All posts tagged Binoculars

Binoculars in your range bag

I have a pretty good range bag that I keep all of  my sight in tools and magazine conversion kits in it.  All of my hearing protection and sometimes a few loaded magazines.   The one thing I have always kept in there were my binoculars.   I have taught so many people to shoot firearms and there have been times that I totally forgot to bring a rifle with magnification on it when I was teaching new shooters to shoot with a 22LR and iron sights.  It’s good to start people out on iron sights whether it’s with a 22 bolt action or an AR15 A2 style rifle.   If the shooter is old enough and can handle the nose and the recoil the AR15 is a good starting point.

When you try to see those groups at 100yds, sure you can hit a once inch square at those distances and accurately group them, but if your sights are off or you are trying to determine where your novice shooter is hitting, you don’t want to have to call cease fires and check paper.  There are many differences in the light gathering abilities of optics but Bushnell binoculars are reasonable priced and for most practical purposes, they get the job done and won’t cost you hundreds of dollars.  It’s always a good idea to keep your lense clean and this can have a big impact on your light gathering and clarity.

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Remember when everyone and an AR15A2?

Remember how long ago it was when an AR15 meant the long 20inch barrel and it was virtually impossible to find an M4 style firearm.   AR15 firearms have come a long way, both the upper receivers and the lowers.   Trying to find a firearm now that does not have staked parts or is not chrome plated is getting harder and harder.   Even the machining on bolt carriers has improved to the point that Direct Impingement firearms are 10xs more reliable than before.  All you have to do is pop the bolt carriers out of the guns and you can feel the difference.

Even the average AR15 now is a minute of angle firearm and can still run like a military rifle.   Barrel technology on your average AR15 upper receivers has doubled and tripled.   I have an LWRC M6A1 rifle that supposedly has a barrel life of about 7500rds but the newer ones are close to 20,000rds.   The bolt carrier group is a  one piece unit and there has been absolutely zero broken parts on it.   Hopefully the only things that will eventually where out anytime soon are the extractor and springs.  It’s always wise to keep some of the basic spare parts around no matter what AR15 you own.

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Are there still reasons to carry binoculars?

I’ve questioned whether or not it was worth packing up my binoculars for range trips from time to time, and now that most of my rifles have some level of magnification, I really don’t have to guess if I’m hitting my target anymore.   Shoot N C targets help, but sometimes even magnification doesn’t help you in those regards.   I learned my lesson the hard way when I took a 6.5x50mm Zeiss Conquest scope to a 500yd rifle range and thought that I was going to have a fun day shooting because I wouldn’t need to do as many target changes since I had high magnification on my rifle.   Does anyone know what a mirage is?   When that hot sun starts beating down, you might as well have zero magnification because you won’t see you’re holes on paper beyond 200yds even with high magnification.

The real reason to still pack a pair of binoculars in your hunting or shooting bag is for target identification and field of view.   If you are using a rifle to identify targets you may be violating some of the basic firearms safety rules of not pointing a firearm at anything you don’t want to destroy.  I have had very good experience with Nikon binoculars and their rifle scopes are top notch.   The 7×35 Nikon Action are still my favorite because they don’t cost very much, aren’t very big and still give a good field of view.   There are better binoculars, but I have always had a hard time spending more on a scope than the actual rifle costs, some people don’t have that issue, but I do.

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Having fun but having the right stuff

I would have to say that the vast majority of those that have anything more than a flashlight and optic on the M4 are probable putting something on our guns that we really don’t need, but just enjoy having on.   There’s nothing wrong with having an LWRCI upper with a quad rail or a MidWest quad rail if you think you can put it to use, but when we actually have to carry the Carbine for any real length of time, we’ll wish we could strip a few extra pounds of weight off the gun.  Many of our Staff have been attending competition shoots lately that have been really well run.   These events are everything from battle scenarios or even Zombie shoots.

Last  year in Pennsylvania we attended a Carbine shoot where the the attendees has to sign in at 8am and once they left the club house, they couldn’t drop off any gear and had to lug it all with them for the day.   All of the competitors were carrying M4 or AR15 variants and a few had AK rifles.    Ammunition loads were approximately 400rds of rifle and 100rds of handgun ammo.    I enjoy these events because we get too see some real hard use of tactical gear and tactical accessories.   We tend to not see things fail at these shoots because the competitors are in the higher class as far as skill and the types of firearms they use.   If you ever want to see what kind of optics work and which firearms and when things jam, go to a competition shoot at your gun club and sit back and watch.

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My Ranch gun and configuration

If you learn how to match your ammo to the barrel twist and do some serious slow fire testing you should be able to get MOA with a 3 shot group from one of these guns.   I use the Weaver Grand Slam on another Mini 14 if I think I might have to deal with prairie dogs.   If I am going specifically to hunt these animals, I’ll take a 22-250 and plan to setup for an afternoon with a packed lunch.   I’m a big believer in having a good a pair of binoculars with me just for getting a better field of view.

