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.
Let me preface this review by stating that I am not an ELR (Extreme Long Range) or F-class shooter. I’ve hit a 1000yrd target a handful of times in my shooting career but I make no claims of being an expert on the nuances ELR shooting and gear. My opinions and observations about March scopes are from the point of view of your average 100yrd range shooter.
March Scopes is the brand name of rifle scopes made by Deon, a small optics company in Japan. That name is not well known by most gun owners but it’s a brand name that will impress anybody who is an ELR competition shooter. March Scopes are known in ELR for extremely high magnification scopes that were made with high quality ED glass, and for their commensurate high price tags.
I had an opportunity to visit their booth at SHOT Show and was shown their new Majesta 8-80×56 scope. That’s correct this scope’s top end is 80x! That’s the highest power scope in the world that you can buy (if you have the ~$4500 to buy one).
This scope has some unique features. The turrets have March’s Shruiken turret locks; star shapped ring atop the turret which turns to lock and unlock the turret. The illuminator is activated by a button on the end of the parallax turret. It has screw down zero stop that can be a accessed outside of the turret.
The Majesta has Deon’s “Super Master” lenses made with their Super ED glass. I don’t know if “Super ED” is their own name or an industry name for a formulation of ED (Extra Low Dispersion) glass with a higher fluorite content. This reduces chromatic aberration. In my testing, even at 80x I saw almost no CA through my camera. Where most premium scopes would exhibit a notable purple or green fringe at 24x or 30x, the Majesta at 80x showed just a slight yellow tint on high contrast edges.
The Majesta was specifically designed to reduce the mirage/shimmer effect of light bending due to warm air, distorting the image of a target at long range. The Majesta does not completely eliminate mirage (nothing can, thermodynamics and physics) it glass enhances contrast and detail in some magical way to allow long range shooters to see better detail on their target despite the mirage.
In my 100yrd range testing, this scope at 80x scopes is impressive. Almost like looking through a spotting scope. You will lose quite a bit of brightness and experience a very unforgiving eyebox understandably. You won’t be able to see the nuts on a fly but you will be able to see that fly crawling on your center X.
I won’t bother posting a online retail link as these scopes are special order at most retailers. They are certainly a boutique luxury optic. Sadly this scope is a short-term loaner so I have to send this scope back to March after this review so I won’t have any long-term follow up. But I appreciate March Scopes giving this Average Shooter an opportunity to ride this unicorn.
・10X Zoom in SFP, MOA ・New bicolor scope: Dark grey body with black turrets ・Robust 34mm body tube with a 4mm thick wall simply to make the scope extra strong ・56mm objective lens ・Highest magnification rifle scope in the world ・Wide Angle eyepiece : 25 degrees ・Temperature Anti-Drift Lens System ・High Master lens system (Super ED lenses) ・Shimmer protection ・Focus from 10 yard to infinity ・Scope body fully machined from aluminum ingot ・All Japanese metal parts with no plastic part except for minimum essentials such as an insulator ・Argon gas filled for internal stability ・6 level illumination module ・Top quality multi lens coating where the transmittance is very near 100% ・Water repellent lens coating ・Shuriken lock elevation and windage turrets
Nightforce is well known as the optic of choice for the military, law enforcement, and wealthy LARPers. Their optics are legendary for their ruggedness, reliability, brightness, and clarity. What is less well known is that they also make spotting scopes and at SHOT Show 2024, they showed off their new compact profile tactical spotter.
This 6-36×50 spotting scope looks like a modified rifle scope with a similar size profile to a 6-24x rifle scope save for the unusual double adjustment ring. The focus ring sits in front of the magnification ring. Both a rubberized for increased grip.
Unlike a rifle scope, this spotting scope has an ARCA Swiss compatible mounting foot moulded and integrated into the scope tube. Nightforce also sells an optional cage which clamps onto the foot providing the user with M-Lok compatible mounting points for Picatinny rails and accessories such as thermal sights, lasers, and range finders.
