EP 370: Swarovski Stabilized Spotting Scopes! Introducing the AT/ST Balance

You're listening to the Epic Outdoors Podcast, brought to you by Fierce Firearms. Epic Outdoors choice for custom hunting rifles.

Hey everybody, Jason Carter, John Peterson. We're missing Adam. He's hunting. Hunting, hunting. Wait, it's November. Why aren't we hunting? Why aren't you hunting? Just got back. Had it out again.

I just have a question for you, Wyatt, because I know how I feel about it. How do you feel when you don't get anything? When you go hunting and you don't get anything? I'm getting really used to it. There you go. That's what I was looking for. You're going accustomed. For some reason, I'm accustomed to it. Settled into it. It's getting a little old. I'm getting one of those drawers that you talk about. Oh, no, I can show you the drawer. That's the bottom corner of your desk right there? It's the entire desk. Okay. It's full. Of unused tags. One day we'll scrapbook them all up. Eight deer tags a year times however many years.

Anyway, how about you, John? How are you doing? Yeah, I had an Aida tag as well in Colorado. Yeah, but you've got a story or two also. I do. By the way, you've got stories. By the way, Cash, you've got stories. I've got stories that I don't want to talk about, but I want to talk about your guys' stories. I love talking about your guys' stories. Wyatt, have you got a good story for us at some point? Yeah, it might be too soon.

Salt in the wound, Jason. At some point, we can talk about it. Okay. I like it. All right. Hey, you heard it here first. We are going to get a story out of Wyatt. There you go. We're going to hold him to it. He's pretty quiet. I don't blame him. I don't blame him. But anyway, yeah. And, Colby, how are you doing? I'm doing great. Good. Thanks for coming. I have no stories. None? No. What? I do have a tag in the corner of my desk drawer. Do you? Yeah. We need to add to that. Yeah. We know people that can get tags, right, Wyatt? Yeah. I mean, we can put them right in the service and start applying. You know somebody that does that? Yeah, we do. We know somebody. Maybe hook me up after this. Okay. All right. We'll get you more tags than you need. All right. Well, today's kind of a special day. We got Colby Croft here from Swarovski. We appreciate him. What a great guest.

We had him on the podcast before. We learn a ton from him. We sell a ton of Swarov products. Why? Because they're incredible, right? Some of the best optics out there, bar none. Everybody knows this. That color of green is special in the hunting world. Produces incredible optics. So, we've got something special. Well, every time Swarovski comes out with a new product, we're super excited about it. Yeah. And it seems like years ago, there was multiple years when no new products came out. Sure. And lately, it's been pretty innovative. Yep. A couple of new products coming out. We've got rifle scopes that have come out. We've talked about it. We've even got a few more exciting things coming up that we aren't going to talk about today. Sure. And then we've got an exciting product we're going to talk about today. Then we have this. Right? Yeah. Yeah.

Well, you know, the old adage, you innovate or die, right? So, we're always working on new stuff. I always like when we come out with new products because I get to sit down with you guys and do this. And that's always fun for me. Have a good time. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. So, we went out to an event. Swarovski has a shooting event here and there or optics unveiling type events. You guys make us sign documents we shouldn't have to sign. But anyway, and kind of we really work over the new products and kind of use them in the field. You know what I mean? So, this particular product is coming out November 25th. If you're hearing this podcast, by the way, you don't even have to look at your phone. It's November 25th. That's when this is coming out. Or maybe 11 p.m. November 24th. I don't know. Logan, when can you get that? Whenever you tell me to release this, when it comes out.

Koei kind of is the boss today. It's the 25th somewhere.

Good point. I like it. Let's Google that. It'll be out today.

I like it. So, anyway, a long time in the making. How long, before we talk about it, but how long has this been in the making? You know, the first I heard of this, the first whispers I heard of this, I was trying to think about it the other day. It's probably been five years or so in the process. I heard rumors about it or, you know, we kind of pitched it around with each other. Is there a market for this or is it something we should pursue? And that had to have been five years ago. Which is typical for us. It typically takes us, you know, many years to develop a new product. Yeah. Isn't that wild? Yeah. Some of them almost a decade. I wonder how much money in R&D. Like, for that many years, if you were to allocate wages. Right. That low-gey bear's wages would just flat break them. That's right.

