Survival and Emergency Preparedness

I have quite a collection of optics and have gone through them within the past month.

My comments today will be on the things generally ignored by people when they buy optics, particularly when they are price conscious and shop at Walmart.

1. lens caps, eye and objective. You will lose them. One size does not fit all. Companies go out business - so much for contacting Brunton or Alpen for replacement caps. Or a model is discontinued, like my 18x50 Steiners. Try finding a Steiner dealer in the United States who can help you - one does not exist. When I needed replacement caps for certain pair of military Fujinons, I found them near a USMC base 300 miles away.
So, you buy multiples of each cap. And, you learn go-arounds. I will find a tethered cap for the objective lens on the Steiner and hold it on to the binoculars with a zip tie.

2. find a pack to carry your new pair of binoculars within including spare parts (lens covers) in zip lock bags. It looks sezy as hell to have a pair of binoculars in a small case, but if you can't fit the spare parts and cleaning elements within, it is useless to you in the field. I used army bags of different sizes and they are becoming less available over the years.

3. forget buying military binocular glasses with stadia. They vary all over the lot. I have an excellent pair with no instructions. No indication of whether they are in inches, meters, mil dots, or whatever. When you buy glass designed to take out tanks, they don't work for deer.

I am downsizing. My nieces and nephews have young ones. They received stadium glasses. Used on soccer fields. Cannot be put on tripods. I have two relatives who will receive new Alpens for when they go hiking. Alpen has been out of business for about 8 years. If they want tripods, they will receive tripods and adaptors. I will be getting rid of 3-4 Mickey Mouse level monoculars that I should not have bought in the first place. My brother's grandchildren will appreciate them. I am keeping the small pair of Steiner binos.

I think you hit on a forgotten item.

We have long guns to stand back in relative safety to respond to an attack.

Optics give a definite advantage as does night vision.

I see a lot of folks putting red dot optics on their pistols these days. My only experience with red dot optics is on our duty shotguns back in the 90's. They worked great for the intended purpose. Not sure on a defensive pistol. Do you have to turn them on after drawing the pistol from the holster or do they somehow come on automatically? If you have to turn it on, it seems it would be counter-intuitive if needing to deploy the pistol quickly. Some I see have the rear sight completely removed so if the battery dies you have only the front sight to rely on? At close distance perhaps not an issue but at longer distances it could be.

Just don't know how practical they are for private citizen self defense?

I do have an extensive background in optics.

Today, my comments are directed only at scope power on rifles and forward or rear mounted scopes.

1. a high power scope like 14x gives a very small field of view. a lower scope like 1.5x gives a wide field of view.

2. if you want do sometimes have a narrow field of view and sometimes a wider field of view, you get a variable powered scope.

3. until a couple of decades ago, the US military used a 10x scope. Now it might be a 4x10X

4. forget about mil dots.

5. If you have a rear mounted scope, you might have a problem if you wear glasses or you wear a helmet or you want use iron sights on the rifle. You will have a problem doing running shots

6. If you have a forward mounted scope with the appropriate height rings, you do not have the problems in no. 5 if you use a Burris or Leopold scout scope.

7. take your Garand rifle. The DCM shooters know to center on the target at 600 yards, the effective range of the 30-06 round when they make click adjustments. They cannot see the center of the target. If you do a laminated ballistics table and use a forward mounted scout scope, you can see and do a hold over.

8. A glass scope gathers more light than the human eye. This means you can continue to shoot when you might stop when using iron sites.

9. For the defensively minded, there is a period of a few minutes at dawn and dusk when the light is such that armies initiate assaults. The iron sites are useless. You have heard about red dots. Ok. I had to continuously adjust red dots on rifles during those periods of a few minutes. No adjustments were need with glass scopes.

10. An aside. Troops were taught to shoot at center mass. Why? If you shot a Garand 30-06 round at a standard standing person at range from zero to 600 yards, you would hit him at anywhere from the foot to the head, depending upon the distance. Heck, get yourself glass, a laminated ballistics table, learn to estimate distances and you will do one heck of a lot better in hitting where you to hit on a target.

