(MANSFIELD, TEXAS 2019/01/23) – Sightmark expands the Citadel riflescope family with the addition of the Citadel 3-18×50 LR1 riflescope. This premium riflescope is designed for hunters, medium-to-long-range shooting, competition shooters and law enforcement.

The Citadel 3-18×50 LR1 (SM13039LR1) features a 6x optical system giving you a wide magnification to shoot medium-to-long-range, fully multi-coated lens system, exposed pop-up locking turrets and a red illuminated reticle with 11 brightness settings for contrast against targets. The Citadel is IP67 waterproof, shockproof, dustproof, fogproof and comes complete with flip-up covers, throw lever and a sunshade cover.

A reticle widely used in shooting sports across North America, a first focal plane reticle means the dimensions of the reticle are true to any magnification, thus range finding and performing holdovers can be done at any magnification. The Citadel 3-18×50 LR1 reticle features ¼ MOA click adjustments at 100 yards.

Your Wraith digital day/night vision riflescope will need to be zeroed.

What is zeroing?

Zeroing, or ‘sighting in,’ a scope means aligning your point of aim with the point of impact for the bullet to hit where you want it to. If you don’t sight in your scope, you will likely miss your target. Zeroing is necessary for hunters, long-range precision shooters, competitors and anyone concerned with accuracy.

Sighting in requires a target with bullseye and grid, ammo and plenty of time. To save costs on range fees and ammo, we strongly recommend boresighting your Wraith riflescope with a laser boresight. Boresighting is quick, easy and the most efficient way to get your Wraith digital riflescope close to zero with the ability to get on paper with your first shot.

To learn how to boresight your Wraith scope, click here.

Once boresighted, you’ll want to head to the range to fire live ammo. (Don’t forget to remove your boresight!) A vise or shooting rest will keep your rifle steady during the sight-in process. This will keep your rifle centered, mitigate recoil and reduce fatigue.

The hole left from a .223 Remington bullet can be small and nearly impossible to see, even from shorter distances—especially if you have poor eyesight. Take a pair of binoculars or a spotting scope with you to identify where you hit on the target. You also may be able to see where you are hitting using the Wraith’s 8x magnification.

Follow these steps to sight in your Wraith Digital Riflescope:

1. Mount your Wraith riflescope with a comfortable eye relief. (Eye relief is the distance between your eye and the eyepiece on the scope. If you mount your riflescope too close to the rear of your rifle, the recoil of the gun can cause the scope to hit you in the forehead, causing what’s called ‘scope bite,’ resulting in a nasty cut or bruise.)
2. Turn your Wraith on by pushing down the center button until the Sightmark logo appears.
3. Adjust both the eyepiece diopter and focus adjustment until you get a crisp, clear image of your target. (The diopter is the measurement of the eye’s curvature. Since people’s eyes are all curved differently, the eyepiece diopter adjustment brings everything on the display screen such as your reticle and menu options into focus.)
4. Choose your preferred reticle pattern and color in the “Reticle Settings” menu.
5. Place the center of your reticle as seen through the scope at the center of the target, take 1 to 3 shots.
6. Tap the center button once to bring up the main menu.
7. Using the arrows on top of the unit, scroll down to “Reticle Settings” and tap the center button to select.
8. Use the bottom (down) arrow to scroll to “Reticle Zero.” Press the center button to select this option.
9. An additional red crosshair—called the red adjustment reticle in the manual—will pop up alongside your chosen reticle. Keep your reticle’s crosshairs pointed to the center of the target.

Note: There will be four sets of numbers displayed on the top of the “Reticle Zero” screen. These numbers represent the reticle’s offset from the center. They are not necessary for the zeroing process but may be useful for readjusting to a known zero if you save these numbers.

10. Using the up, down, left and right arrows, move the red adjustment reticle to the bullet hole (“point of impact”) group of holes you shot in step 5.
11. Exit out of the “Reticle Zero” setting by pushing the center button to return to the main screen.
12. Take another 1 to 3 shots.
13. Repeat steps 5 through 12 until zeroed. The Wraith is properly sighted in when the point of impact is the same as the point of aim.

Merriarm-Webster suggests marathons aren’t just for runners; in fact, by the trusted source’s definition, a marathon is “something characterized by great length or concentrated effort.” Always one to box things up with labels, then I had to take up marathon hunting. Of course, I’m also one to stir pots so responses to inquiries were immediate… and effectively repetitive, “What’s marathon hunting?”

In the context of long stalks and even longer sits, marathon is practiced by countless hunters, predominately during deer season and especially during the rut; however, there is another side to marathon hunting most hunters have never considered—hunting daylight into nighttime.