It's been a long time coming. It's pretty awesome. Yeah. And they don't take it lightly. No. So, this is a new spotting scope. It's a stabilized spotting scope. Let's just call it what it is. Yep. It's basically what it is. Right? We call it the AT balance, angled balance, the ST balance, the straight version. Maybe, Kobe, I'll just let you kind of dive in to a little bit of maybe the specifications. Basically, this is a competitor to a lightweight spotter. Yeah, for sure. The ATC and the STC. Right. Anybody that had those lightweight spotters, you did it for a reason. You did it to save weight. You did it to save space. Sure. Ease of use, whatever it is. And you don't need the 70 power. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yep, yep, yep. And so, this is a balanced version, a stabilized, electronic stabilized version of that. Yeah.

So, this technology certainly isn't new, and we certainly didn't invent it. It's been around for a really long time. 20 years ago, when I was working behind a gun counter, I was selling stabilized binoculars from Canon and Olympus and Nikon. They all made them back then. And the technology really hasn't changed a ton. And what has changed is, you know, everybody's better at making things than they used to. The electronics have been miniaturized and all that stuff. So, it's a lot easier to do now than it was before. And it's a lot, you know, of course, processing speeds are faster and all that than what it used to be. But the concept really hasn't changed in a long time. And there's basically two types of stabilization. There's like a digital stabilization, like if you think of a GoPro camera. Okay. You're basically, it's actually filming a much larger picture than what you're seeing.

And it's just showing you a part of it that it's moving around in there to counteract the relative movement of the camera. That's a digital stabilization. This is actually an electronic, like a physical stabilization. So, this has a lens element in it that moves around inside the optics. So, backing up a little bit, kind of a little optics 101. If you think about a rifle scope, for example, everybody's familiar with a rifle scope. You turn your elevation and your windage turrets and that, in your brain, it moves your reticle up and down, left and right. But that's not really what it's doing. It's actually moving the image that you're looking at up and down and left and right. And your reticle stays in the same place. And it's doing that by bending the light path as it comes through the rifle scope.

So, moving around a lens element inside of that tube changes, moves the image back and forth, up and down. So, that's what this is doing. It's got a lens in, behind, between the eyepiece and the prisms that is essentially suspended inside the optic that is then forced to move around opposite, equal and opposite to the relative movement. What your movement is. Yes, correct. Yeah, so there's, so it's got, it's got little gyroscopic sensors in there. It's got little tiny motors, essentially. It's got sensors that tell it where that lens is in space at any given time. And so, it's processing the movement that the gyroscopic sensors are feeding it, taking into account where that lens already is, and then moving it where it needs to be to keep the image that you're looking at from moving. I think about live valve suspension, like, on my Haunted Talon. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, and it's got, like, let's call it a thousand inputs per second or whatever it is, right? It's sensing all of these things. And so, I would say, like, even if they've been out for 20 plus years or the basic concept, you've got to think that these sensors are high speed, lots and lots of inputs per second. Yes, much more sensitive than they ever used to be, and the processing time is much faster. So, this samples that movement roughly about that same, about a thousand times per second. Wow. So, what that does is it makes the relative movement of your image not herky-jerky. It's very, very smooth because it's making little teeny tiny corrections at very fast speed. So, some of the products that are out there now, you'll see, I mean, you'll get some latency or you'll get some floatiness to the image. So, if you move it really quickly, it's a little slow to start, and then it catches up,

and then it's slow to stop. So, you get some floatiness. This is doing it so quickly that any floatiness that would exist is almost imperceptible. It's really, really smooth. Wow. If it's a thousand times per second, I mean, just compare that to videos, 24 to 30 frames per second. Right. Video we watch all the time. Right. So, it's imperceptible. Yeah. Yeah. It's so much faster. Yep. So, in the, you know, there's, it's got some, it's our optical system, right? It's essentially the same, similar optical system to what's in the ATC-STC, the ATX, STX-BTX. It's that. It's got Suaro Vision, which is our field flattening technology. It's got all of the, we left nothing on the table as far as optical quality goes. Because a lot of times people would say, well, with an EL range, is that the best glass? Well, no, the EL is. Sure, sure.

