Bushnell Tactical Seminar: The Cave Test

A Marine Gunny Sergeant died and went to heaven, where Saint Peter met him at the pearly gates. “You’ve done a wonderful job Gunny,” Saint Peter tells him. “You may pass through the gates to eternal life in heaven.”

“I’m not so sure,” he said. “Are there any Army Rangers in there?”

The gate master’s response was instant and reassuring, “Of course not. We’d never let Rangers in here.”

The Gunny agrees, enters and spends a few days taking in all the wonderful sights until he wandered into a square where a muscled man with a Ranger-style haircut was barking orders and commanding the instant respect the Marine had hoped to never witness again. Running back to Saint Peter, he complained, “I thought you told me there were no Rangers in heaven.”

“You were in the town square, weren’t you?” Saint Peter inquired.

“Yes, I was,” Gunny admitted.

“There are no Rangers here,” Peter said. “That’s God. Every once in a while he likes to pretend he’s a Ranger.”

It’s my opinion that those who have stood on the front line of freedom make the best, albeit colorful, seminar instructors, and such was the case last week at the Rockcastle Shooting Center, where former Rangers shared that joke while helping conduct a Bushnell Tactical Optics seminar. Much of the development in the civilian sector is driven by what is needed in the Sand Box, so it’s refreshing to get an accurate answer about some new lever or gizmo from vets who have been there, instead of a stuffed shirt’s patented, “I’ll get back to you.”

Here’s a look at some of the Bushnell Tactical’s latest.

Need rails on your spotting scope? Sniper teams do, which explains the holes you see on the sides, top and bottom of the LMSS 8-40x 60mm. Yes, the rubberized and armored scope is still waterproof, and currently it’s only available in (you guessed it) sand color.

I saw an early version of it two years ago, but how cool is a 10 power Tactical Monocular. This isn’t the stuff of Col. Klink, either. It has a mil-based reticle and was incredibly clear, with a sexy strip of Picatinny underneath. At 13.2 ounces you can toss it in your pocket when you head to the range, and what an awesome way to teach young shooters the basics of milliradians.

Then there was the Fusion 1 Mile ARC rangefinding binocular, new and improved this year because the company ditched the LED readout that required an image-compromising color tint for readability. Now it’s an LCD readout and the optics are Bushnell Tactical clear.

An Accuracy International AX308 topped with a Bushnell Elite Tactical XRS 4.5-30x50 mm was shot extensively, as were several ARs from JP Enterprises. Most of the semi-automatics were topped with Bushnell’s new lineup of entry-level AR Optics. Despite their price point, there wasn’t a single hiccup as hundreds of Black Hills rounds went downrange in two days.

Everything was awesome; right up until the point Bushnell’s National Sales Manager for Military Sales Thomas E. Fuller told me we were going to shoot in a cave. Batshivers ran down my spine at the thought of gun-toting writers carrying loaded firearms in cramped quarters along with cave crickets.

I’d share the photos they took of me amongst the flying rodents, but I have the same panicked look on my face as that new-to-heaven Gunny did when he discovered God’s a Ranger fan, too.