Optics/Sights

When you are looking to combine a high-quality optic with a decent price point, then Primary Arms is likely your go-to. They make great products that don’t break the bank. The Primary Arms GLx comes in at a mid-tier price but packs Tier 1 performance. This variable optic came to me at the perfect time. Rifle season begins soon, and I have a freezer empty of venison and a new Savage Impulse Predator, with an empty optic’s rail. The GLx presented a modern solution to a modern problem.

The new infiRay Cabin CBL19 thermal monocular is now available to the US market, through a relatively new company, iRayUSA. It features a high-resolution display and a 384×288 sensor core. The result is a crisp, detailed image that’s able to detect heat out to 1,070 yards.

When I heard that Crimson Trace had come out with a new line of red dot sights, their Rapid Aiming Dots (RAD), it made complete sense to me. After all, Crimson Trace has been in the firearm laser and light business for decades, and in more recent years has introduced their scope lines, so adding electronics into optics to get new electronic sights seems to be the natural progression.

The Sparc Solar provides a very competent optic for a fair price. It’s tough to beat the Sparc Solar if you need to outfit a home defense, competitive, or hunting firearm with a red dot.

Unless you like setting money on fire, you should use the most efficient sight-in method—and you can’t get any more efficient than the two-shot zero.

I had an opportunity to use the binoculars for a short time on a prairie dog shoot in Wyoming and came away impressed because the Fusion X binoculars pack a lot of functionality into an affordable package. The binoculars are backed by Bushnell’s transferable lifetime warranty, which translates into a defined life of 20 years for the binoculars and five years for the electronics.

For many of you reading this and just jumping into the world of thermal optics, do not fret, it is not as complicated as some may suggest. While Thermal scopes are not cheap, they are an absolute game-changer in the world of night hunting. 5 years ago, I would have never believed how powerful of a tool thermal would become in my hunting game.

Stabilized binoculars are pretty rare on the civilian market, but they have a huge following in military circles. The stabilized part comes from an internal gyroscopic stabilizer, a mechanical device that makes them self steading. It is a weird concept, for sure. But in practice, it is basically magic. It really does work and is a game-changer for binocular work.

Around three years ago EOTech started offering scopes in addition to their world-renowned holographic sights. Having taken a huge share of the red dot market, they took their shot at becoming a new big player in the magnified optic market by releasing their Vudu lineup of scopes.