Because we've got coatings, different coatings and things like that. You're saying that's not the case here. Sometimes you have to make some compromises, right? To make it, make it do what it needs to do. So, there is one additional lens element in here compared to those other optics, but, which, which theoretically would reduce the, the light transmission a tiny bit, but it's not enough to even, you don't even. Well, I would tell you what I noticed when we actually put them side by side by side. So, we have this, let's call it the ST balance, the AT balance, and then the ATC. Side by side by side. And I, and I get these are slightly larger, right? That, that's got a 65 millimeter objective on the ATC. Right. Correct. Or excuse me, the AT balance. And, and so when we had them side by side by side, we were out at the shooting event, Tennessee. It was awesome event.

Everybody there, it's really good dudes, by the way. Yeah, it's a great industry. We were all, it was just an awesome industry. So, anyway, we were all sitting there and let it get dark. We let it get dark and we were looking at thousand yard targets with elk and caribou. And they had them cut out on the metal cutouts had points, individual little points like on a caribou. Yeah. And so we knew what we were looking at. And that, that, that AT balance, because of that, and I'm assuming maybe like you're talking about a swallow vision, 65 millimeter objective, all, all of the things, there was no, it was clearer than a non-stabilized comparative to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, Now, now what you are getting with a ATC or an STC is, is it's going to be lighter. It's going to be a little, a lot more compact. You pay a little bit of a weight penalty here.

So for example, the ATC STC, it's about 32 ounces, 32, 33 ounces. This is closer to 51 ounces. The AT, the AT balance is closer to 51 and the ST balance got a little smaller objective lens, which is, which reduces the weight a little bit. And that's closer to 45 ounces. But side by side by side, that was a, that had a better, clearer picture. A little more horsepower. And you could use it five minutes longer than say, a regular ATC. Yeah. If it makes sense, the, the, you know, the, the image stabilization, of course, everybody knows there's a market for it, right? The, the, our competitors that have stabilized binoculars out there, sold piles of them. Everybody likes the technology. Everybody thinks it's pretty cool. As cool as it, as it is in a binocular at those magnification levels, at these magnification levels, like 45 power, it's so impressive. Yeah. Yeah.

Like you can literally handhold 45 power and read road signs. Oh, we just did it, right? Yeah. We just did it. Yeah. Reading road signs. Just in the parking lot. What? 2,000 yards away. Kind of deal. 2,000. Reading straight side. Yeah. And, and, and up there on the hill, you, you guys saw all the little junipers and you can glass it under each one of them. Like you can sit there. Yeah. What I like, I was surprised. So I'm a, I'm a straight scope guy when, after dealing with it, a, the larger objective. So what was the objective again on this straight? It's a 50. A 50. Yeah. Versus a 65. Yeah. The straight's a 14 to 35 by 50 and the angle is 18 to 45 by 65. Yeah. So a little bit higher power and then also a bigger objective. Yeah. Uh, and I'm, I'm generally don't like the angled spotting scope. We already know this, right? Yeah. Yeah. We talked about it. Jason. I'm on your, right?

I'm on your same team. Well, you're not on our team. Nope. All the way. And so anyway, but switching teams. Okay. On this particular product. On this particular product. Okay. Because you can hold it into your body more. It's not like it just feels better. You're not, just hold your arms up here. Just at some point you're tired of it. Yeah. But when they're down to your body, you know, you've got more strength and whatnot. And so anyway, just having it into your body. Um, plus the power, plus the objective. Yeah. I just feel like there's three pluses. Yep. In difference to this. Now this might pack in your, in your, uh, pack just a little bit better because it's straight. For sure. And it doesn't have the kink in it. And for, yeah. And for handheld, like we've slimmed that middle of that down, kind of like an NL binocular. Yeah. Um, so that, so it's more. It's more ergonomic. Yep. Yep.

