The ultralite blackout

Hi all haven’t post up here in a while,

Just got back from a few days in the hills, been going out most weeks trying to stay hill fit and the dog doesn’t mind. A lot of spring growth around now and deer feeding throughout the day in places, probably half the stags seen are still in hard antler and a lot of tasty yearlings about with there moms and sisters.

This trip I was running a new Trijicon MRO red dot sight which has a lot bigger field of view compared to the aimpoint I had before. Pretty happy shooting steel out to 200m with 125gr supersonics, so time for a hunt with this new optic. The only thing I’d change is get a low QD mount.
Main goal hammer some goats and drop a yearling hind or a spiker.
A big walk and climb in the rain and wind to the main hunting area, in the afternoon got camp setup and start glassing if the cloud and rain lifted, not luck there so straight into bush hunt mode. Had a few fails with the wind all over the place, I thought the 30mph wind would of been more consistent but thems the breaks and you never give up until you get to the car park. The good thing about going in when it’s rain or in at the tail end of a storm the animals will be feeding hard out in the sun when it stops.
Next day suns out good visibility see a few small mobs out feeding in different directions and plan a stalk with the best wind, well that option didn’t go to plan and busted by the wind again. Well this happened a lot from clearing to clearing and up a creek and down a spurs so on and so on. We could of shot a velvet stag at 10m in a creek and a couple of pregnant hinds in another spot and lucky for them there not on the menu this trip. The only luck we had was the goats and we gave them hell every day. It was hard to stalk onto the deer with goats snorting and me shooting high velocity loads. I had one spot I’d see 2 hinds and a spiker and we’d go over for a stalk and there gone, carry on stalking spook another stag and 2 hours latter look back too the clearing where they were and there’s a 8 and 6 pointer with 2 hinds and 2 yearlings. If I had my 308 or my 338 edge this game would be over a long time ago but this stalking and it’s more fun when hunting with the hound dog.

Finally got a yearling with a 125gr TMK at 77m, she was with 2 hinds and I could of drop them two as they were just standing there for a few seconds deciding to run, there was 2 mobs of deer 450m and 600m away on the other side of the gully and they weren’t worry about the shot.

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Clearing with new spring grass mowed over by the deer and goats.

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Deer on the far side.

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Typical bush good for a red dot sight, The picture doesn’t give it justice how clear the optic is. With this optic it’s super light weight and compact rifle perfect for weaving through tight manuka stands. It’s so much better being in here during the middle of the days hot sun as it was 24 degrees according to the Kestrel wind meter.

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A couple of goats out of the 21for the trip.

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Nice one Joe, sounds like the little red dot is doing the business.

Nice light looking outfit, the country certainly lends itself more to the long range option, God write up.

Great hunting �� Nice looking red dot. So how user friendly is the adjustment on the Trijicon for when you are changing between supers and subs? Also is the red dot a dot or more of a sparkle like on the aimpoint? Cheers

Great red dots those, had one on the AR...

They make a low mount too which would be better for your head position on the stock i'd imagine.

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Originally Posted by T.T

Great hunting �� Nice looking red dot. So how user friendly is the adjustment on the Trijicon for when you are changing between supers and subs? Also is the red dot a dot or more of a sparkle like on the aimpoint? Cheers

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It’s 14 clicks between subs and supers, so at the moment I’m just running supers to keep it simple. I normally use a 2.5-10x42 on it that I can run both and then dial to any range.

If you are seeing a sparkle through your aimpoint you probably have a astigmatism..

Love how specialized your rifle setup is!

Awesome tikka! I've got mine dialed in to point and shoot with supers out to 200m, then just use the BDC reticle for shots out to 300m. With subs, I use the BDC reticle a couple of marks down to point and shoot out to 100m.

20m zero for supers, 75m zero for subs.

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Originally Posted by The bomb

If you are seeing a sparkle through your aimpoint you probably have a astigmatism..

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You might be right. I know with some brands of red dot sights ( leupold and Tasco)I get a beautiful chrisp dot and with other brands like the aimpoint I get a bit of a sparkle effect. I just thought the the sparkle was from the led being being reflected back onto the centre of a central lens from down below?

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Originally Posted by T.T

You might be right. I know with some brands of red dot sights ( leupold and Tasco)I get a beautiful chrisp dot and with other brands like the aimpoint I get a bit of a sparkle effect. I just thought the the sparkle was from the led being being reflected back onto the centre of a central lens from down below?

