed for rubberized feet on the other. On the inside/bottom face of the legs are an additional set of rubber feet to allow the tripod legs to be splayed out a full 90º to allow the tripod to be placed as low as as possible on a table.
I tested the tripod at the range by attaching Maven 18x50mm binoculars. It handled this lightweight optic like it was nothing. Similarly when I mounted an AR with an ARCA/Swiss M-Lok adapter to the tripod, it prooved a beefy rifle rest. Unfortunately my final test was to try a telescope mounted on a Picatinny/ARCA adapter. Unfortunately, the XB-52 ball head offered strength enough to easily hold the rifle scope but there was just enough play that I wasn’t able to get a repeatable lock on a bullseye target at 100yrds when putting the turrets through a rough torture test.
My testing requirements are quite unusual so for 99% of the rest of you out there who have even the heaviest broadcast video rig or a high caliber rifle, this heavyweight tripod and ball head combination should well suit your needs.
Main Material： Aluminum Number of Leg Sections： 2 Max Height： 18.1 in./ 46cm Min Height： 0.16 in./ 5cm Length with legs folded：12.6 in./32cm Net Weight： 3.08 lb./1.4kg Load Capacity： 55 lb./25kg Screw Thread： 3/8″ Leg Angles： 30°、60°、90° Top Plate Diameter： 2.68 in./6.8cm
This prize supplied by Discovery Optics and is awarded at their sole discretion and direction.
RULES
NO PURCHASE OR DONATION 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 in the USA and Canada. Moondog Industries employees, subsidiaries, affiliates, suppliers, advertising and promotion agencies, employees’ immediate family members, are ineligible to 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
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.
3. Agreement to Rules
By entering your contest, participants agree to abide by the SPONSOR’s Official Rules and decisions. The SPONSOR retains 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 1 October 2024 and 12:00pm EST 1 November 2024
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
The 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, 2024. Winner must have a legal address within the US to ship the prize.
SPONSOR is not liable for the winner’s failure to receive notification of winning if he or she provided the 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 participant’s 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 them.
Thanks to my special guest Linq Chen of Discovery Optics for joining my Too Much Information Livestream to talk about the thinking and engineering behind their new ED-AR 1-8×24 LPVO. This is the scope that I reviewed and it’s one of the best budget FFP LPVOs out there. During this episode we watched my drop test video and showed the scope surviving a 2m drop and holding zero.
In this episode we also gave away a new pair of GT Media N4 night vision goggles. I recently tested these budget electronic NVG which is also a night vision camera able to take 1080p video.
During the show we also gave away a Guns.com swag bag and a Colt firearms swag bag to viewers on the live chat. If I get enough interest in doing a livestream, I’ll start doing this regularly.
Finally, I’d like to to especially thank American Hillbilly for letting his assistance on the show tonight.
1000yrd Benchrest
If you’re interested in learning more about Freedom Benchrest matches near Sacramento, CA contact James jamesbacardi@aol.com
Bear Creek Arsenal (BCA) is a firearms manufacturer out of Sanford, North Carolina that is a reminds me of a smaller Palmetto State Armory. BCA makes AR15, AR10, and 10/22 pattern rifles and components that are well built, reliable and affordable. They wanted to send me one of their rifles to test but due to California’s draconian (and sometimes contradictory) regulations they could only send me a 22LR upper receiver.
The BC-22 is a complete .22LR all metal upper receiver with a direct blowback action. The model they sent me had a 16″ long free float barrel with a 1:16 twist. It had a full length aluminum M-lok handguard with a small section of 1913 Picatinny rail on each end for front sights and mounting optic extensions.
The BC-22 complete upper was originally designed to run CMMG magazines but they told me that CMMG recently changed the feeder on their mags, so that they no longer ran reliably in the BCA upper. Instead they sell Black Dog magazines which were patterned after the original CMMG mags. BCA sent me two to test. I compared them to some CMMG 22LR mags I bought 3 years and did notice some differences in thickness of the feed lips and a notch not present in the Black Dog mags. I ran the CMMG mags on the BCA upper and it ran without issue, so maybe I’m lucky?