And so, yeah, I think either way, there's a place for both of them. For sure. But absolutely. I'm telling you. Uh, so what shocked me, this was, this is the product that I thought was an absolute waste for Western hunters. When I first went out there, I'm like, this is the product I do not need. And when I walked away, I was like, this is the product I absolutely need that I thought I didn't need. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. I mean, there's some things we just know we're excited about. Yeah. We're, we're excited about higher powers. We're excited about, uh, I've always teased them about doing a straight BTX. When you have binos, do you know of another kinked bino? You know what I mean? So, I just like a straight bino. Yeah. And so, I want a straight BTX. Of course, that's probably never going to happen. No. Right, Kobe? No, never going to happen. Okay. No. Five years down the road?

No. So, so anyway, um, you know, it's just kind of one of those things I was like, I don't, this isn't something I need. You can throw a digiscope adapter, throw your phone on there, and we were videoing each other shooting at a thousand yards. That's amazing. Holding. Holding it in your hand. Holding it. And so, that just kind of tells you, as you're listening, if you, whoever's listening is interested in this, it just tells you about the stabilization on it. Yeah. Everybody there, and we've got a video that's going to come out with this on the 25th, shows you everybody there was videoing with it and had no problems. Now, is it locked down like on our max tripod or something? Not necessarily, but it is not jerky, moving, or anything like that. You're not compromising like what you were thinking. Like, it's not like you need to put it on a spot, on a tripod to see what you're looking at.

There's none of that. You don't need to do that. The only limiting factor would be you wish you had 70 power. You know what I mean? Sure. It's not, it's not a movement issue. Right. With that. Yeah. And you know, when I first heard about it or first started thinking about how I might use it in my hunting scenarios, I'm like, well, that'll be great. I'll put it on a tripod and it'll get rid of the wind wiggle. You know, that was kind of how small minded I was about it. I'm like, well, that'll be, or on a, on a window mount, I can leave the truck running if it's really cold and it won't jiggle. You know? A diesel truck. Yeah. A diesel truck. Yeah. And it won't jiggle. It does that. It does both of those things very well. You put it on a tripod and it's, it's fantastic. Yeah. Yeah. You can afford to have a lighter tripod. Yeah. You can. Yeah.

And get away with a little bit more, a little bit lighter of a little lighter duty tripod or a taller tripod. And have a little more wind shape. Yeah. But my man, I put it on a tripod and used it for about 20 minutes, took it off the tripod and never put it back on. Yeah. You know, I, I, the same with the window mount. Yeah. I just hold it in my hand. Think about like, just picture antelope, which I know, Wyatt, you, you, you're a connoisseur. Got my attention. I'm a connoisseur. John, you'll kill anything. Yeah. Yeah. Logie bear, he'll kill anything. Maybe not. I would. I don't know. Bears don't have horns. I like horns. Including juice boxes. I would kill juice boxes. Start applying these to javelina hunting. I listen. So I'm just saying though, what, just imagine if you're, you're rolling through high numbers a game, you know what I mean? Or you just want something quick.

You can just look at it, move, look at it, move. Yeah. Think about putting on a window mount, which I love window mounts. I love tripods. Like we were raised with tripods. We'll never get rid of a tripod. Sure. There's always a need for that. You know, if you're hunkered in for three hours or you're going to watch a bull and he's sitting there bedded and you're going to, and your job is to make sure that you know when he stands up, I mean, you're not going to handhold that for three hours. You're going to use a tripod. Correct. But man, this has its place. It certainly does. It's the speed and accuracy, identifying your target, moving on. Yeah. Speaking of antelope hunting, I tagged along on an antelope hunt a couple of weekends ago in Montana. And the, you know, we would, we would crawl up to a vantage point and look at the herd at 1800 yards or whatever.

