Leupold Golden Ring Switch Power binocular

Now let  me start off with honesty; I’m not the first guy in the office to go around preaching about Leupold. I know that they are a huge company with a large following…I’m just not one of them. However, I just had the opportunity to test out the new Leupold Golden Ring Switch Power binocular and I was surprised. I liked it. And I don’t think that I wanted to like it. I thought that I would pick it up and just hate it from there. The binocular felt like quality construction. I thought it would be gimmicky and have shotty construction. It didn’t. The 10x/17x model that I held not only felt like a solid piece of optics but weighed considerably less than the other brand’s switch power bino. I used the other guy’s bino a few months ago and it was confusing because the switching happens independantly on each barrel. The Leupold center switch was very easy and effective. Next I thought that I wouldn’t be able to see anything at the high power because of the lower exit pupil. I was really surprised that the bino did not seem to dim. If I had been looking at them at lunch I would have thought that the sun’s brightness was compensating, but it was twenty minutes until dark and the switch was seamless. Visually they were great with crisp focus, perfect contrast and beautiful color. The Leupold Golden Ring Switch Power binocular is a great binocular and is everything that they say it is. My world crumbled.

Swarovski’s Ballistic Turret

These days, rifles are more accurate and can shoot farther than ever before. Military sniper rifles and bench rest rifles can accurately reach ranges of 1000 yards or more on a regular basis. Most shooters can afford a sub-MOA rifle these days and in a caliber that gives good knock down potential even at greater distances. This gives modern hunters and shooters confidence to make ethical kill, and more accurate shots farther.

Since there are so many rifles out there that shoot very well, you need a good rifle scope and shooting solution for greater distances. An easy solution for various distance shooting is what most shooters and manufactures are after. Almost every rifle scope manufacture has a solution for various distances shooting. Nikon, Leupold, Burris, Zeiss, Nightforce, Pentax, Schmidt and bender, Swarovski and many other companies have come out with one or more ways to compensate for shooting at various distances.

To explain what I mean, most of these companies’ solutions start with a busy reticle, or a custom made dial specific to one, very specific load. While these solutions are good, they aren’t absolute or perfect. The custom turrets can be a good solution for some people, and many guys like them but I’m not a fan of custom turrets. With custom turrets too many things have to stay constant, if there is even a slight variation in loaded ammunition, if you switch powders or bullets in hand loads, you have to get a new turret. This could make or break a hunt if change ammunition for any reason. The ballistic reticles are another good option. Most ballistic reticles are backed by online calculators supported by the manufacture. This can give shooters and hunters flexibility not offered by custom turrets. You can also change ammunition without any problems. These ballistic reticles are a great option. But what if you want a simple reticle, like a duplex or classic german number 4? Swarovski has a ballistic reticle, but Swarovski also has a system that I think is the easiest and most versatile to use for easy various distance.

It’s called the Swarovski Ballistic Turret system, and it’s the best system to date. Backed by a Swarovski’s ballistic calculator, the Swarovski Ballistic turret rifle scopes allow the shooter to use a simple reticle, and give the shooter the ability to engage targets at various distances. The way the system works is it allows shooters to zero the rifle, and then set up to 4 more zeros by using the calculator. Let me say it again, you only have to zero your rifle once, and then the calculator gives you the other 4 zeros. This allows you to have 5 different zeros and means you can have your cross hair dead on at a target and simply change the turret’s position to the specified colored tab. You can set your zero at any distance, and vary the distances your other zeros will represent. No busy reticle, no specific ballistic turret, just a simple reticle and solution. This system also allows you to shoot at various distances under stress, which is important if you stalking a trophy animal or in intense competition. Even under high stress it’s easy to choose the color and put the cross hair on the animal. Any shooter that uses this system will tell you how easy it is to engage targets at various distances with speed all because of this innovative system. It’s as close to perfect as a various distance shooting system can be. Check out the short video at the bottom to see the potential of this system. If you want the easiest various distance shooting system, the Swarovski Ballistic turret system is the way to go. That’s the word from sportoptics.com.

Minox DCM 5.0 Digital Camera Eyepiece

The Minox DCM 5.0 digital eyepiece is a unique device in a market flooded with brand only digiscoping equipment. This digital camera/eyepiece which runs about $150 online comes in multiple SKUs that match up with sixteen current spotting scopes. I had the privilege to try it for about an hour with a premium spotter in the field just behind our offices. The time was mid-day and in the city… with eighteen wheelers and delivery trucks very close by so it was not the ideal time nor place to attempt to be Ansel Adams as John James Audubon.