The BC-22 mounts like any MilSpec AR upper. The biggest differences in manual of arms is the lack of the AR rear charging T-handle. Instead, the BCA 22LR upper has a right side charging handle screwed directly onto the bolt. My AR bolt hold open paddle was partially non-functional; it did not hold the bolt completely open but it did prevent the bolt from falling into battery until it was disengaged. The BC-22 does have last round hold open with a mag inserted.
Disassembly of the upper and bolt for cleaning is different than on a standard AR. First the charging handle has to be unscrewed and removed with an hex key. Then a rear thumb locking bolt, where the T-handle usually sits on an AR upper, needs to be unscrewed. Once the charging handle and locking bolt are removed, the whole bolt assembly including recoil spring can be removed for cleaning.
I tested the BC-22 with bulk .22 ammo: Federal AutoMatch, Aguila Super Extra HV, and CCI standard velocity. Be sure to clean your barrel before testing because my barrel and handguard had a light coat of sticky lubricant to prevent corrosion. My first 20-30 rounds of AutoMatch grouped so horribly that I thought the barrel was damaged during shipping. It wasn’t until the barrel was properly cleaned and then lead fouled by 30-40 rounds of ammo that the groups tightened and normalized. Aguila and CCI grouped much better from the get go than AutoMatch, though this rifle seems to accentuate fliers, throwing them in the most random of directions.
There’s a lot of valid reasons to want an AR that can shoot 22LR: lower cost to train and shoot, greater availability of ammo (except during a pandemic), lower recoil, etc. The BC-22 is inexpensive for a complete AR upper; about as much as a base model 10/22. Unlike buying a 10/22, with the BC-22 you can shoot with the same rifle, optics, accessories, and sling as your War Rifle; but you can train with it for pennies. To put it another way, BC-22 costs about as much as 10 boxes of .223 ammo. So you could pay off the cost of a BC-22 in a good afternoon at the range.
Dawn shone on the golden foothills of the Sierra Nevadas mountains. This morning, I found myself at the Sacramento Valley Shooting Center, about 40 minutes outside of Sacramento, CA and about 3 hours from San Francisco (give or take an hour depending on traffic).
As a father of two school aged kids, my ability to travel to a gun range for an early morning match is somewhat limited by time and distance. This was well outside of my normal range visits but one I had long wished to make. I was invited by my range buddy, James, to film and observe a 1000 yard benchrest match organized by the a Northern California chapter of the Freedom Benchrest club.
Freedom Benchrest organize monthly 600 yard and 1000 yard matches open to all. But unless you want to consistently place at the bottom of the standings, to be competitive requires a bit more than a factory high-power rifle and store bought ammo. Each of the shooters invested a small fortune into their setup. The 13 competitors brought out a panoply of custom built rifles, heavy-duty geared rifle rests, precision scopes (that cost most than most factory rifles), boxes of hand loaded ammo, and an array of cooling fans and sundry gadgets.
The course of fire was 1 round of 5-shots within 10 minutes followed by a second round of 10-shots also within 10-minutes. The shooters were allowed as many “sighter” test rounds as time allowed provided they completed their “scoring” shots within the total time frame. The targets were 6.5″ rounds with a 3″ bullseye, but at 1000yrds I could barely see 10″ target board with my naked eye. To score a perfect round a shooter would have to place all of their shots within 1.5″ of the center X; in gun parlance that’s a rifle capable of less than half-sub MOA accuracy.
The rifle is only a 1/3 of the equation. Each shooter used custom hand-loaded ammunition. Many of them build their own ammo loading setup in their garages and spend hours developing, testing, and crafting each round of ammunition. And then the other 1/3 of the equation is the shooter and the time they spent practicing.
The shooters came from all different backgrounds and skill levels. Some had been shooting “normal’ firearms all of their lives but only recently entered into long-range shooting. Some had just learned to shoot a few years ago and feel into the challenge of long-range. One thing I noticed was there were no shooters under 40 in the crowd; probably because the cost of entry precluded all but retiree’s and well paid tech-employees or in some cases they were one in the same (as I mentioned this is not far from Sacramento and San Francisco).
