Thompson Center’s $460 Laser

It may sound shocking, but I went outside to shoot again today, and it didn’t rain.

Okay. It did rain. But not enough to drive me inside.

I am still working on my ammo savings account. I want to have a stockpile in every useful caliber. In order to do this, I need to know which cartridges work. You don’t want to buy a thousand cartridges your gun hates. I have been itching for a chance to shoot my Thompson Center Venture so I could find out whether I wanted 32-grain or 40-grain bullets. Today I made it happen.

The results were pretty neat.

First, I should talk about my optic. Only noobs say “scope.” I say “optic.” And “polymer” instead of “plastic.”

I used an ATN X-Sight II night scope. Optic. I got this thing a couple of years back as a lark, using credit card points. It’s cheap by night OPTIC standards. It doesn’t do thermal. It’s infrared. Infrared is not as good as thermal, but this is cold comfort to the many pigs and coons who have been infraredded to the nether region.

I am no expert, even though I say “optic,” but I’ll give you my take on the–okay–scope anyway. There is nothing wrong with it. Expensive stuff is always better, but you can take this thing out of the box, put it on your gun, and shoot very, very well. The imaging is pretty bad, but that doesn’t matter if you hit what you point your rifle at. It’s not about pretty pictures.

It’s really just a smartphone in a metal case. I don’t think it has any real lenses in it. The magnification comes from zooming the picture. As a result, you get wavy, blurry scenes. Imagine zooming your Iphone to 25x and taking a photo. That’s the deal.

It has some neat stuff in it. You can move the crosshairs around, and that makes zeroing easy. You fire a shot, put the crosshairs on your original point of aim, move a second set of crosshairs to the place where the bullet landed, and push a button. You’re zeroed. Pretty much.

It records video. It tells you which direction you’re facing. You can set it to record your shots. It will record while you shoot, and when it feels recoil, it will save all the video surrounding the shot.

I don’t know what all it does. If you want to shoot things at night, and you don’t want to spend several thousand dollars, this thing will get it done. For the price, which was $600, it’s just fine.

That being said, shooting it at targets is unpleasant because the quality of the image is so bad. I think the best thing is to save it for night hunting and use a real scope for everything else.

I will post a target photo.

I shot three 40-grain rounds at the bottom-left bullseye. You will see the holes clearly…on the top-right bullseye. I zeroed the scope and shot 6 more rounds. They clustered in a small area to the left of the bottom-left bullseye. Can’t swear they all hit the paper, but it looks like they did. The zero was still not right, but it was close. The grouping was jim-dandy. Excellent for a hunting gun. No complaints.

I worked on the zero and fired 6 more rounds at the bottom-left bullseye. As you can see, they made one little hole. That was pretty sweet. I shoot this gun better than my Ruger Precision Rifle. At least for 6 rounds, I did.

If they didn’t go through the same hole, then they missed the paper entirely, and I’m confident enough in my shooting to say that did not happen.

I put 32-grain cartridges in the gun and shot some more, at the bottom-right bullseye. I didn’t do badly at all, but as you can see, the bullets made more than one hole. I call it 1.5 MOA. Either the 32-grain ammo doesn’t shoot as well, or fatigue got to me. It’s taxing to fight with your shooting bags when you’re still working things out, and the scope kept turning on and off because a power cable was not attached tightly.

I was tired of the scope, and I was not comfortable with my rear bag setup, so I got in the cart and drove home. Now I feel very confident about ordering 40-grain rounds. They appear to shoot quite well. They have a higher BC than the little bullets. They are more powerful. I lose a little velocity, but I think 3650 (according to the box) will not be slow enough to give me buyer’s remorse.

It’s pretty cool, putting 6 rounds in one very small hole. I don’t know how fluky it was, but it means more than a three-shot group.

The gun is very good. Thompson Center guarantees 3 shots into 1 MOA, and clearly, it will do that. The ammo is shockingly good, especially considering the price. It has ballistic tips, too, so it’s useful. It’s not just for targets. It will drop coyotes where they stand. Some people shoot deer with these things. That seems like a bad idea, but they do it.

I now have 1000 rounds on the way. That should be a sufficient buffer against Joe Biden and the day when Antifa and Congress become indistinguishable.

I’m going to put a Vortex PST on the gun and keep the ATN for shooting after dark and shooting with video. It will be nice shooting through a scope that isn’t like looking through a shower door.

I have an Athlon scope on the way. Some say it’s better than a Gen II Vortex PST, and the scope I’m putting on the TC is a Gen I. The Athlon is for my Savage .17 HMR. If it turns out to be better than my Vortex Gen I, I’ll put the Athlon on the .204 and the Vortex on the Savage. Presumably, I will never be able to use the Savage from over 300 yards, so it doesn’t need as good a scope as the .204. I think.

I’m pretty happy shooting this well with what seems to be a very basic stock. I am not totally convinced of the need for fancy stocks. If your barrel is free-floated and you have a good cheek weld, how does a fancy stock help you? Not sure. The stock that came with the gun appears to work fine, and it’s indestructible.

The results I got today give me hope that I will eventually be a good rifle shot. I’m already okay, but I want to be better.