Riflescope Blog: Expert's reviews, news, notes on rifle scopes, hunting optics, shooting, binoculars, night vision sights, gun accessories, and more
Wednesday, August 30, 2006New Yukon Ranger Digital Night Vision Monocular
The world of night vision viewers is slowly changing, and this new Yukon Ranger digital night vision monocular is a good example why. I tested one recently in a variety of conditions and can recommend it without reservations. One way to measure resolution on a night vision monocular or binocular is by LPM (lines per millimeter). The LPM on a typical first generation unit (depending on what company or technician you speak to) is from 28 to 34. The resolution on this new Ranger is stated by Yukon as comparable to 40LPM, and I certainly believe it. The picture was clear and contrasting and it simply surprised the heck out of me. I expect a certain amount of hype, but gladly didn't receive it here.
The picture you see is black and white (grey). This alone is different from first to fourth generation units with intensifier tubes which are all black and green. The Ranger's view is etherial and ghostlike, but very clear. The five power lens is a good magnification choice for long distance viewing, and is easily adjusted for focus with a slight turn. It will focus closer than five feet to infinity. A powerful infrared illuminator is integral for viewing in total darkness, and unlike other NV units, this infrared light is not only invisible to the naked eye, but the typical red glow you see when looking directly into the lens is absent. It is completely invisible.
Another great feature is the video out port (cable included) that lets you connect your Ranger to a camcorder or television, and a port for using the unit with optional AC or DC cords (also included) with or without the six AA batteries installed. Battery power is not used when accessory charging cords are in use.
Batteries last approximately ten hours without the IR illuminator, or three hours with.
Gain control (brightness) is effectively controlled by a small wheel on the top of the unit turned by an index finger, and the plus or minus controls for the illuminator intensity are also placed on the top of the unit next to the power buttons.
The unit also comes with an extra battery tray for quick changes, and most importantly, an incredible LIMITED LIFETIME WARRANTY! This is an absurdity in the night vision world, and something Yukon does for all their units (three years for tubes).
Rad (my dog) and I went on several excursions in various fields and yards with ambient light from little to none, and the viewscreen was always clear and perfectly lit. The gain control wheel was useful in preventing light overexposure to your eye, and the unit was light enough (28.2 ounces) and egonomic. It comes with a case with a belt loop and a neck strap.
The view screen is smaller than a standard first generation night vision unit, but still plenty large, and at about 400 bucks it's a great way to see what goes bump in the night. I like them a lot.
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
The picture you see is black and white (grey). This alone is different from first to fourth generation units with intensifier tubes which are all black and green. The Ranger's view is etherial and ghostlike, but very clear. The five power lens is a good magnification choice for long distance viewing, and is easily adjusted for focus with a slight turn. It will focus closer than five feet to infinity. A powerful infrared illuminator is integral for viewing in total darkness, and unlike other NV units, this infrared light is not only invisible to the naked eye, but the typical red glow you see when looking directly into the lens is absent. It is completely invisible.
Another great feature is the video out port (cable included) that lets you connect your Ranger to a camcorder or television, and a port for using the unit with optional AC or DC cords (also included) with or without the six AA batteries installed. Battery power is not used when accessory charging cords are in use.
Batteries last approximately ten hours without the IR illuminator, or three hours with.
Gain control (brightness) is effectively controlled by a small wheel on the top of the unit turned by an index finger, and the plus or minus controls for the illuminator intensity are also placed on the top of the unit next to the power buttons.
The unit also comes with an extra battery tray for quick changes, and most importantly, an incredible LIMITED LIFETIME WARRANTY! This is an absurdity in the night vision world, and something Yukon does for all their units (three years for tubes).
Rad (my dog) and I went on several excursions in various fields and yards with ambient light from little to none, and the viewscreen was always clear and perfectly lit. The gain control wheel was useful in preventing light overexposure to your eye, and the unit was light enough (28.2 ounces) and egonomic. It comes with a case with a belt loop and a neck strap.
The view screen is smaller than a standard first generation night vision unit, but still plenty large, and at about 400 bucks it's a great way to see what goes bump in the night. I like them a lot.