Since the departure of Nikon from sporting optics, March Scopes has stepped up to become Japan’s maker of premium rifle scopes. They are known among competition Precision Rifle Series (PRS) shooters for their high power scopes. At SHOT Show I was introduced to their new 80x Majesta scope, the highest power rifle scope I’ve ever seen. And the Genesis, a 4x-40x scope that puts the Extreme in Extreme Long Range (ELR) shooting with 400 MOA (116 MIL) of adjustment.
At Industry Range Day, I rang steel at 1000yrds using a precision build rifle with what I thought was a Leupold Mk5 scope. It turns out it was a brand new Mark 4 HD. In the 1980’s Leupold developed the Mark 4 tactical rifle scopes, the first rifle scopes built specifically for the US military. As other optics companies developed tactical scopes for military needs, Leupold developed the Mark 5 and discontinued the Mk4.
This year at SHOT Show, Leupold brought back the venerable Mk4 for their new line of Mrk4 HD “affordable” premium scopes. This line includes an LPVO and selection of long range and ELR scopes. These scopes will fill the gap between their top-of-the-line Mk5 scopes and their paired down Mk3 scopes. They’ll range in price between $1000 and $1600.
At roughly half the price of a Mk5, the Mk4HD was as clear and sharp as it’s big brother. The Mk4 it may not have as many bells and whistles or the bragging rights of a Mk5. But if you’re looking for a prime example of Leupold performance, you can’t go wrong with a Mk4HD.
What happens when you work at one of the best known brands in sporting optics and that company decides to get out of the rifle scope market? That happened to Jon Allen and Jon LaCorte at Nikon. Rather than join SIG, Bushnell, or another optics company, Jon and Jon started Tract Optics.
Tract quickly made a name for itself among competition shooters. Not surprising given the Toric is made with the same German Schott glass as other top tier brands like Leupold, Schmidt & Bender, and Zeiss (Schott is owned by Zeiss by the way). Another key feature in its popularity: a street price around a grand. While not cheap, this is less than a Vortex Razor, and significantly less than a Leupold Mk5 or a Zeiss S3.
Some have called the Tract Toric, a Zeiss S3 clone. While physically, I do not think they look all that similar, their performance specs are. So perhaps calling it a “clone” is not a derogatory statement. Both share an impressive 160 MOA of elevation adjustment, unusually tall turrets, and excellent fit and finish in their construction.
Tract sent me a Toric 4-25×50 MOA ELR to test and evaluate. My first impression was positive. The Toric sports a striking graphite grey color, excellent fit and finish, oversized turrets, and butter smooth knobs and rings. In my range testing, I found the glass to provide a bright, detailed image with little or no chromatic aberration at maximum magnification.
Ask 10 different people what they think about a reticle and you’ll get 20 different opinions. I like Christmas Tree reticles even though I have no business using them, since I mostly shoot 100yrd rimfire. I prefer less busy, finer reticles for shooting bullseye targets, so the Toric fits my style. The Toric MRAD ELR reticle has a a cleaner layout than a Leupold Mk5 PR2, while providing more subtensions in a tall column below the Christmas tree. And unlike the Zeiss S3 MOAi reticle, the entire column is illuminated and not just the center mini-cross.
The Toric box includes a sun shade, Allen keys, and a an easy to install zero stop ring. The scope comes with very basic plastic lens caps for shipping protection but these aren’t sturdy or secure enough for field use. Perhaps to make up for this, in the shipping box Tact included a sight in target and a branded chamber flag as swag. I asked Tract about the caps and they said they were planning on upgrading the caps to a silicone bra style in the near future.
An odd feature I noticed was what I thought to be a throw lever socket on the magnification ring. After contacting Jon LaCorte at Tract and asking him how to remove this and what levers fit it, he told me that cap was the Argon gas fill port. They recommend using clamp on polymer throw levers that can break away if and not shake and damage the scope internals, which can happen with screw in levers. Like better lens caps, I hope they include said polymer lever in future packaging of this scope.
Socioeconomics aside, $1000 is not a small sum, but in a world where a top-tier PRS/ELR scope costs a couple grand, a brand new Tract Toric is a deal by comparison. To keep costs down, Tract uses a direct to consumer model so do not sell through stores (though they are available from their store on Amazon).