Yes, it’s a thing and last I checked, 17 states permitted this transition during deer hunting season. Hunters could legally transition from hunting deer during daylight shooting hours to hogs, predators and varmints, or some combination thereof, at night. To this end, here in Texas, some of us literally turned hunts into 24-hour pursuits—yes, we load up on energy drinks.

While numerous states allow marathon hunting, doing so took some effort, especially in terms of optics. Hunters committed to hunting during the day and continuing into the night often had to change rifles from one topped with a traditional day optic to some type of electro-optic, i.e. traditional or digital night vision, or even thermal. Others literally changed optics, checked accuracy, and then returned to the hunt.

Of course, outside of traditional hunting seasons, hunting regulations from state to state are often even more lax when it comes to electro-optics, including using them 24 hours per day and effectively eliminating any need to switch firearms or optics.

Admittedly, optics suitable for handling a 24-hour task have been few, far between and expensive, until now. The Sightmark Wraith solves our 24-hour electro-optic problem once and for all without breaking the bank. At an MSRP of $599, hunters can jump into a digital optic providing true HD, full-color digital imaging by day and with the touch of a button, tried-and-true traditional green or black-white digital night vision for post-sunset pursuits. Even better, the Sightmark Wraith boasts up to 1080 HD photo and video capture with a 1280×720 resolution FLCOS display.

The Sightmark Wraith features 1-8x digital zoom, 4-32x magnification, CMOS sensor, 50mm objective lens, ¼-MOA windage and elevation adjustment values and SD card media storage compatible with up to 64gb cards. Photo and video files are self-contained in easy-to-use .jpg and .mp4 formats.

The Wraith’s battery life is up to 4.5 hours and can also be powered with a micro-USB cable. The Wraith also includes up to 10 reticles in 9 colors for a customized display and can detect targets out to 200 yards with the included 850nm LED IR illuminator. All this to close with good news. Marathon hunting is hard work. It’s good to finally see a true 24-hour optic up to the task.

Click here to check out the Wraith digital day/night scope!

I don’t know if I would call myself a big-bore guy; I like ‘em small, too. Perhaps “centerfire guy” is more representative of my affinity for larger cartridges of all shapes and sizes, for a multitude of tasks, from personal defense to precision long-range shooting—admittedly, I don’t even spend much time in the .300 Magnum arena although I’ve built a few and am now madly in love with Hornady’s .300 PRC cartridge.

As a gun writer, running the gamut on centerfire cartridges does not come without challenges. Ammo is expensive when you spend quality time on the trigger, especially with new firearms. Out of the box, I spend quite a bit of time sighting-in, seasoning, gathering ballistic and rifle data, and running rigs through whatever paces I feel they are capable achieving, near or far; as an example, not long ago I took a Lead Star Arms Barrage 9mm Carbine to task at 300 yards, then 400, achieving a 5-inch group at 300 and scoring impacts with 3/5 shots on a 3-MOA steel gong at 400—certainly not the norm but the type of work I subject firearms to when reviewing.

This type of work doesn’t happen within just a box or two of ammo. To be honest, my work generally requires a couple hundred testing rounds, sometimes exponentially more if I’m really working to achieve true performance results, pushing limits and yes, battling environmental conditions like high winds. Either way, with a lot of lead heading downrange, I can ill afford to blow ammo on incidental tasks like getting on paper and dialing in optics. For initial shots, I depend on true view-through-the-barrel boresighting and optic adjustment and then move immediately into a laser boresighting device.

To be honest, I do occasionally skip the physical look down the barrel and go straight for the laser boresight, depending on time, whether I’ve used the optic on similar rigs and my environment. What do I mean by environment? Sometimes I try to “jump the gun,” so to speak, on range preparation. I’ve been known to install the optic in my home the night before and use a laser boresight on a target across the house—remember, boresighting (and shooting) at 25 yards generally gets you close at 100 yards—the same can be said for 50 yards and 200. If I can achieve a 25-yard boresight the night before, I’m generally on paper with first shots at 100.

One of Us is Not Like Most

While the juice is generally worth the squeeze as a gun writer, in terms of expenses, every expense definitely cuts into my ability to make a living doing what I love. To that end, using less materials to complete a project means greater profit—this is Business 101. Of course, I don’t cut corners either. So, saving on ammo, cleaning and maintenance materials, etc. makes both good sense… and cents!

And although I do write about shooting and firearms, most folks do not. There is no profit to be made, only expenses and shooting, whether testing, plinking, hunting or going extreme distances, can be expensive. Of course, expensive is subjective, too. Some might say .22 LR plinking is expensive while others aren’t deterred by the cost of .338 Lapua (and more expensive ammo—take a gander at .50-cal BMG and what is costs to run Cheytac and Tejas cartridges).

