Equipment

This post continues what I started in my introduction to load carriage. In that article, I talked about the ongoing battle between weight and capability. It turns out that up until very recently, the average weight carried by soldiers remained shockingly stable. When it comes time to fight, the recommendation is to stay less than 30% of your lean body mass or about 50 lbs for the average person.

This review has been a long time coming. It’s no secret at this point that I’ve been spending a lot of time with the Tikka T1x MTR in 22lr, as it served as the basis for my “Noisy Cricket” precision 22LR project. In my write up of the project, I laid out all of the choices that I made but mentioned that reviews of each major component would be forthcoming.

Well, here we are.

Sure, the headline was a little clickbaity, but I thought it was funny. Regular dry practice with your rifles and pistols is an important component to keeping up your skills. Done right, it dramatically cuts back on the amount of range time and ammo you need to spend while also greasing the groove of your fundamentals.

The trouble is that you’re not really supposed to dry fire a rimfire rifle, right?

I’ve spent a good amount if time thinking about my own suggestions for AR-15 optics, but today I want to share someone else’s perspective. You might remember ILya, the optical physicist I interviewed for an episode. This is a video he made outlining his suggestions.

It’s no secret that I’ve been assembling a 22 target rifle suitable for competition and training use. I’ve been posting articles debating the merits of a competition 22 rifle as a stand-in for larger centerfire rifles when it comes to long-distance training and practice. Well, it’s now time to throw back the curtain on what I’ve built.

As I’ve been working on my precision competition rifles, I wanted to address a common topic in the world of optics: First Focal Plane vs Second Focal Plane scopes. Let’s get to the bottom line.

It’s time to start talking about how we carry our stuff. This series of articles is not focused on competition or marksmanship. Instead, we’re going to talk about showing up for a fight.

With so many new gun owners out there, especially new AR-15 owners, I wanted to lay down some thoughts on the best upgrades for their shiny new rifles. Settle in, we cover a lot of ground.

The original SEAL Recce Rifle was an in-house modification to M4 carbines. The history goes back to the early 1990s. Since they were so individualized, there really wasn’t a spec, but there is an accepted pattern to follow.

Today I’m broaching on the biggest omission from my safe: a 22LR rifle. I know it’s been a great training tool for generations, but I’ve never been interested. Until now, that is.

And the reason I’m suddenly interested is how well the little rimfire works as a trainer for larger centerfire cartridges like the 308 at long ranges.

Today we’re taking a look at another precision rifle optic, the Athlon Ares ETR 4.5-30×56. In my opinion, someone at Athlon really did their homework with what the precisions hooting community wants and values with a tactical optic. The ETR checks all of the boxes and seems like a great all-around scope.

I recently got the chance to handle the Meopta Optika6 5-30×56 MRAD FFP. This optic has many features desirable to precision rifle shooting and competition. In this review, I cover the main bits you should know as well as my recommendation.