Sportsman Surgery
My favorite spring piston airgun is a Beeman R-1 anniversary model in .20 caliber. It has an ivory grip cap and used to wear an older Leupold 3-9 EFR without click adjustments (current scopes have clicks). The scope had my name engraved on it from the Leupold Custom Shop, and it was perfect and sexy and sighted in with Crosman Premiers at 25 yards.
I now shoot this rifle at three different distances, and wanted a scope with click adjustments and target turrets. I installed a Bushnell Sportsman 3-9 AO in a Beeman one piece mount and sighted it in at 10 meters in my basement range. I set the turrets to zero at this distance, and proceeded to sight in again on my spinner target outside my kitchen window at 17 yards, marking my new zero with some white-out. I then went to my other kitchen window and sighted in at 24 1/2 yards at my most used targets and marked another dot with white-out. The clicks are audible, tactile, and precise, and after thousands of rounds, I can still go from one zero to another and back again with perfect repeatability. These scopes are made to withstand the dual recoil of a spring piston airgun, but not necessarily with the significant recoil of a magnum air rifle like the R-1 or any 1000 FPS type gun. Maybe this scope is an anomaly being as perfect as it is, but I couldn't be happier with it and consider it one of my favorites, and a steal for the low retail price I paid.
My normal airgun targets are the dots left from a paper puncher, or Keno cards from Vegas, but I came across a new target last weekend. TOMATO TERRORISTS! To my horror, tomato hormworms were wreaking havoc in my Shirley's garden on her Early Girl and Beefy Boy Tomatoes. The buggers were as big as my middle finger and their handiwork was showing on a number of our succulent fruits. I plucked one off and sequestered it in a target area.
My turret was set at the appropriate distance, and the heft of the familiar gun steadied me as my heart pumped hard with the exitement of lead scalpel Sportsman surgery. Jesus hates revenge, but I am not him, and a tight smile curled my lips as I slowly pressed the trigger with a smooth incremental pressure until the sear broke and my follow-through continued the pellet on its way to my target. Exploding hornworms are not too dissimilar to exploding prarie dogs, except the liquid is green instead of red, and instead of crimson chunks and gore and fur it simply looks like someone spilled a key lime smoothie.
All in all, it was an effective way to sharpen shooting skills and vanquish vegetable vermin on a steamy suburban Saturday.
Monday, August 14, 2006
I now shoot this rifle at three different distances, and wanted a scope with click adjustments and target turrets. I installed a Bushnell Sportsman 3-9 AO in a Beeman one piece mount and sighted it in at 10 meters in my basement range. I set the turrets to zero at this distance, and proceeded to sight in again on my spinner target outside my kitchen window at 17 yards, marking my new zero with some white-out. I then went to my other kitchen window and sighted in at 24 1/2 yards at my most used targets and marked another dot with white-out. The clicks are audible, tactile, and precise, and after thousands of rounds, I can still go from one zero to another and back again with perfect repeatability. These scopes are made to withstand the dual recoil of a spring piston airgun, but not necessarily with the significant recoil of a magnum air rifle like the R-1 or any 1000 FPS type gun. Maybe this scope is an anomaly being as perfect as it is, but I couldn't be happier with it and consider it one of my favorites, and a steal for the low retail price I paid.
My normal airgun targets are the dots left from a paper puncher, or Keno cards from Vegas, but I came across a new target last weekend. TOMATO TERRORISTS! To my horror, tomato hormworms were wreaking havoc in my Shirley's garden on her Early Girl and Beefy Boy Tomatoes. The buggers were as big as my middle finger and their handiwork was showing on a number of our succulent fruits. I plucked one off and sequestered it in a target area.
My turret was set at the appropriate distance, and the heft of the familiar gun steadied me as my heart pumped hard with the exitement of lead scalpel Sportsman surgery. Jesus hates revenge, but I am not him, and a tight smile curled my lips as I slowly pressed the trigger with a smooth incremental pressure until the sear broke and my follow-through continued the pellet on its way to my target. Exploding hornworms are not too dissimilar to exploding prarie dogs, except the liquid is green instead of red, and instead of crimson chunks and gore and fur it simply looks like someone spilled a key lime smoothie.