At the end of the day, for the vast majority of hardworking folks, expensive is clearly defined when it comes to one cartridge or another, and volume of shooting and I have yet to meet a fan of simply wasting ammo they paid for with cold hard cash. Yes, pretty much EVERYBODY likes to keep costs low. If for nothing else, boresighting reigns supreme when it comes to keeping your shots productive. After all, it doesn’t matter who you are, taking shots with no calls and no splash is no fun, even downright maddening.

Laser Boresights: A Journey

So, what’s the buzz on laser boresights? Looking back at my earliest experiences, the first boresights I used were barrel mounted and troublesome to say the least, even at the high-end of costs. Back then, you-get-what-you-pay-for was still frustrating. Soon after I dabbled in barrel-inserted laser boresights. With a tapered bore rod, these boresights were effectively universal; however, I also fought poor construction—expecting the laser to be installed straight and at center-mass was too tall an order. On the flip side, I also worked with some inexpensive fly-by-night models that seemed to perform well.

Now, years later, I’ve been using in-chamber boresights with great success. Among my personal boresights are Firefield and Sightmark, with Sightmark being the premium option. While in-chamber boresights are caliber specific, many cases are certainly similar enough to cover more than one cartridge with a single in-chamber boresight model—cases in point are .22-250 and 6.5 Creedmoor, as well as .243 Winchester and .308 Winchester, to list a couple.

In-chamber boresights have certainly changed the sight-in landscape for those who have elected to employ them, and certainly, as a total have saved shooters a jaw-dropping wad of cash—there’s no question. With a daytime visibility beyond 25 yards, these boresights are sure to get you dialed in close to center-mass and still close to the mark at a 100 sight-in, as explained earlier.

In lower light, if your optic can take it, boresights can certainly stretch out quite a bit farther, say to 50 yards, to close in on that 200-yard zero—100- or 200-yard zero is more or less subjective and one or the other can certainly be beneficial in terms of precision accuracy, depending on factors like load, target distance, etc.

Although Sightmark in-chamber laser boresights have built a solid reputation for accuracy, as evidenced in first-round impacts countless times for shooters at every experience level, there is always room for improvement. As a point of interest here, in-chamber boresight battery life has been a bone of contention for many a shooter. Batteries die at inopportune times and can be cost-prohibitive to an annoying fault. Also worthy of mention, depending on your surroundings, fresh batteries may not be the easiest to find. Of course, there’s a light at the end of the Sightmark tunnel and it’s worth talking about.

Accudot Boresights: Sight-in and Save More

The Sightmark Accudot Laser Boresight System, unveiled at the 2019 SHOT Show, was introduced with problem-solving in mind. While the Accudot holds fast to Sightmark’s precision-machined brass case and premium internal components, the device’s internal rechargeable Lithium-Ion battery is definitely a buzzworthy game-changer. In a device where battery life is notoriously short (and batteries are always more expensive than they should be), eliminating the need for replacement batteries is sure to amount to significant savings—for many, the savings are certain to result in recapturing the cost the Accudot entirely.

Even better, since battery life is still battery life even in a rechargeable system, the Accudot features an auto-activation, meaning the laser only activates while the boresight is chambered. One last notable feature is the Accudot’s calibrated diode. The diode ensures precise laser accuracy and doubles up on Sightmark’s boresight commitment to helping people achieve first-shot impacts on paper. No matter how the numbers work out—ammo or batteries—the Accudot’s aim is simply to save you time and money; for some of us, those two words are all too often one in the same.

The Sightmark Accudot Laser Boresight System includes a recharging dock, USB cable, wall adapter and carrying case. Click here to learn more about Sightmark Accudot boresights at https://sightmark.com/.

To learn more about the differences between boresighting and sighting in, click here.

Click here for instructions on how to use your boresight.

My introduction to digital optics doesn’t seem so long ago… but it was. In fact, it was over 40 years ago. My feet barely touched the floor of the theater and I’m sure I was covered in popcorn crumbs—my lips and teeth rosy from Red Vines and Dr. Pepper. My father may not have been excited to see Star Wars IV: The Last Hope (1977) but I sure was and since then I’ve often recalled the moment when Luke Skywalker uses his digital MB450 macrobinocular to observe Tuscan Raiders deep in Tattooine’s Jundlan Wastes.

Just a few years later, laden with popcorn crumbs with Red Vines by my side again, I watched young Skywalker use his Model 1000 macrobinocular to observe AT-AT Walkers on the ice-planet Hoth advancing across an open tundra toward Echo Base in Star Wars V: Empire Strikes Back (1983.)

