As with the previous 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, and 2018 threads, the purpose of this thread is to provide a catalog of this years reviews and articles, give you a behind the scenes look at what I'm working on as I'm working on it, provide a place for input and comments, and, of course, give you something to bookmark that will ping you when a new article is done.
Video Reviews and Company Visits
The biggest change this year is that I will be doing video versions of my reviews along with the written versions. I just finished up the first one and it came out a good deal better than I expected. I even did some shiny video editing on it. To be frank, I still don’t love video as a format. It is very inefficient in data density as well as time consuming to produce and consume for that matter. That being said, lots of people seem to like them for some reason and they clearly monitize better. My intention is to make the videos shorter and lighter weight versions of my articles as I gather shorter videos are a great deal more successful and the constraints of video format are far less friendly to the consumer of informationally dense content than is a well organized article. My current plan is to do short video recaps of each review as I do the review and sprinkle in video recaps of my more recent past reviews as I go along. These will be sit at a table podcast type videos and not the high production value live action stuff Frank often does. I will also be doing some videos of site visits to some of the Ohio precision rifle related companies near me. I have spoken with a number of them about this including Kelbly’s, Short Action Customs, and XTSP. My original plan was to make these live but given YouTubes constraints on live videos I am reconsidering. If you have some questions, or comments you want me to take along with me to these companies, feel free to drop them here. If all goes well and I don’t totally suck at making videos I have a few other folks in the back of my mind for future visits. Probably just who your thinking.
The Precison Straight-Walled Cartridge Rifle:
As with last year, the biggest focus this year will be on the PurePrecison / Proof Straight wall 350L project. I knew going into it that it might be challenging to get good performance from the 350L straight wall cartridge rifle and that I would most likely never get it to group like my 6.5CM. The cartridge has that reputation. I want to be able to offer some well researched advice for getting good performance from this type of cartridge though as the relatively new straight wall deer hunting regulations have given many Midwesterners the ability to hunt at distances that were just not possible before with the inaccuracy of slug guns. I want to be able to deliver some well-researched advice in how to get the best performance out of these cartridges. I was certainly unprepared for the level of difficultly in achieving this though. I will continue to examine this subject this year, as I believe I have come a long way and have some viable theories that will help shooters of this and other similar cartridges to get better and more reliable performance. Expect articles this year on the general performance of straight walled cartridges and a little about their history, loading the 350L, and some sort of ammo guide. There may also be a terminal performance examination but I wouldn’t bet on that coming yet.
Thanks to PurePrecision, Proof, Hornady, Barnes, and Nosler for contributing both product and technical expertise to this project.
Nosler’s just introduced Whitetail Country 180gr 350 legend ammunition
Garmin Xero C1 Chronograph Article
Garmin Xero C1 Chronograph Video
I have now used the Garmin Xero C1 Chronograph for an entire year and well over 1000 rounds from a wide variety of firearms and in a wide variety of situations. I guess I should probably write about it already. It is certainly a game changing piece of equipment and realistically I would not have been able to figure out some of the things I did without it as there was no way to use the old Oehler 35p on all the range trips I did for the 350L this year.
Athlon Velocity Pro Radar Chronograph
It is cheaper than the Garmin, and uses an always-on measurement technology like Garmin does. Can it hang? I have certainly seen some excellent things from Athlon in the past. The scopes they submitted to the Sub $1k long range optics series of reviews I did a few years back were, and are, some of my favorites in the category.
Leopold Mark 4HD
It is probably long past time that I looked at the new Leupold Mark 4HD line. The Mark 5HD 5-25x56 I reviewed a few years a go is a winner and that scope line is my favorite in the high end precision rifle / hunting scope crossover category. I am eager to see how the lower cost Mark 4HD line stacks up optically and mechanically, as it’s weight and features certainly indicate it will have similar crossover appeal.
BurstFire annealer
For some time I have been thinking I need to try stepping up my reloading game by adding annealing. Frankly, there was no way I was going to spend thousands of dollars on it though. After some research, I came to the Burstfire annealer. I liked the look of the design and the very clever torch adjustment system. It also features built in rotary tool attachments, and an affordable price, so I bought one. I’ll tell you what I think about it and also their military crimp cutting head. It won’t be 10 pages, I promise.
The first batch of 350L brass I annealed on the Burstfire annealer
Field Optics Research Tripods
This was another shooting accessory that I had been meaning to pick up for a while. I spend a good bit of time a few years ago at ShotShow looking at different makers products and decided that I thought the design of the DomeTOP Field Optics Research models was pretty clever. I picked one of those up as well as a bowl top. I also very much liked the design of their FlexLite GunPOD rifle vice and will be looking at their gun vices as well. I am no guru of competitive rifle shooting off of a tripod, but I’ll give you my opinion and not pretend it’s worth more than it is on the subject.
