Lamping the Night away 2012/13

[JohnGalway 1,043]

19th October

 

I got a new toy in the hope of ridding myself of the weight of the 28amp battery I'm currently using to light up the countryside with my LF170 Striker. The Optimus LD-50 Laser Designator is it's name. Tonight was the first night I had an opportunity to use it as the supplied mount didn't fit my scope so I had to order ring/rail mounts of Ebay.

 

The point of tonight's exercise was to test the Optimus' capabilities. With that in mind I drove to a farm which is heavily populated with rabbits, and has several open spaces measuring in the hundreds of yards.

 

Picking up a bunch of rabbits with the lamp I ranged the group roughly at something like 238 yards. I switched on the Optimus and played around with the beam width for a while until I was reasonably happy with the picture I was getting back through the scope. This is really quite different from using a traditional lamp in that only a tiny area of the scope picture is illuminated, not like the wall of light created by lamps. There is a lot to be said for walls of light but I am resistant to change at the best of times.

 

The windage/elevation adjustable mount supplied with the Optimus is junk. It constantly shifts the hotspot of the laser around the sight picture - usually away from where it needs to be centred on the crosshairs - while I was adjusting the width of the beam.

 

I selected a random rabbit and settled into the rifle for the shot. One squeeze later and Bugs had rolled over on his final journey to the big burrow in the sky. When I reached where the recently deceased lay I pinged my firing position and 245 yards was the result returned. Happy days.

 

 

Not long after this I had a wander around and thought I spotted a fox in the distance, over 300 yards from me. I couldn't positively ID the animal as a fox with either the lamp or Optimus and it eventually left the area. I didn't give chase as there is a dirty deep little stream between me and whatever it was and it's awkward to cross.

 

Getting fed up of that area I drove to the start of an old bog road and walked the remainder of the way out into the hill to a hillock we often use for lamping. I used the rabbit in distress call and was taken by surprise by a fox who popped up quite close in. I did, after some fiddling, manage to get the fox into my sight picture. But I then ran into a problem I had been made aware of previously. As the Optimus is so bright, the reflection of the light in the fox's eyes is equally bright meaning his chest was obscured by reflected light and I was unable to take a shot despite the fox being quite close. I am pretty unhappy with that, I didn't get a second bite at the cherry due to the nature of the ground. The terrain here may defeat the Optimus yet, I feel it may be better suited to less cluttered flatter land than here where snap shots are the norm more often than not.

 

I haven't given up on the Optimus yet, it was night one and some lessons were learned. It will aid me shoot foxes, I just wonder will it match the benchmark of the LF170, or fall short?

[JohnGalway 1,043]

20th October

 

I ditched the 28amp battery and Lightforce tonight, instead using my EagleTac T100C2 Mark II LED torch as my spotter. The lack of a heavy backpack weighing me down was quite a relief, this I can get used to. I will guesstimate that I can spot foxes eyes to 400-500 yards with the EagleTac, sheep eyes I could see past two hundred yards - but I didn't see sheep farther away than that tonight. The LED light is more clinical and cold than the warmer glow from the Lightforce incandescent bulb, it will take a little getting used to. Now I am really looking forward to my Fandyfire stl-v6 LED torch arriving. I have most appendages crossed that it will be much better than the EagleTac as a spotter.

 

I moved the Optimus mount as far back my scope as possible. I may try the tail switch next, I haven't played around with that yet. Another thing I may try is mounting the Optimus to the left hand side of my scope, just to see if it makes it more accessible for adjustment.

 

My first stand tonight is out on the commonage (the hill as we call it) where I saw that fox which stood for me last night. To add insult to injury I ranged that spot tonight and discovered my fox was only yards from me. Mostly I played around with the EagleTac here as there didn't seem to be any fox in the immediate area. There are two settings, General and Turbo. General you might use for walking around and other less important tasks. Turbo is quite impressive for a little torch this size. Seeing as I had a few rechargeable 18650 batteries in my back pocket I had it on Turbo all of the time, as I like to spot as I walk.

 

Discovering that I have yet again mislaid my Berghaus neck gaiter/hat my next stand would be down the road in bunnyland, maybe I left it there last night. About half way along my route I spotted the unmistakeable bright glow of a foxes eyes, here we go! Quickly checking out the lay of the land in that direction, I picked a flat topped dune of sorts, it's more of an island with an incredibly tightly grazed grass covering where the surrounding sands have eroded away on the wind.

