In just a handful of years, a small independent optics company in Texas named Arken has earned an almost cult-like reputation among budget build long-distance/ELR shooters for creating high-quality optics for under $500 (now $600). All of their scopes offer features like high-quality zero-stop turrets, dead-on Christmas-Tree reticles, ED glass, and a life-time warranty. They keep their prices low by having a narrow product line and only selling directly form their website and form select local retailers.
Their EP4 and and SH4 scopes have earned rave reviews from some well known PewTubers include Cyclops Joe, Tiborasaurus Rex, and IraqVeteran8888. I’ve been eager to get my hands on one to review. I was fortunate to be able to meet their staff at their booth at Shot Show and get an early look at their newest scope, the EP5.
Specification:Magnification: 5-25x Objective Diameter: 56 mm Eye Relief: 3.4 inches Field of View: 25.3-4.9 ft @100 Yards Tube Size: 34 mm Turret Adjustment: 1/10 MIL Turret Zero: Resetable Zero Stop: AZS Zero Stop System Reticle Position: First Focal Plane Reticle Details: VPR MIL Elevation Adj. Range: 32 MIL Windage Adj. Range: 16 MIL Adjustment Per Revolution: 10 MIL Parallax: Side Parallax Adjustment 25Yds – Infinity Illuminated Reticle: Red Turret Rotation: Counter Clockwise (CCW) Length: 14 inches Weight: 39.2 oz Sunshade: yes Battery included: CR2032
Ez-Shot sent me a new model of their laser bore sighters with a unique double-barreled design. The battery tube sits parallel to the main laser tube. A single CR 14250 powers the laser, which is clearly visible on this garage from 50yrds away. In my testing it’s visible through a rifle scope from 100yrds away in daylight.
It’s available from Amazon for under $35. Use this coupon code to KR4TMYSS for an extra 5% off through March 18, 2022: https://amzn.to/3A5Dht7
Feyachi is known for making budget accessories that look suspiciously like other products (as does their logo). But it’s not a copy of a Harris bipod, because Harris doesn’t currently make a direct-connect M-Lok A1 bipod. If this isn’t a clone, then is this an improvement?
While the adage, “You get what you pay for” usually applies for durability and ruggedness, for 99.9% of shooters who only use a bipod at a range shooting bench, this Feyachi is good enough. Paying 3 times more for a Harris isn’t going to make them better shooters; certainly not 3x better.
I mounted the bipod on my Ruger Precision Rimfire and tried my best to break it (the bipod not my rifle) under normal use conditions. I opened and closed the legs, popped and retracted the leg stems and banged it about testing to see if the locking mechanism would fail or anything would shake loose. Passed.
At the range, I extended the legs almost all the way out and fired about 50rnds of 22LR downrange. I found it to be a very stiff and solid platform. It was level and I felt no noticeable flex or play while aiming. Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by its performance. As with many Chinese made knock-offs, it remains to be seen if it will last. I’ll update this review in a few months.
I got an opportunity to test out a scope that costs more than any of my rifles. This Mark5HD is one of Leupold’s top of the line rifle scopes with a MSRP of $2499. This high-performance, first-focal-plane scope has HD glass and is optimized for extreme long distance shooters.
It features a Horus-style reticle with a tall grid of of mRad sub-tension marks taking the place of the lower center cross-hair. In addition the scope has 30 mils (100 MOA) of vertical adjustment, twice the range of its windage adjustment range 15 mils (50 MOA).
The elevation turret is wide and exposed but is locked. A wide turret release button is ergonomically place so that you cna press it down as you turn the turret to make adjustments. It has a unique mechanical zero stop that stops every full rotation. The turret cap is held in place with 2 set screws which must be loosened by allen wrench to re-zero. The windage turret is covered with a screw on cap.
The glass quality is exceptional as to be expected from a >$1000 scope from Leupold. Using the USAF-51 test, I could make out details to Group 0, Element 1. This is sharper than many spotting scopes I’ve tested. The eye box is good and the eye-relief is even better. It’s max power eye-relief is actually a bit longer than it’s low-power; 3.8″ eye-relief at max power (35x), that’s longer than most cheaper scopes at low-power.