All in all, it was an effective way to sharpen shooting skills and vanquish vegetable vermin on a steamy suburban Saturday.
Last Weeks Loot
Hi Folks,
My Shirley is great for a lot of reasons. One of them is that she doesn't get on my case for leaving gun stuff from work on the dining room table periodically. I think a night vision riflescope looks better displayed upon occasion than the standard flower vase, but that's just me.
My Colt flattop took up a fair bit of room on the table this weekend. I was using it as a platform to test different sighting units in various conditions, including a very user friendly Night Owl, an EOTech, and a couple of Trijicon ACOGs; one for a flattop, one for a carry handle.
For those that are interested, you can certainly shoot a coyote at 100 yards with little ambient light with a standard first generation night vision riflescope.
The EOTech sights are the quickest units you've ever seen, and the one minute dot is directly above your front sight post. I would prefer a small riser to raise my head just a bit. My standard set up on this gun has Trijicon iron sights, and a Docter red dot next to a laser. I prefer this heads-up sighting system because it gives me great peripheral vision. The 550 EOTech series may also be used with night vision, and offers excellent peripheral vision.
The two different ACOGs were a full size and a compact, and are hard to beat for balance and clarity of optics in a lit reticle design. One of the ACOGs had the BAC (Bindon Aiming Concept) and one did not. My eyes had no problem adjusting from one power to magnified, but maybe that's because I've spent most of my life looking through scopes. I'd be interested to hear how newer shooters assimilate the two-eye-open concept.
I don't really find a scope mounted on a carry handle to be that much of a detriment with AR-type guns, maybe because I'm used to them. You can also shoot with a gas mask on, which I've tested for fun, unlike our brave soldiers that have to train like this to stay alive.
All-in-all it was a productive and typical weekend with toys from Optics Planet. Shirley even got some forced labor out of me in the garden.
Friday, August 04, 2006
My Shirley is great for a lot of reasons. One of them is that she doesn't get on my case for leaving gun stuff from work on the dining room table periodically. I think a night vision riflescope looks better displayed upon occasion than the standard flower vase, but that's just me.
My Colt flattop took up a fair bit of room on the table this weekend. I was using it as a platform to test different sighting units in various conditions, including a very user friendly Night Owl, an EOTech, and a couple of Trijicon ACOGs; one for a flattop, one for a carry handle.
For those that are interested, you can certainly shoot a coyote at 100 yards with little ambient light with a standard first generation night vision riflescope.
The EOTech sights are the quickest units you've ever seen, and the one minute dot is directly above your front sight post. I would prefer a small riser to raise my head just a bit. My standard set up on this gun has Trijicon iron sights, and a Docter red dot next to a laser. I prefer this heads-up sighting system because it gives me great peripheral vision. The 550 EOTech series may also be used with night vision, and offers excellent peripheral vision.
The two different ACOGs were a full size and a compact, and are hard to beat for balance and clarity of optics in a lit reticle design. One of the ACOGs had the BAC (Bindon Aiming Concept) and one did not. My eyes had no problem adjusting from one power to magnified, but maybe that's because I've spent most of my life looking through scopes. I'd be interested to hear how newer shooters assimilate the two-eye-open concept.
I don't really find a scope mounted on a carry handle to be that much of a detriment with AR-type guns, maybe because I'm used to them. You can also shoot with a gas mask on, which I've tested for fun, unlike our brave soldiers that have to train like this to stay alive.
All-in-all it was a productive and typical weekend with toys from Optics Planet. Shirley even got some forced labor out of me in the garden.
Steve's Introduction
Hi Folks,
For the first entry in my RifleScope blog, I'm copying my introduction from one of our forums, posted a couple months ago.
Hi Folks,
This is my first entry, and I’d like to introduce myself.
My name is Steve, and I’m a product specialist here at Optics Planet.
I’m a gun guy, and have been my whole life. As a toddler, my earliest memories, even before girls, or motorcycles, or money, were holding dad’s shotgun and game birds. As an older boy, my worst punishment was to stay home while he went hunting on the weekends with whatever dog we had at that time.
I spent the last couple decades as general manager of one of the country’s largest gun shops and ranges, and in sales and purchasing in a “big box” outdoor sporting goods store. I wouldn’t trade these experiences for the world; they can’t be bought.