Hi-Lux is an optics company best known for making reproduction vintage-style scopes. But at Shot Show this year, their show stopper was their newest modern ELR/PRS scope, their PR5-R a 5-25x56mm beast of a scope. They were kind enough to send me a sample to text and evaluate.
Out of the box the scope is massive. It is 16″ long even without the included sunshade. It is perhaps the heaviest scope I’ve yet tested, weighing in at 2.5lbs (40oz). The package includes the aforementioned 56mm sunshade, front and rear flip-up caps, and a throw lever.
The scope has equally massive and oversized turrets which have nice loud clicks and are tactile positive. The elevation has a zero-stop reminiscent of Leupold’s spiral groove design but with the spiral under the cap instead of the base of the turret. While interesting, I found correctly lining up the stopping pin in the grove to be sometimes finicky.
In addition, Hi-Lux’s “Zero Stop” is designed to stop 1 MIL past 0. So perhaps they should call it a “1 Stop” or “+1 Stop” instead? Moreover, my turret didn’t stop at 1 MIL, instead stopping sometimes at 1.2 or 1.3 MIL. While you can correct for this by adjusting your initial zero, I find this lack of precision problematic. But as I so not use Zero Stops my disappointment is somewhat moot.
The magnification dial was moderately stiff but movable without the throw lever. The ocular focus was smooth and the eye-piece features rotation markings making. This is an often overlooked feature on scopes and I wish more makers put them on their scopes because this makes it easier to return to a known focus when sharing a rifle with a guest shooter.
The most interesting feature of the scope is it’s digital illumination controls. The brightness and activation on controlled by two rubberized buttons next to the paralax focus knob. The model I tested had red illumination but Hi-Lux also sells a green illumination model.
The entire central sub-tensioned cross-hair and Christmas tree is illuminated. The two lowest brightness settings are designed for night vision and were not visible to my naked eye. The highest level (11) was not daylight bright but more than bright enough for dusk. It is powered by a CR2032 coin battery in the parallax knob, which can focus down to 10 yards.
At the range I noted distortion along the outer edge of the image and chromatic aberration at 5x which is usually the best image seen through a scope. I was therefore surprised when the outer edge and color distortion improved at 25x. We did lose light and there was a noticeable reduction in the eye-box.
In overall sharpness and contrast the scope was middling to average for a $800 scope (I’ve seen street price ranges from $800-$1300 depending on retailer) but its resolution was as good or better than similarly priced Athlon and Arken scopes I’ve reviewed.
This scope was designed to appeal to ELR and Bench Rest Precision shooters for whom a +40oz tank of a scope is not a problem but an advantage. It’s turrets are oversized, easy to read and control. But it’s finicky Zero Stop may be a deal breaker for some competitive shooters.
Leapers is best known for the UTG brand of high-quality accessories and budget tier optics (my UTG Bugbuster is not awesome but for the price, one of my favorite scopes). Last year I was introduced to their Integrix brand made with German and Japanese glass and sporting premium features. They released their LPVO but delayed the launch of their PRS/ELR targeted scopes until now.
On Industry Range Day, I was surprised to stumble upon a small UTG booth at the end of the firing line. There I ran into our old friend Kiyo who set me up at the bench with an Accuracy International precision rifle chambered in .338 Lapua Magnum, the same rifle used by the Canadian sniper who scored the worlds farthest confirmed kill at 1.3 miles! Atop this rifle was Leapers new Integrix 4.5-27x56mm FFP scope.
Dealing with a 20-30mph crosswinds and intermittent rain and hail, I managed to get at least 1 solid hit on a gong over 900m downrange. The scope brought the target sharply in focus and the image was bright and clear from edge to edge. And I’m told all of Integrix scopes are tested to withstand the recoil of .338 Magnum rounds.
Theis new ELR scopes contain premium components and are expected to have a commensurate price with an MSRP over $1500. This year I hope Kiyo and Leapers comes through with a sample model that I can test and review at the range.
There are many reasons that your shots can go amiss. When you’ve zoned in, concentrating on your target, your horizon isn’t often visible in your scope. Or your paper target isn’t posted up perfectly square in the first place and you are subconsciously aligning your reticle to your target. It’s all too easy to “cant”, slightly turning your rifle so your scope above it is leaning slightly left or right to the center line of your bore: this is Scope Cant.