But even if you don’t have the small fortune, the folks in the group were happy to lend spare gear like an unused backup rifle bag or rifle rest to anybody willing to bring a rifle and some ammo to join them. And they were all willing to share their hard-won knowledge about the sport to anyone who was willing to invest their time. That’s the one other thing I found all of the shooters had in common: camaraderie.
At the end of the 2nd match after most of the shooters had finished there was still 5-6 minutes left. Louie invited me to shoot his custom-built rifle and his 6mm “Louie” ammo at his bench. His rifle had a 2oz trigger (for context a military M16 rifle has a 6-8lb trigger pull) and a geared rifle rest that adjusts the rifles’s position by millimeters by turning dials. I let myself have 4-5 test shots until I found a bullseye hit and then proceeded to shoot 10 scoring shots. Most landed within the bullseye and I got a 93 out of possible 100 points. Not bad for my first try at 1000 yard precision shooting.
Freedom Benchrest hosts regular monthly events at the Sacramento Shooting Center. Contact them ahead of time to sign up to compete or attend a practice day. Tell them Moondog sent you. Contact James jamesbacardi@aol.com
When choosing travel binoculars there’s a trade off between power and portability. With the Maven B.3 it meets a Goldilocks spot between both. The B.3 compact size and optical performance covers a wide variety of users from hunters to sports fans, to birders, naturalists, and travelers. Most of all it appeals to those who strive for efficiency and minimalism.
The B.3 comes in 6x, 8x, and 10x models, all with 30mm objective lenses and the same body. The differences in magnification also provide differences in field of view and depth of field, inverse to its magnification power. I chose the 8x to as the best balance of both. On Maven’s website, you have the ability to custom design and order your optics; selecting the color of components, including adding commercial camouflage patterns.
The B.3 also features ED glass for clarity and color balance. It has a generous depth of field, a wide field of view, and a silky focus mechanism. Like all of Maven’s optics, it is also the most stylish and aesthetically designed sports optics on the market.
The 3Tactix PRD3 is advertised as Riton’s every day cary micro red dot but has features that are far from ordinary. It offers 3 user selectable reticles: a 2MOA dot, a 50MOA circle-cross, and a combined circle-cross and dot. It has motion activation with a 50,000hr battery life. And a pull-out side battery tray. The PRD3 somehow manages to offer all of these features with a low-profile design which has a lower base than most side-tray battery red dots by its competitors.
I tested PRD3 on an RMR cut slide but found that the PRD3 still wasn’t low profile enough for me to use Glock factory iron sights. For testing, I mounted to my Glock via an MOS/RMR adapter plate. The PRD3 is the RMR footprint model of the 3Tactix red dot line and comes with a RMR to Picatinny 1913 adapter.
For those new to shooting pistol with red dots, I recommend multi-reticle red dots because new shooters often find it easier to find a bright circle reticle. That way, as the shooter becomes more proficient with presenting, they can simply press the + button and transition to shooting with the more precise 2MOA dot. Moreover, the circle-cross reticle can be used for action shooting or mounting the PDR3 to a shotgun to quickly bracket your target. The PRD3 offer a wide range of brightness, visible even in broad daylight.
The PRD3 has a street price comparable to single reticle red dots from Athlon and Vortex. So it’s a no-brainer for me to recommend getting a red dot with a choice in reticles.
The Ruger Precision Rimfire (RPR) is an popular entry-level chassis rifle for PRS training or NRL22. At its heart it’s a Ruger American action, which many companies make upgrade parts to customize and upgrade. One of the easiest upgrades is the knob at the end of the bolt lever.
The factory knob is a simple plastic teardrop which is functional but forgettable. The knob simply unscrews off the lever. Anarchy Outdoors sent me their Little Birtha knob which is an all aluminum dumbell shaped knob available in a variety of colors. Anarchy Outdoors makes the Little and larger Big Birtha knob for other popular rifle makes like Remington and CZ.