Heck, we even see a feeble attempt at thermal imagery through a riflescope in Navy SEALS (1990,) although it was simply over-exposed, sepia-filtered footage with no signs of heat signatures or a reticle. Of course, I was still in the Marine Corps in the early 90s and had heard of thermal imaging… but I had never seen the technology—it was rare technology for enlisted Jarheads to say the least.

Fast-forwarding to the past decade or so, we saw digital optics in multiple grades and forms leap off Hollywood screens and into the hands of wanting consumers who had more mad-money to blow in a month than I made in a year. Digital optics, more specifically traditional night vision and ridiculously expensive thermal devices were showing up in the hands of more law enforcement officers, predator hunters, contractors and even niche sasquatch and ghost hunting enthusiasts. Before people knew it, Hollywood was in the game again, this time with legitimate products and original footage. Soon after, outdoor television jumped on board and we began seeing isolated night vision footage on hunts.

The trend continued and just five years ago, we began seeing massive drops in price points, stellar production improvements, and more compact product designs—technological advances that not only make digital optics more affordable but much more desirable, too. While traditional night vision seemed to maintain a higher price point than most people wanted to pay, say $5,000 – $10,000, digital night vision snuck in at a fraction of the cost with similar Gen 1 to Gen 2 detection ranges and image resolution performance—in 2015, the Sightmark Photon XT came in at about $600 with Gen 1+ quality while the Pulsar Digisight Ultra N455 jumped in with Gen 3 performance and a price point around $1,500. Thermal also became affordable with some thermal monoculars selling for as low as $3,500 with 240 to 384 microbolometer resolution sensors.

Today’s a good day to be in the digital optic game. While law enforcement and consumer use of thermal imaging optics has exploded, so has usage of seriously affordable digital night vision and more recently digital riflescopes offering crisp imaging around the clock. Costs of thermal riflescopes, monoculars and binoculars, Pulsar branded optics as examples, have dropped to between $1,800 and $8,000 while features have continually and dramatically improved, including 640×480 microbolometer sensor resolution, picture-in-picture, built-in video and WiFi, stored rifle and load profiles, rangefinding technology, customizable reticles, multiple color palettes and more. Even devices costing 4 times as much just 5 years ago did not include these features.

For most hardworking folks with smaller budgets, digital riflescopes have taken their place among the most popular options for affordable, multi-tasking optics with similar user-friendly features as today’s thermal devices. Their recent unveilings capitalize on the advanced technology showcased in recent digital light vision offerings. While thermal and digital night vision can certainly be used during daylight hours, imaging is generally pared down to hues of like tints and colors like blacks, whites and grays. Thermal may offer color palette options but digital night vision has always been the vanilla black and white you see today. Digital riflescopes give you much more than a black and white world. They give you full color.

When it comes to the latest technological advancement of digital riflescopes, color imaging, the Sightmark Wraith goes yet a step further, offering full-color 1080 HD imaging. From dawn to dusk, see the world in your field of view as it was meant to be, clear, crisp and vibrant. When the sunsets, the Wraith makes transitioning to black and white imaging, and even green imaging, as simple and immediate and pushing a single button. If you have ever hunted during the day and had to change optics or rifle systems altogether to continue night hunting, you understand just how valuable and convenient a feature like this can be.

Of course, the Wraith offers more, including features only recently added to today’s higher-priced digital optics like multiple reticle types and colors, built-in video, durable water-resistant construction, manual and distance focusing, a Weaver and Picatinny rail mounting system and upgradeable firmware. The Wraith also boasts 4x base magnification, up to 32x, and a detachable infrared illuminator. A third-party illuminator, like stand-alone IR illuminators from Pulsar, can be mounted easily to stretch your night vision detection range out to seriously respectable distances—skilled nighttime predator hunter, Bob Abbott recently shared footage to social media of a clearly visible fox milling around a field in the dark over 420 yards away—not too shabby for a $500 digital riflescope!

And this is where we are in 2019—a great time to be alive and amazing time to jump into digital riflescopes. Are digital riflescopes going to rule the world? Considering the many iterations of digital now at play in the world of optics, I would have to say yes. Digital technology has effectively invaded virtually every optic type available today—this doesn’t mean every model from every manufacturer. This means we see digital reflex sights, prism sights, red dots, low-powered fixed and variable magnification scopes, high-powered precision rifle scopes, rangefinders and spotting scopes, monoculars and binoculars and yes, most obviously, the optics considered in this article.

As these optics relate to more niche use, including low-light, nighttime and 24-hour activities, many of us agree, digital optics, in some form including illuminated reticles, most certainly do rule the optic world. And yes, I do believe it won’t be long before enthusiasts willing to jump into the digital fray find out these optics absolutely do rule!

Do you use a digital optic? Do you think digital optics will rule the world? Comment below!