Despite all of its amazing performance, if I had the opportunity to buy this scope I probably wouldn’t. None of the ranges I frequent are longer than 200yrds and this scope comes to its own at 600yrds or more. It’s complex CCH reticle is actually a bit too cluttered at 100yrds when zoomed up to 35x; so much so that I found it difficult to spot my holes on paper. I appreciate the power and performance of this scope, it’s just a better fit for another shooter.
Rumble is a Canadian based alternatives to YouTube without it’s California-Leftist bias. As a creator of firearms enthusiast content, I’ve repeatedly had content ad-restricted (essentially demonetized) because some clueless staffer at YouTube misidentified some normal accessory classified as an illegal modification. I’ve had a rifle match video be tagged as unsafe activity and a flashlight tagged as weapon.
I’m not alone. Many well known Conservative and Liberal YouTubers channels have been soft-banned and been demonetized. This is why many of us have moved or mirrored our content elsewhere to other platforms like Rumble.
But moving content to Rumble required manually uploading each video one at a time. Then, copy/pasting descriptions and information. It was tedious.
Thankfully, Rumble recently (and quietly) released an automated sync feature. After logging into your YouTube account within Rumble’s sync interface, it automatically copies all of your vidoes in your YouTube channel to your Rumble channel.
Olight sent me a Baldr Pro R to test and evaluate. Taking it out of it’s packaging, I noted that it looked very much like my Valkyrie PL-2 albeit with a magnetic charging/control pad and without a battery door latch. It is approximately 1/2″ longer than a Valkyrie PL-2 and about 11g heavier at 126g.
The Baldr Pro R differs externally from the older non-rechargeable Baldr Pro which has its laser designator unit encased in housing below the main light. The newer R-model is a much more elegant design with the laser internal to the unit with only a small hole in the flashlight bell from which the laser beam emerges.
It shares identical main controls with both the Valkyrie and Baldr Pro. Two button/pads at the rear of the unit can be actuated by an index or middle finger of either hand. A quick double-tap switch the light from high and low output. Strobe mode is activated by simultaneously pressing both control buttons. A control ring near the crown of the unit, switches between light-only, laser and light, and laser-only modes.
It fits a standard Glock pistol (and pistols with a similar accessory rail), with a Glock (GL) sized cross-bar pre-installed on the mounting base. This cross-bar can be replaced with a Picatinny 1913 sized bar for more exacting fit on that mounting system but the standard GL cross-bar is compatible with Picatinny slots. I particularly like the O-lights latching system as it provides much faster mounting and detaching than either a Streamlight or Surefire taclight.
Conducting my home-made lumen testing, I usually let a light warm-up for 1-minute before starting my tests. Initially my readings placed the output at around 1880 lumens! But I discovered that after a little more than a minute, the Baldr’s output would drop and stabilize at around 680 lumens. I repeated my tests and noted the same drop at approximately 1-2 minutes of running the light on high mode. I hypothesized that the unit may have over-heating safety built into it as the unit was getting quite hot.
I contacted the Marketing Rep at Olight and she shared with me a chart from their engineers showing that at High mode, the device would go from 1350-500-300 lumens. Upon checking the manual, sure enough the performance diagram showed that a fully powered unit output 1350 lumens for only 1.5 minutes before it stepped down to 500 lumens for the next 40 minutes of run-time before dropping to 300 lumens for the final 13 minutes.
So the Baldr is really a 500 lumen light with a brief over-drive mode of 230% and not truly a 1350 taclight. Unfortunately this is an all-too-common marketing ploy by flashlight companies nowadays. That’s why you can’t take the lumen numbers at face value or at least look at the fine print (the Baldr’s packaging says 1350 Max Output),
In all other respects the flashlight worked flawlessly. The built-in green laser was bright and I could see it clearly at 120ft away at night. The laser can be turned on in conjunction with the light and easily seen in both high and low flashlight modes (though more easily in low). Checking with a laser bore-sighter, the unit was also perfectly sighted to my Glock 17 when I first mounted it; the laser can be adjusted for both windage and elevation with the included hex wrench.