Field optics research Hunter 32DTC3 tripod holding a Kelbly’s .308 and Pro39TC3-MIL ASFPL with FM570B gunvice holding the 6.5CM PurePrecision Crux.
Video Reviews and Company Visits
The biggest change this year is that I will be doing video versions of my reviews along with the written versions. I just finished up the first one and it came out a good deal better than I expected. I even did some shiny video editing on it. To be frank, I still don’t love video as a format. It is very inefficient in data density as well as time consuming to produce and consume for that matter. That being said, lots of people seem to like them for some reason and they clearly monitize better. My intention is to make the videos shorter and lighter weight versions of my articles as I gather shorter videos are a great deal more successful and the constraints of video format are far less friendly to the consumer of informationally dense content than is a well organized article. My current plan is to do short video recaps of each review as I do the review and sprinkle in video recaps of my more recent past reviews as I go along. These will be sit at a table podcast type videos and not the high production value live action stuff Frank often does. I will also be doing some videos of site visits to some of the Ohio precision rifle related companies near me. I have spoken with a number of them about this including Kelbly’s, Short Action Customs, and XTSP. My original plan was to make these live but given YouTubes constraints on live videos I am reconsidering. If you have some questions, or comments you want me to take along with me to these companies, feel free to drop them here. If all goes well and I don’t totally suck at making videos I have a few other folks in the back of my mind for future visits. Probably just who your thinking.
The Precison Straight-Walled Cartridge Rifle:
As with last year, the biggest focus this year will be on the PurePrecison / Proof Straight wall 350L project. I knew going into it that it might be challenging to get good performance from the 350L straight wall cartridge rifle and that I would most likely never get it to group like my 6.5CM. The cartridge has that reputation. I want to be able to offer some well researched advice for getting good performance from this type of cartridge though as the relatively new straight wall deer hunting regulations have given many Midwesterners the ability to hunt at distances that were just not possible before with the inaccuracy of slug guns. I want to be able to deliver some well-researched advice in how to get the best performance out of these cartridges. I was certainly unprepared for the level of difficultly in achieving this though. I will continue to examine this subject this year, as I believe I have come a long way and have some viable theories that will help shooters of this and other similar cartridges to get better and more reliable performance. Expect articles this year on the general performance of straight walled cartridges and a little about their history, loading the 350L, and some sort of ammo guide. There may also be a terminal performance examination but I wouldn’t bet on that coming yet.
Thanks to PurePrecision, Proof, Hornady, Barnes, and Nosler for contributing both product and technical expertise to this project.
Nosler’s just introduced Whitetail Country 180gr 350 legend ammunition
Garmin Xero C1 Chronograph Article
Garmin Xero C1 Chronograph Video
I have now used the Garmin Xero C1 Chronograph for an entire year and well over 1000 rounds from a wide variety of firearms and in a wide variety of situations. I guess I should probably write about it already. It is certainly a game changing piece of equipment and realistically I would not have been able to figure out some of the things I did without it as there was no way to use the old Oehler 35p on all the range trips I did for the 350L this year.
Athlon Velocity Pro Radar Chronograph
It is cheaper than the Garmin, and uses an always-on measurement technology like Garmin does. Can it hang? I have certainly seen some excellent things from Athlon in the past. The scopes they submitted to the Sub $1k long range optics series of reviews I did a few years back were, and are, some of my favorites in the category.
Leopold Mark 4HD
It is probably long past time that I looked at the new Leupold Mark 4HD line. The Mark 5HD 5-25x56 I reviewed a few years a go is a winner and that scope line is my favorite in the high end precision rifle / hunting scope crossover category. I am eager to see how the lower cost Mark 4HD line stacks up optically and mechanically, as it’s weight and features certainly indicate it will have similar crossover appeal.
BurstFire annealer
For some time I have been thinking I need to try stepping up my reloading game by adding annealing. Frankly, there was no way I was going to spend thousands of dollars on it though. After some research, I came to the Burstfire annealer. I liked the look of the design and the very clever torch adjustment system. It also features built in rotary tool attachments, and an affordable price, so I bought one. I’ll tell you what I think about it and also their military crimp cutting head. It won’t be 10 pages, I promise.
The first batch of 350L brass I annealed on the Burstfire annealer
Field Optics Research Tripods
This was another shooting accessory that I had been meaning to pick up for a while. I spend a good bit of time a few years ago at ShotShow looking at different makers products and decided that I thought the design of the DomeTOP Field Optics Research models was pretty clever. I picked one of those up as well as a bowl top. I also very much liked the design of their FlexLite GunPOD rifle vice and will be looking at their gun vices as well. I am no guru of competitive rifle shooting off of a tripod, but I’ll give you my opinion and not pretend it’s worth more than it is on the subject.
Field optics research Hunter 32DTC3 tripod holding a Kelbly’s .308 and Pro39TC3-MIL ASFPL with FM570B gunvice holding the 6.5CM PurePrecision Crux.
