This is probably of no use to those who have been using the various day/night stuff for the last coupla three years but maybe this could be of use to those, who like me, were still using traditional optics on deer and mid range pest control and then a digi add on for night time rabbit and foxing.
Ian @Blackwood Outdoors did the usual fine service inline with the approx release date and it turned up nicely boxed. Comes with some 30mm rings (i've not used those so no idea if they are any good but they look serviceable) and 2 x batteries and a charger. And a rubber ocular boingy thing (I haven't used that either) and a lens cap that is too noisy to operate for my liking, so I ditched that.
Overall first impression was that it felt far more solid and better made than I anticipated. I was sort of expecting something a bit plasticy and tinny. It is however very solid, and the buttons feel tactile and like they will last. It certainly doesn't exude good looks or feel like it is made with super high quality components but it just feels dense, solid and tough. Which is all it needs to be I guess.
Dead easy to navigate and set up etc. It has been a few years since I set up a dedicated NV scope and things have obviously moved on as this is very easy to operate. I have put it on a spare rifle (.243win) with the intention of it being a bit of a do everything rifle. I was considering selling the rifle due to the potential for 6mm and above to suffer lead bans. That is fine for deer but for a few years I have used this rifle as a fox gun and also a sort of 200-400yd crow, squirrel, magpie sort of gun. I don't want to shoot any of those things with solid copper. However, I have now worked up an accurate load using Barnes Varmint Grenades (once I realised that they need a whopping 0.225" jump in my rifle before they stopped being scattergun and suddenly went in to half an inch) Now it feels like this rifle has a purpose again and this Zulus thing can have different zeros and different ballistic profiles to just swap between the 62gn Barnes load and then a 100gn Prohunter (or a copper load for the future if need be) for those sneaky fallow.
Today I headed out to zero it (using the 100gn Prohunters) and just to get a real world feel. It was dreary today, drizzling and grey and I was walking with various kit up some steep hills, so don't expect bench rest performance or Hollywood editing. I have no idea what I am doing with these videos but just view them in the order they appear below to get a general overview of what this scope kind of looks like. I would say what you see through the footage below is very similar to what you see through the actual scope. I have just realised that there are some other settings that swap it between "natural" and something else and also you can turn 4k on and off and probably some other stuff I know nothing about. I should probably read the instructions properly. Anyhow, what you see is what you get and if that helps then great.
I then bore sighted it and took a shot which fell a few inches low and a touch to the right and then I did the freeze frame thingy to do the one shot zero. It has this feature where you can set a timer for 3secs or 5 secs before the frame freezes. Which works much better than trying to hold the rifle steady on your initial POA and then hitting a button without moving the rifle. This way I just set it to 5 secs and then hover the reticle over your point aim, it then freezes perfectly and you just move the reticle to where your intial bullet struck. And that was that. Apologies for the first shot, I didn't have all the stuff you need to shoot mega accurately but it basically works quite nicely.
Then up a monster hill to find a longer shot
ZT4K 20260201 132522
- YouTube
Ian @Blackwood Outdoors did the usual fine service inline with the approx release date and it turned up nicely boxed. Comes with some 30mm rings (i've not used those so no idea if they are any good but they look serviceable) and 2 x batteries and a charger. And a rubber ocular boingy thing (I haven't used that either) and a lens cap that is too noisy to operate for my liking, so I ditched that.
Overall first impression was that it felt far more solid and better made than I anticipated. I was sort of expecting something a bit plasticy and tinny. It is however very solid, and the buttons feel tactile and like they will last. It certainly doesn't exude good looks or feel like it is made with super high quality components but it just feels dense, solid and tough. Which is all it needs to be I guess.
Dead easy to navigate and set up etc. It has been a few years since I set up a dedicated NV scope and things have obviously moved on as this is very easy to operate. I have put it on a spare rifle (.243win) with the intention of it being a bit of a do everything rifle. I was considering selling the rifle due to the potential for 6mm and above to suffer lead bans. That is fine for deer but for a few years I have used this rifle as a fox gun and also a sort of 200-400yd crow, squirrel, magpie sort of gun. I don't want to shoot any of those things with solid copper. However, I have now worked up an accurate load using Barnes Varmint Grenades (once I realised that they need a whopping 0.225" jump in my rifle before they stopped being scattergun and suddenly went in to half an inch) Now it feels like this rifle has a purpose again and this Zulus thing can have different zeros and different ballistic profiles to just swap between the 62gn Barnes load and then a 100gn Prohunter (or a copper load for the future if need be) for those sneaky fallow.
Today I headed out to zero it (using the 100gn Prohunters) and just to get a real world feel. It was dreary today, drizzling and grey and I was walking with various kit up some steep hills, so don't expect bench rest performance or Hollywood editing. I have no idea what I am doing with these videos but just view them in the order they appear below to get a general overview of what this scope kind of looks like. I would say what you see through the footage below is very similar to what you see through the actual scope. I have just realised that there are some other settings that swap it between "natural" and something else and also you can turn 4k on and off and probably some other stuff I know nothing about. I should probably read the instructions properly. Anyhow, what you see is what you get and if that helps then great.
I then bore sighted it and took a shot which fell a few inches low and a touch to the right and then I did the freeze frame thingy to do the one shot zero. It has this feature where you can set a timer for 3secs or 5 secs before the frame freezes. Which works much better than trying to hold the rifle steady on your initial POA and then hitting a button without moving the rifle. This way I just set it to 5 secs and then hover the reticle over your point aim, it then freezes perfectly and you just move the reticle to where your intial bullet struck. And that was that. Apologies for the first shot, I didn't have all the stuff you need to shoot mega accurately but it basically works quite nicely.
Then up a monster hill to find a longer shot
ZT4K 20260201 132522
- YouTube
you can check the table on the scope to confirm what’s stored. Good clear image during the day, and on a moonlit night without an IR torch was like looking at the place covered in snow, rabbits stood out dark on a light background at 150 yards. I used the night sabre IR which worked well but will also try the IR torch that came with the Alpex for a comparison. Weight wise it’s great just like a normal scope and the hornet will be out more as a result.