And then they would all turn to me and go, what are we looking at? And I'd pull my little pirate scope up, you know, and be like, there's two bucks in there. One's pretty good or whatever. And I was doing that at two, two miles handheld without having to put a tripod up and get up higher or any of that stuff. So it was, it was, it was really, it was a really impressive scenario. Yeah. I was in Colorado two weeks ago with a similar situation. There were so many deer. I couldn't classify them fast enough. And when I was setting up a tripod, they were getting into the trees before I could classify them. So having this there would have been an absolute game changer because I could have seen not only that they had horns or didn't have horns, but definitely could have put at least most of the points on them at the distances I was looking at free handing.

I would say he's a rookie though, Wyatt, wouldn't you? Like you and I, we would have had it. We had it covered. It's part of being old. Yeah. Right? Experience. It's a young man's game over there.

Not something you'd understand. It's true though. The speed and accuracy of, of all of that. So, so at the, this is the way I look at products is you buy them. If, if, if it's going to cost you an animal not to have it, you should have it. Yeah. I tell Jenna, Hey, it's going to cost me an animal. We don't have choices. You can't argue with that. You can't. You can't. Except for then she's like, where's the bacon? Like, why are we, why are we having all these empty tags, the tags that aren't unpunched? What was the thing that cost tags in the freezer, Carter? My choices. Oh, I do. I'll put them in the freezer. I have no problems with that. You know, another, another example of how, how to use it in the field. A couple of coworkers of mine just got back from a coos deer hunt in Arizona.

And if you've done that before, which I'm sure you have, you either set two tripods up, one for your binoculars, one for your, your spotting scope, or you have to do the whole, take the binoculars off, put the spotting scope on once you spot something. It was really quick when they spotted a deer to just grab it, look at it real quick, handheld, put it back down and move on. Right. Without having to set up a second tripod. No one else. You're looking at that fast. You can see enough. Now we need a, we need a spotter of 70 power on a tripod. That's, that's a big deer or whatever. Yeah. Right. Right. Right. Yep. Yep. One thing I worry about like being a straight guy is this with the angle, like is that target acquisition, just getting used to where am I looking? You know what I mean? Like a little bit versus just having this straight. Yeah.

And I've run into that a little bit with this because I don't normally hold a spotting scope in my hand. Okay. Right. So yeah, on a tripod, you set it up and look at it from the side. I'm like, okay, it's pointing down range. This, you know, you're, you're holding it. So I've, I have struggled a little bit at first to kind of find what I'm looking at, but I use an angle spotting scope. And so it's a pretty steep learning curve. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty interesting. Pretty awesome. Yeah. One thing Kobe brought up earlier in the conversation I hadn't really thought of was the, for digiscoping. Yeah. Take the jerkiness out of your tripod is you're following moving animals. So yeah, that was pretty interesting to me. I didn't, one thing I never thought of. Yeah. If you've got a real moving game. Yeah. If you've got a really good fluid head, you can do that anyway. Right.

But if you've got a really lightweight tripod, some backpacking tripod or whatever, and you're really trying to get good video in the field, it, it, it gets rid of all of that stuff. You can pan, follow moving game. And it, it produces pretty good. If you, if you like to digiscope, it produces pretty good. Well, I think everybody does. If you didn't video it, it didn't happen. Right. Right. So is every single person videoing game, like we're always like, like Logan's like, what do you think about this two by three? And I'm like, really? Video everything. Yeah. A doze fawns. It's still in your phone. You keep it in your phone forever. I love teasing Logan. Five year old video of a fawn. Anybody that's pouring water in the gas tank, I guess I'm just always questioning everything. Tease my dad then. I was not involved. He was just the one lighting the match. Exactly.