David wrote: ↑Sun Apr 18, 2021 5:49 pm I see a lot of folks putting red dot optics on their pistols these days. My only experience with red dot optics is on our duty shotguns back in the 90's. They worked great for the intended purpose. Not sure on a defensive pistol. Do you have to turn them on after drawing the pistol from the holster or do they somehow come on automatically? If you have to turn it on, it seems it would be counter-intuitive if needing to deploy the pistol quickly. Some I see have the rear sight completely removed so if the battery dies you have only the front sight to rely on? At close distance perhaps not an issue but at longer distances it could be.

Just don't know how practical they are for private citizen self defense?

Most pistol optics are either always on when carried or shake awake when moved. Battery life is a top consideration when choosing an optic. I personally think the very best combination of quality, durability, and battery life is the Holosun 507 series. It has the most extensive list of features, survives all the torture tests, has a 5+ year battery life, uses shake awake so you can leave it on, and you can change the battery from the side without having to unmount the unit from the gun.
Most defensive guns retain the rear sight just in case the dot fails. Some dots actually include a rear sight notch so you don't need a separate unit. Competition guns often delete sights entirely.
Whether a dot is better than irons is different for everyone. Some put in the effort to master the dot and can be extremely fast and accurate with it. Others like it for accuracy, but struggle to find the dot quickly. Since switching to rimfire during this ammo shortage, I've become much better with a dot from the holster, but I'm still a bit faster with irons inside 7 yards.

Thank you, that helps quite a bit. And very interesting.

Today's discussion is about hunting optics.
1. I am not discussing opera, stadium, mil dot, night vision, long distance or long distance hunting.
2. I am going to make the following assumptions:
a. you have not hunted coyotes at 400 yards;
b. you hunt in the swamps, the dense woods;
c. you have never taken a shot over 150 yards hunting;
d. you haven't won the lottery;
e. you know enough not to shop at Walmrt.
3. I was trained by a big game guide who travels all over North America. I can give you recommendations on optics costing $1000 and up that will allow you to spot big game 3 miles away, but that is not the focus.

Ok.
1. You need to buy an adapter. It is a device that will allow a pair of binoculars with a hole to be attached to a tripod.
2. You need to buy a tripod. It does not have to be expensive.
3. You buy only binoculars that will accept a tripod.
4. You buy only the combination of 1,2, and 3 that work together.

Why
1. Renumber the movie Patton and the poor captain using his elbows to prop up binos before he is killed? Your heart pounding causes the binos to go up and down. If he had been asked how many tanks, he couldn't count.
2. You cannot stare indefinitely through a pair of binoculars, holding them up and expect to have the picture to see, time and again. If you have a tripod, you can look away. You can walk away. The picture will be the same when you come back.
3. Most guides use a tripod and not a single stick.


Extra lens caps/ cleaning materials/carry bag
Do you want to sling your binos over a shoulder, carry them on your chest? Manufacturers anticipate that new buyers never consider adding extra lens caps, notes, cleaning materials in a case. However, if you don't, you better had a separate container and carry it with you.

Let's speak about you wearing eye glasses or having a vision problem
1. bring this up when you select the binos.
2. the eye piece is the lens that will be closest to the eye or your glasses. some eye pieces have a rubber cup that can be folded down.
3. you always want to be able to adjust the eye piece for each eye. some binoculars do not permit this.

Power - a bad term, let's talk about the two different lenses

The lens furthest from the eye is the objective lens. The higher the number, the more light let in. The higher the number, the bigger the objective. The higher the number, the heavier the binoculars. The higher the number, the bigger the binoculars. Most hunting binos will have either 40 or 42 mm objective lenses.

The lens closest to the eye is the eye piece. The higher the number, the larger the object. The higher the number, the narrower the field of view. Most hunting optics will be an 8 or a 10.