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Yes some people’s eyes are different astigmatism and in the photo above I had the brightness up way to bright to shot with and just for the picture. I’ve used quite a few red dots and owned 2 Aimpoints and the only down side of them is the small tunnel effect look through them, with the Trijicon it has a larger field of view in the tube. Most of the time the brightness is set at 3, mornings, evenings and big dark shaded native forest it’s set on 2. If theres a white goat the dot wash’s out and more brightness it needed. For quick close multiple goat shooting the red dot is hard to beat especially in low mountains cloudy conditions with low visibility, I’ve shot a lot of animals in the rain and fog. It puts a lot of hunters off the fact than they can’t see and shoot hundreds of meters to sit in the tent or at home when there’s so much hunting to be had any time of the year.

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Originally Posted by Dublin

Awesome tikka! I've got mine dialed in to point and shoot with supers out to 200m, then just use the BDC reticle for shots out to 300m. With subs, I use the BDC reticle a couple of marks down to point and shoot out to 100m.

20m zero for supers, 75m zero for subs.

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What power do you set your scope to so the hashmarks line up best for the subs?

Sent from my SM-A515F using Tapatalk

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Originally Posted by berg243

@tikka have you used a holosun? looking at ones like the 512 to put one on my next 45/70 .

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Not that model but a mates got the 403 I think that looks like a Aimpoint T1, he’s got it on a Ruger 10/22 for bunny shooting in central Otago and it’s good fun on that spot lighting.

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Originally Posted by tikka

Yes some people’s eyes are different astigmatism and in the photo above I had the brightness up way to bright to shot with and just for the picture. I’ve used quite a few red dots and owned 2 Aimpoints and the only down side of them is the small tunnel effect look through them, with the Trijicon it has a larger field of view in the tube. Most of the time the brightness is set at 3, mornings, evenings and big dark shaded native forest it’s set on 2. If theres a white goat the dot wash’s out and more brightness it needed. For quick close multiple goat shooting the red dot is hard to beat especially in low mountains cloudy conditions with low visibility, I’ve shot a lot of animals in the rain and fog. It puts a lot of hunters off the fact than they can’t see and shoot hundreds of meters to sit in the tent or at home when there’s so much hunting to be had any time of the year.

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Ummmmm is there supposed to be a red dot in the middle of that picture? I guess that answers my question if your red/green colour blind cant you see the red dot especially on a green background. Who's stupid idea was it to make deer red and bush green.

I see thers also a green dot model. Anybody had a go with one of these and compared it to red?

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Originally Posted by T.T

You might be right. I know with some brands of red dot sights ( leupold and Tasco)I get a beautiful chrisp dot and with other brands like the aimpoint I get a bit of a sparkle effect. I just thought the the sparkle was from the led being being reflected back onto the centre of a central lens from down below?

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If you can,take a picture of the red dot
if it look like a nice round dot in the photo it’s your eye that’s the problem,I had it with my trs 25 as I get older it is becoming a nice starburst shape instead of the crisp dot it was 10 yrs ago..

Green is too bright for me especially at night, red seems to be easier on the eyes.

Thats awesome. Great looking country, sure looks like deer heaven.

Could you have two red dots , one behind the other, one for supersonic and the other set up for subsonic? And still see the two dots?
Or alternatively having quick detach mounts and swapping one for the other when required ?

Astigmatism sucks for red dot/illuminated optics.

When I view them it looks like a comet, usually a fairly solid dot with a "tail" streaking out high right. Depends on optic but can even appear as a sunburst.

Trick is to ignore the burst/tail and focus on the most "solid" part of the dot. It is off putting and hard to get used to but I don't even think about it anymore.

Nice setup btw.

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Originally Posted by Tuidog

What power do you set your scope to so the hashmarks line up best for the subs?

Sent from my SM-A515F using Tapatalk

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As its only out to 100m max i just use the lowest setting on my scope which is x3 power. Scope is 3-12X42 SFP, big bright IR reticle with numerous BDC points.

Subs are really only used on goats, which in reality is a max of 75m and mostly inside 50m.

But in general i rarely push out past 6X when shooting at animals as i find that plenty within the effective ranges of a 300 black.

Another way to check the roundness of the dot is to turn it (sideways) while looking through it, if it’s an imperfect dot it will rotate, eg flare at top goes around, if the dot/sparkle keeps the shape oriented eg flare stays in same place while you turn it’s how your eye perceives the dot (not the dot itself)