 

I had previously adjusted the Optimus beam so as it would cover most of my field of view through the scope. I was figuring this would allow me to pick up a fox in the scope quicker than an intense but tiny point of light directly around the crosshairs. My fox was giving me hints with it's body language that I had disturbed it and it wasn't taking this intrusion kindly, I felt as if an exit strategy was being formulated rather quickly in that little brain. With the subtle green glow of the Optimus illuminating my fox just enough to take the shot I got on with the job and left the young vixen laying in the sand 116 yards distant.

 

 

Given different contrast and some cover I'm not sure how successful I would have been with the same fox/Optimus combination. All I can do is keep using the unit and giving my thoughts on it's performance. Get a laid back fox, or a fox more interested in something else like bait or carrion and I can't see a problem. Get a nervous or smart fox quick on it's feet and I can foresee problems with the Optimus beam covering such a narrow field of view when adjusted and tightened up towards the max of it's range and giving something of a duller picture when adjusted down low and widened in it's range.

 

This will of course suit many people down to the ground. But being a sheep farmer part of my job is removing foxes and I can't afford to mess up on the job very much before I run into real problems. Educating foxes isn't something I like to do.

 

I did see a second fox directly after I shot the one above. The wind was coming from it to me and while a call brought it in a piece, it turned tail and ran when I got the Optimus beam on it. It could have been the fox from last night, maybe it circled me and winded me then and remembered the green beam, or I may have lit myself up accidentally with the EagleTac or tapped it off the bipod, I just don't remember. Either way it scampered off and I didn't see it again.

[Deker 3,491]

Always a good read, and interesting to hear about the torches, well done John!

[JohnGalway 1,043]

Thanks Deker, took the night off last night and I'm going to pay for it, rain forecast tonight and doesn't look good for tomorrow either!

[SNAP SHOT 194]

NIce read john,

i have a friend who come into the store where i work who has just purchased the Nd50, i have to say i'm not convinced by his talk of seeing foxes out to 400 plus yards clearly,

But i guess i'm yet to be converted, looking forward to reading more from ya,

 

i haven't been out since so only 4 on the board so far... there seems to be plenty about, but yet again, the hoods with their guns have made them lamp shy...

another tough season ahead here...

 

 

atb.

 

Snap.

[JohnGalway 1,043]

Snap, the tighter you focus it, the brighter the visible dot is in your scope. But then again the tighter your focus it, the smaller the visible circle in your scope becomes, and that's why it doesn't suit me. I have read a lot of people absolutely raving about them, but when it doesn't suit my ground well it's no use to me. A lot of the places I shoot are just too cluttered with humps and hollows, furze, walls, boulders, etc. It would be too hard for me to re-find a fox I think. So I didn't do any further testing with it as I don't want to educate any foxes with a lot of fúckacting. However, I remember when I was up in Meath, huge open expanses of grass, I can see it doing well in places like that. I also see talk of people pointing them at each other and at friends which is downright dangerous, the more of that talk I read the more I agree with taking the safety labels off everything to clean up the genepool.

[SNAP SHOT 194]

We seem to shoot quite similar ground john, not much in the way of wide open fields here either,

And totally agree about the gene pool comment...haha

[JohnGalway 1,043]

Always a good read, and interesting to hear about the torches, well done John!

 

I meant to say check out the blog in my sig for more regular updates.

[JohnGalway 1,043]

We seem to shoot quite similar ground john, not much in the way of wide open fields here either,

And totally agree about the gene pool comment...haha

 

I was walking through one part of a valley the last night and it reminded me of the sea shore where you get rounded rocks from the wave action. There used to be landslides up there years ago, place got destroyed, all that's left now in places is a rocky shoreline!

[SNAP SHOT 194]

Bog doesn't seem as bad up this direction though, great scope for a long range shot there john...

not sure i'd fancy walking through all that clabber though...!!!!!

[JohnGalway 1,043]

Yes, the ground around here is nothing if not interesting, in the sense of the old Chinese curse "May you live in interesting times."

 

I remember a lad from Meath walking our "quaking bog" one night looking for a fox that didn't get hit, he came back in off it a changed man I think he found religion out there