 

Even though I own more  than a few combat worth AR 15 rifles,  I still got back to my trusty Ruger Mini 14 for the job it was intended to be used for.  As I was discussin previously when it came to what types of footwear to use throughout the year, It would be nice if we could take a light version of what many of us carry when we know we don’t need the standard setup.   The great thing about the Mini 14 Ranch guns is that they are light and short, and they are also already setup for optics.   I have a few of these  guns with different Weaver rifles scopes, but I think the most applicable would be a fixed power 28-30mm optic.

 

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Practical and tactical should go hand in hand

Although I am a big fan of battle rifles and prefer to carry a gun bigger than an M4, if I gotta carry ammo on my person and it’s not being carried in the trunk of my car, I’ll gladly take the smaller caliber.    The M1 Garand is a great and powerful weapon, but combat is at a much faster pace and being able to suppress a target with small arms is as important as neutralizing it.  If you are a weekend warrior and are considering taking a Carbine Class, even though your training will take place in the Course, you should do research on gear and accessories before you walk in the door.

 

I always try to sit in on training courses whenever I can although I wish I had the time to actually take more classes.   I’ve written on several occassions that one of my greatest joys of watching classes is watching all of the gear fall off or fail a student and watching their slow evolution of losing gear along the way.   Theirs nothing wrong with being a tactical accessory junky, but if you have to carry an M4 all day like i’ve had to, you’ll quickly learn that lightweight, means a happy person.  There seems to be a big craze getting tactical gear with the quad rails even though most people don’t need them, and then having to go out and get rail covers, when a simple stock would have lightend the gun by a few pounds.

 

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The original spotting scope

I rememeber the days when the vast majority of rifle hunters were using lever actions with iron sights.   In the last decade or so, there have been massive improvemenets in the durability of rifle optics and even the less expensive optics, don’t fog up like they use to.   Some of those $20 binoculars you see work quite well in daylight, but in low light, that is the time you will really know how much your optics cost.    My recommendations when it comes to using binoculars is to get fixed power optics and get the lightest weight ones you can buy.

The biggest argument against packing a pair of binoculars up in your shooting bag or on  your tactical vest is the added weight.   My Bushnell powerview optics are compact and lightweight and for target identification with fixed 12x,  that’s a very inexepensive option.   I’ve held all of the Steiner optics, and those are outstanding, but you may not get your moneys worth if you are only using them a few times a year.   Steiner binoculars imho are the Trijicon ACOGS of binoculars and they are outstanding for the people that need them.

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Deer Rifles and clarity

Nikon Rifle scopesWhenever we get a chance to get away from our families and get out in the fall, we never know what kind of weather we’re going to have.    Unless it’s heavy rain we rarely call off a deer trip, but there have been plenty of trips we have been on where the weather was pretty bad.

One thing I am glad to have is a good rifle optic.   Not only do we want something that is rock solid, we want clarity.    Low light especially on those dark dull days will give you limited range.    Pockets of dark woods may cause us to pass up an opportunity if we can’t clearly identify a target.   Nikon Rifle Scopes have some of the brightest glass and will certainly give you that crisp clarity that we need to take advantage of every opportunity.

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Hobbies, accessories and reasons

Tactical GearThere area a lot of good upgrades one can do to a firearm, a fighting rifle should be customized to fit an operator.  Advanced Technology makes some quick and easy upgrades for your shotgun or carbine that can give you better grip or balance.  Shotgun shell holders on the buttstock or riding side saddle is a practical tactical upgrade you can do on your remington 870.  The fiberforce stock for the MAK90 is a way to legally get around some firearm bans and are a big step up compared to the stupid thumbhole stocks.    Attach a rifle sling that fits yoru purpose from Blue Force Gear, they come in 1 point, 2 point and 3 point attachements. Minor firearm modifications make need to be done to attache rifle slings, but do some research on various rifle sling configurations to see what works for you.

We’ve all seen the massive accessorizing of firearms in recent years.   Firearms likes SKS rifle and Mini 14s are not immune to the firearm attachements and modifications that have run rampant in the AR15 community.   In my opinion, there are a lot of firearm owners out there that had their Legos taken away from them and they brought that mindset into gun accessorizing and tactical gear stockpiling.    That’s about as harsh as I can be about why people do what they do to their firearms, but some of it is for hobbie reasons, some for practical reasons, and some because people have the obsessive compulsive behavior of needing to spend money.

 

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Ranch Rifles and Ranch Rifle Optics

Bushnell Rifle ScopesI’ve spent enough time on the internet gun boards to hear all of the squabbling about the Mini 14 Ranch rifles.   The short answer on Mini 14 accuracy is this, they are good for what they were originally intended to be used for, and that was to be used for “a few quick shots”.   The Mini 14 Ranch rifle is highly recommended for those in Coyote Country or for varmint hunting.   They are light and can easily accomodate 30-40mm rifle optics.   While we are aware that the .223 has long range capablilities, I highly recommend something in the 3-9×40 power.   You can the wider objective and some amount of magnification.
Bushnell rifle scopes options can vary from 1.5-4.5×32 to 4.5-30x50mm.   The smaller the objective the darker your view will be, but we also acknowlege that you pay for what you get.   Bushnell optics have been around for a long time and are defanitely rugged enough for most hunting and target shooting purposes.

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