Unfortunately, you get what you pay for in optics. Most of us are retired - I can remember when st class postage was 2 cents and going to be 3 cents. Your best source of local information is going to be a camera store with a good reputation.

Night vision optics

I was busy trying to price my NON night vision swaroski discontinued binos and birding binos and had sticker shock!

Nonetheless, I plow ahead with comments on night vision equipment.
1. It is fantastically expensive for the good stuff. Wait until you win the lottery and then I will advise you.
2. There are a few work arounds.
3. Work around 1:
Not neato, but safe. Any low power scout scope attached to a long stick like a broom handle as if it were attached on a rifle- forward mounted scope (same distance) beats trying to use the naked eye. Generally, those are about 1.5 to 1.75x in the eye piece.
Work around 2
When they came out, I picked up Bushnell 7x50 Marine binos with a range finder capability. Actually, two units. I explain. I am not hoofing around in the dark, needing a tiny set of optics like the Steiner Marine which are about $75 more with a small objective. Remember, the larger the objective, the more light is brought in. The Steiner has a 30 objective.
I plan to have a unit set up with a view to one area for a long time, with any one being able to see the same spot when I am not using the binos.
You think for a moment. If you are going to use night vision or binos in the dark, when are you going to use them? At 70 years old or 45 years old with a small kid hanging on you when you are in unfamiliar territory? No. You will be stationary and monitoring most likely.
Work around 3:
You get a thermal detection unit. This is abhorrent to the person who wants to be able to identify that warm object. I have such a unit. Doesn't cost much. Here is the problem. There are two different standard lengths to a city block (outside of NY City which is a weird place anyway). I needed a thermal detector that worked at least 300 yards. If you buy a cheapie that goes 100 yards, it is not going to help you. The average person should be able to cover 100 yards to you in 20 seconds. What? You expect that you don't want to know that a deer is a couple hundred yards away approaching your spot during the hunting season, because you bought the cheap unit that only confirmed a deer when it was 100 yards away?
4. Don't get sucked in by marketing hype. "Military" does not mean that some formal army adopted the binoculars you are considering.
I looked at the current offering of "Marine optics" from Bushnell. Like 6 models with prices ranging from $85 to $200! Do you really a compass on a pair of binoculars? How about a range finding capability??? Yeah. Is the unit "water resistant" or "water proof"?
5. Really cheap cheap. I have some old, used Bushnell 10x50s, a pair of great Russian glass with stadia that I can't figure out, and a 50 objective discontinued Brunton unit. Put an adapter on and inexpensive tripod and you have a far superior set up than the guy who simply has a pair of binoculars. The point is that if you don't have the budget of a few hundred dollars, but you can afford $50 to attach an adapter and tripod to your existing binos, you are ahead of the game. Every camera shop has used tripods or eBay.

RE: night vision

An inexpensive adaptation of night vision is to use an old Sony digital video camera. Many had near infrared capability and the addition of an infrared light source (flashlight with a filter) provides cheap night vision.

Adding to what Mac66 said: How do you track a wounded animal at night? a flashlight with the appropriate filter. Not expensive- in fact, inexpensive. a red light is emitted which will show you a blood trail.

I was pricing night vision for rat shooting which would be much more practical than attempting to do big game hunting after shtf. You are speaking of spending $2000 plus tax for the air rifle and a lot for the optics. Or, if you want to hunt feral pigs at night, the thermal optics start at $5000 plus tax. Nice videos though.

I confirmed this am that I had a second pair of lens caps for one of my Bushnell Marine optics, an 8 x42. I have an older one. Bushnell is not currently responding to emails and not returning calls, so I will have to write a letter with a credit card number.

I sent three pair of new old stock Alpen binos to three nieces in their 20s on the east coast on Monday. A young woman hiking with a pair of decent binoculars is probably as rare as a woman fly fisherman. I will probably give a small pair of Steiners to my son in July when I go back east, so I will set them aside.