Despite the misleading lumen numbers, I am impressed with the overall ergonomics and build of the Baldr Pro R. I’ll be mounting it on my personal sidearm (Glock 17 Gen3) for long-term testing.
The Talos 20-60×80 spotting scope is made by Athlon, a rifle-scope brand that offers a better value than Vortex (and considering Vortex’s recent QC issues, you may even say better). With a street price of only $130-$140 the Talos is Athlon’s cheapest spotter. In this video review, I present whether this spotter is a value or a did Athlon sell out and simply slap their logo on a generic Chinesium scope?
The package comes in a soft-lined black nylon fabric case with a split compartment. Above the scope compartment I found a generic straight leg tripod common with other budget spotting scopes I’ve reviewed such as the SVbony SV28. Despite the simple and inexpensive design, these tripods tend to be quite rugged and stable.
The scope appeared to be well made with no faults or gaps in the seams. The outer surface wage largely covered in a rubber-like coating for weather protection and for improved grip. The front and rear lens caps were rubber and non-captured.
The integrated sunshade had a nicely textured coating and what appeared to be a sight notches, presumably to help you eyeball aiming the scope. The eyepiece has a built-in, twist-up eye cup. The tripod mounting ring allowed the body of the scope to be rotated to allow flexibility in viewing the scope from different mounting positions (eg. bench, hung, etc.).
The eye relief was fair and focusing knob buttery smooth. The magnification was a bit stiff but the ring was also smooth. The power ring rotated independently of the eyepiece to allow for easy mounting of a camera, though the rotating eye-cup does limit the positions of a camera mount.
The optics were bright, offering high contrast, resolution and saturation. In my 100yrd range tests with the USAF resolution chart, at 60X I was able to resolve element #5 in Group “0” which is highest resolution optic I have yet tested. This is remarkable for a scope which retails for less than $150. While it is largish scope at 16.5” long, for those needing to do extreme long range precision spotting (100yrds) this is a great value option.
While competing at a 100yrd match with my new CZ457 with a 6-24×50 Vortex Diamondback Tactical I noticed a flash of something when firing at the bullseye. At first I didn’t know what it was but after seeing it again the next time I fired, I couldn’t believe that I was seeing the bullet in flight to the target.
I know you can see the shockwave mirage of a bullet in flight at long range (over 500m). But in 40 years of shooting I’ve never heard nor seen a bullet at 100yrds. Much less a tiny bullet like a .22cal.
After the match, I set up up my camera on the scope and tried to capture what I was seeing. It requires the right lighting conditions (the sun was directly at my back) and a high-quality magnified scope with ED glass, but this footage shows that it is possible.
The Liberfeel is a 10,000mAh wireless powerbank sent to me by Peakode to test and review. It has a decidedly feminine aesthetic with rounded edges somewhat reminiscent of a bar of Dove soap. It comes in a choice of 4 pastel colors: pink, blue, purple, and beige.
It features a wireless fast-charging plate (it will only fast-charge if wireless charging only 1 device) with a built in magnetic to help keep your phone in place while charging, though not strong enough to keep a phone attached to the charger if held up sideways. In addition it has a built-in Apple Lightning, a USB-C charging cable, a USB-A output port, and a USB-C in/out port, allowing it to charge up to 5 devices simultaneously. It can also recharge itself via it’s USB-C port, while charging 4 other devices at the same time. This makes the Liberfeel a useful travel charger.
Every toy that requires batteries nowadays has an annoying screw, locking down the battery cover. Even if the battery cover has a latch or hinge that will keep the battery in place, they add a screw to the door! Every time I have to replace the battery, I have to remove the screw or leave off the screw entirely next time (as I think many of you probably do).
I mostly see these on kids toys or devices. So I assume it’s a regulation to keep kids from getting into the batteries. I’ve searched the interwebs and have only found a regulation requiring a child protection mechanism for devices that use ‘button’ batteries; not the AA/AAA cells that power most kids toys.
I created this video to rant about this issue and hope that somebody can share a link to a specific US consumer product regulation.