I was an aircraft carrier based U.S. Navy Gunner’s Mate before that. Saw some big chunks of our wondrous world.
Here are some other qualifications that brought me to Optics Planet:
• NRA certified instructor: all firearms and muzzle loaders
• Competitive firearm shooter and archery staff shooter
• State of Illinois private investigator
• Boy Scouts of America merit badge counselor
• State of Illinois volunteer hunter’s safety instructor
• Glock armorer
• Consultant to Illinois DNR biologists
• Occasional expert witness in firearm related court cases
I’ve hunted from Canada to Africa for large and small game, and prefer to process my own meat from field to table. I love wildlife, especially with butter and garlic.
I am also a fisherman, and watch birds for Cornell University every winter for their feeder survey, although I prefer to watch game birds through my oven window.
I regularly shoot a variety of rimfires and high quality adult airguns in my basement range. I do some gunsmithing and have mounted thousands of scopes.
I love watching wildlife, and use many different spotting scopes and binoculars for this purpose. From pocket Swarovskis to 10X50 Nikons and everything in between, there’s a good purpose for all of them.
I am blessed with Shirley, my beloved wife of many years and the best chick in the world, and my beloved son Radical Lee von Dundee, the world’s most human German Shorthaired Pointer and my best friend.
I’ve raced and crashed cars and motorcycles, jumped out of planes and bungee jumped, gotten lost in different countries, broke things (including myself), built things,
blown stuff up, and in general, had a hell of a good time. I’m truly blessed, and wish the same for you.
I look forward to working with the Optics Planet team. I will answer all your questions to the best of my ability and will give you the best advice I can. Keep an eye out for new blog entries.
Aim Hard,
Steve
For the first entry in my RifleScope blog, I'm copying my introduction from one of our forums, posted a couple months ago.
Hi Folks,
This is my first entry, and I’d like to introduce myself.
My name is Steve, and I’m a product specialist here at Optics Planet.
I’m a gun guy, and have been my whole life. As a toddler, my earliest memories, even before girls, or motorcycles, or money, were holding dad’s shotgun and game birds. As an older boy, my worst punishment was to stay home while he went hunting on the weekends with whatever dog we had at that time.
I spent the last couple decades as general manager of one of the country’s largest gun shops and ranges, and in sales and purchasing in a “big box” outdoor sporting goods store. I wouldn’t trade these experiences for the world; they can’t be bought.
I was an aircraft carrier based U.S. Navy Gunner’s Mate before that. Saw some big chunks of our wondrous world.
Here are some other qualifications that brought me to Optics Planet:
• NRA certified instructor: all firearms and muzzle loaders
• Competitive firearm shooter and archery staff shooter
• State of Illinois private investigator
• Boy Scouts of America merit badge counselor
• State of Illinois volunteer hunter’s safety instructor
• Glock armorer
• Consultant to Illinois DNR biologists
• Occasional expert witness in firearm related court cases
I’ve hunted from Canada to Africa for large and small game, and prefer to process my own meat from field to table. I love wildlife, especially with butter and garlic.
I am also a fisherman, and watch birds for Cornell University every winter for their feeder survey, although I prefer to watch game birds through my oven window.
I regularly shoot a variety of rimfires and high quality adult airguns in my basement range. I do some gunsmithing and have mounted thousands of scopes.
I love watching wildlife, and use many different spotting scopes and binoculars for this purpose. From pocket Swarovskis to 10X50 Nikons and everything in between, there’s a good purpose for all of them.
I am blessed with Shirley, my beloved wife of many years and the best chick in the world, and my beloved son Radical Lee von Dundee, the world’s most human German Shorthaired Pointer and my best friend.
I’ve raced and crashed cars and motorcycles, jumped out of planes and bungee jumped, gotten lost in different countries, broke things (including myself), built things,
blown stuff up, and in general, had a hell of a good time. I’m truly blessed, and wish the same for you.
I look forward to working with the Optics Planet team. I will answer all your questions to the best of my ability and will give you the best advice I can. Keep an eye out for new blog entries.
Aim Hard,
Steve