This is why almost all competitive long range shooters mount bubble levels on their scopes. This allows them to quickly and easily visually check when they’ve accidentally canted their rifles and correct for it. EZshot sent me a sample of their 30mm bubble level to test and evaluate. EZshot makes these levels in common 25mm (1″) and 30mm tube sizes, as well as larger 34mm, and 35mm.
Upon first inspection, I was bit surprised at how much larger this level was compared to the Arken levels on my EP5 and SH4. Despite its beefy size, the entire rig weighed 1.63oz (46.3g). The bubble tube is twice as large as typical bubble levels, which should make its measurements more physically accuracy, as well as making it easier to visibly read.
It mounts very much like a scope ring with two hex screws on opposite sides of the mounting ring. The kit comes with an Allen wrench. I chose to mount mine forward my turrets to allow me clear views of my scope controls and turret markings.
EZshot Scope Levels are available on Amazon through my Affiliate LInk: https://amzn.to/3xInW1s
Athlon is known for making excellent quality scopes nearly on par with big brands such as Vortex and Burris but at a more reasonable price. Case in point, the Midas Tac has a winning combination of sharp and bright optics, a solid build, and quality turrets, and a transferable life-time warranty.
The “Tac” in Midas Tac is its ‘tactical-style’ exposed elevation turret for quick dope adjustments (with zero stop). And unusually, it has a different ‘hunting-style’ capped windage turret. This is to address a complaint among hunters and some competition shooters, that an exposed (non-locking) windage turret can be too easily, accidentally adjusted when grasping a rifle by the scope or simply resting your palm on the scope while manipulating the elevation turret.
The turrets were clear and simple to read. They had nicely loud clicks and were tactile positive. Both could be zero-reset by lifting the turret using a coin screw
The elevation turret has Athlon’s brass zero-stop which forms a ring around the inner turret pillar. The ring can be rotated into position and is locked with 3 worm/set screws after the user has set their zero. This engages with a fixed gear tooth at the base of the turret providing a solid and reliable stop. A small Allen key is included in the box.
I should also mention, not much is included in the box aside from the turret lock set screws kit, user manual, and scope. This is in line with many “high-end” scope models which eschew accessories like lens caps, sunshades, and throw levers; but a simple rubber lens bra would have been nice.
Concerning throw levers, the magnification dial has a small thumb fin but no screw hole for an optional lever. Nor does Athlon sell a slip-on throw lever as an accessory. Athlon should consider this feature as throw levers have become nearly standard for many competition shooters; if this model is to appeal to that market.
Optically, the Midas punches above its weight. While it did exhibit some slight chromatic aberration, it is bright, with good contrast and excellent resolution. I was able to make out Element 5 in Group -1 on my 8.5″x11″ USAF-51 optical resolution chart at 100yrds. This puts it on par with the more expensive Leupold Mk3 or Vortex Viper FFP.
What the scope lacks is an illuminated reticle, which may be one of the reasons it is hundreds less than Athlon’s Ares. Lacking one may be a deal-breaker for hunters in dusk/dawn situations. This omission is odd if this scope was intended for the hunting market (remember that capped turret). For the range shooter who doesn’t need or use reticle illumination, this scope is a step up in image quality from budget scopes in the $500-$600 price tier.
This Midas Tac HD 6-24×50 FFP was sent to me by Athlon for testing. It is available on Amazon through my affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3dYNfG6
RESOLUTION
Element: 5 Group: -1
MANUFACTURER SPECS
GLASS TYPE: HD OBJ. LENS: 50 mm TUBE DIAMETER: 30 mm GAS PURGED: Argon EYE RELIEF: 3.7″ FOV @ 100 YDS: 17.8 – 4.6 ft PARALLAX: 10 YDS – ∞ CLICK VALUE: 0.1 MIL ADJ/ROTATION: 10 MIL TOTAL ELEV ADJ: 25 MIL TOTAL WIND ADJ: 25 MIL LENGTH: 14.6″ WEIGHT: 26.3 oz