There’s a lot of potential in this product. Like anything else I’m sure that with more experience you’ll get better results. My limited time did show me the pro’s and cons of the camera. The pros are that it is relatively inexpensive to acquire, easy to set and operate, and produces decent results; even on the first try. I photographed some common birds on the top of a power pole 92 yards away (distance verified with a very high end rangefinder). I used the default settings and used it straight out of the box. I’d imagine that shooting later in the day and tweaking the white balance would give me better pictures but I didn’t have time to dive that deeply into it. Here is what I found…maxing out the zoom at noon on a windy day isn’t going to win you digiscoper of the year. If you back off the zoom to the lowest setting which is probably 20x…you’ll get a good picture and with experience and patience probably some to frame. Also, you could probably get closer to you subject than 100 yards and that would yield better results as well. Interestingly enough, the device comes with a remote control in lieu of a cable shutter release. A remote shutter is essential because the manual two second time delay and mother nature isn’t going to work most of the time. Also pressing the button manually will give you blurry pictures. On top of that, high magnification will always magnify vibration; even your finger daintily pressing a shutter can blur a pic. There was still a lag with the remote but not too bad. One thing that was nice with the remote was that it only has three buttons and can switch from pictures to soundless video instantly. You can even toggle between two set zooms during the video taping. You can step zoom while in the camera mode. If you had this thing pointed at a bird feeder in you back yard 50 feet away you’d get some awesome shots and video. When you put an SD card in there be sure to shoot away and play the numbers. Eventually a beauty will happen. The images are 5 Mega Pixel so that’s printable even at a larger scale.

As much as I like the product there are some disappointments.  One thing that bugged me was that it was hard to get on target and know I was spot on with the focus because I was seeing my own reflection in the display window. Some of this might be corrected by changing the time of day, type of sunlight and maybe using a straight spotting scope. Actually I wouldn’t recommend changing the spotting scope to a straight unless you are never going to look higher than the horizon; that’s just spotting scope 101 knowledge. I guess the way around it would be to march out there like an old timer with a black cloth and put it over the eyepiece and your head, That would probably fix a lot of issues; if you don’t mind being a little different around the other birders and consider yourself a slave to your artform. Another thing that bothered me was that it kept shutting off to save the battery every 60 seconds so I had to shoot the empty pole every 40-50 seconds just to keep it on. After the session I stumbled across the ability to turn that feature off. It would have been handy to know that earlier and saved me the aggravation of turning it back on when a bird showed up because I forgot to take a dummy shot and keep it on, so if you buy this thing be sure to find the battery saver feature and turn it off. The last thing I didn’t like, and this kind of applies to the battery save feature I just mentioned, but the instructions for this thing are at a Dick and Jane kind of level with no hard specifics as to things like where to plug in the USB cable; I had to call them for that information. I’m not kidding. There was a knob underneath but it didn’t want to come off nor seem like the logical place to plug in a cable and the last thing I wanted to do was remove a sealed knob and see a circuit board and wires.

All in all I’d give this device a four out of five based on performance to cost. If you are just starting off with digiscoping around the backyard and at the local state park…it is awesome. Really…it’s about time somebody put this out. You’ll have fun with it and have fun shots for your hobby and even a winner every now and then. However, if your planning a once in a lifetime trip to Argentina…maybe you should look at what your scope manufacturer has that matches your $1500 camera. That’s the scoop on the Minox Digital Camera Module 5.0.

Nightforce Rifle Scopes Overview Part I

In the world of premium rifle scopes it’s hard to stand out, there are  simply too many great scopes on the market, but don’t tell that to the folks at Nightforce Optics. The rifle scopes made by this company are exceptional in so many ways its hard to know where to begin, but here is a listing of some of the features common to all Nightforce Rifle Scopes:

• Fully Multi Coated Optics – Each and every Nightforce Scope receives their proprietary broadband multi coating lens coating on all air to glass surfaces. This coating is applied so to almost unimaginable tolerance of 1/4 wave deposition or .000005 inches, and it exceeds the toughest Mil Spec abrasion test making this rifle scope lens coating one of the toughest on the market/
• Optical Indexing – Every Nightforce scope is matched and aligned by hand perfectly to its partners. This technique, called optical indexing provides the best possible optical performance and clarity. This process takes time and its expensive to do, but if your interested in building the best scope in the world you do it.  At Nightforce Optics they’ve been doing it that way from the beginning.
• Objective Lens Perfection – The objective lens determines the resolution, light transmission and exit pupil size of every scope. To push optical performance to its limit every Nightforce objective lens assembly utilizes a multi-lens design similar to those found on the worlds finest telescopes. This lens system focuses light rays more precisely for exceptional image clarity and color accuracy.
• Tube Strength – Nightforce scope tubes are machined from solid bar stock 6061-T6 aircraft grade aluminum alloy. These tubes are not extruded or formed like those found on lesser scopes. They are two to three times thicker than other riflescopes. This means less overall stress, greater thermal stability and a consistant zero even in the most punishing situations. The Nightforce NXS rifle scopes take this performace to the extreame as they are know and the most durable and rugged scopes in existance.