Did you hear this podcast? No. We were rolling. I'll go back. Go back. Me too. Yeah. They, they, they tested it. Logan, what number was that? By lighting a match and putting it in the water. Three, six, eight, I think. Oh my gosh. Three, five, eight. It was the last one. You can't make it up. You're eligible for the Darwin. Yeah. Something like that. I'm here and alive. Obviously I'm a little smarter. Well, anyway. So yeah, I think this is a product that I think is absolutely made for everybody. Not just backpackers or something like that. Although there you go. You could, you could, you know how archery hunters especially are concerned about weight. You could go in the field with one of these and not take a tripod. Yeah, for sure. Tripod weighs what? Three pounds? Yeah. So. You could totally eliminate it. Yep. I have a hard time doing that. Me too.

I mean, you know, I want to know exactly what I'm looking for, but you could do it. Could do it. You could take a pair of binos, a pair of twelves, let's call it, you know, a pair of twelves or probably a pair of twelves. You can handhold twelves and you could take the stabilized and you would go in the field without a tripod. It's kind of, it's, it's going against the grain of what we were trained here in the West. But I'm telling you, we were out there holding it. Yeah. You all would have been able to judge deer at 1700 yards or whatever that hill is. Yeah. You think about like archery elk, run and gun archery elk. A hundred percent. It'd be awesome. You would not take a tripod. You could totally take this. You find a bull, 800 yards, handhold and shaky, whatever, pull this out. Yeah. Yeah. You're running and gunning. You'd want to cut weight anyway. So this would be a, you know.

I'd say Pengwich, you're up there on Pengwich. Yeah. You know, it's a lot of thick country. You're not glassing like four miles, generally speaking. There are, there are places you can do that, obviously. There's places. But there's a lot of places you would just be like, you'll just jam it in your pack and walk and start walking. Exactly. Yep. A lot of times if you are on a backpack style, on 45 power, it's going to be plenty to know what you're looking at. Yep. You could throw your scope on there, throw the 45 and then zoom in your, excuse me, throw your phone on there. Yep. On the scope, zoom it in and then zoom in your phone too. You're going to, you're going to know what you're looking at. Yeah. I would argue if, if you're going to do that, take, get eights, not 12s. Now you're talking.

Eighths are, you're talking my lovely. Now you're talking. Because then you can, you can acquire it. You don't have a lot of shake and then you can switch to this. It would be amazing. I'll tell you what I never, I guess if we're going to talk about that for just a second, just, just the field of view. I never gave field of view enough credit. Yeah. I just cannot believe when you've got a little bit lower power, but high quality glass, being able to see the entire hillside or roughly with just a little bit of movement. I just, I never gave that enough credit. This last go around when I was in Colorado. I mean, it was a big deal. I just started noticing field of view. I had high power bino's, regular power, low power. I mean, I have a whole double, literally. The whole set. Oh, dude. Collect them all. Eighths, twelves, fourteens, other, other brands too. Cause you just want to compare.

And then I've got my BTX and then STX and all the things, all the things. Small, small, you know, all the things. And you still can't fill a tag? That might be my problem. I see a deer and I can't decide what to look at it with. Hold on, John. I got to get in the back seat and pull out this perfect set of 10 and a half by 52s. Thumb through the optics and figure out. I do have 10 by 52s. I mean, there's not a bino I feel like I don't have. I love it. Well, we've talked about, I use eights. I use an eight power binocular and I don't feel like I'm missing anything. The first time I ever went coos deer hunting, the guy I was with had a pair of eight by 32 ELs. And he put those on a tripod and he saw every deer on the mountain. Which is funny. And so I tell Adam, I'm like, I want to be able to put these on a tripod. And he's like, what? And you just don't understand. Like I tell you.

So I had a group of guys. We were in Colorado and I had a group of guys. I don't know why we're talking about eights. Whatever. Whatever. I had a group of guys and they noticed this came up. Hey, we want to check out the epic tripod and this and that. And I'm like, all right. And by the way, have you seen this? And by the way, have you seen this? And we started pulling out optics. And I said, I want you to look through my eights. And they're like, I mean, they didn't want to touch them. Yeah. Right. You know what I mean? It's kind of like, I want to be seen with these. Because eights never won the West. You know, tens won the West. Twelves are starting to win the West. Fourteens you always have to have. And so anyway, the guy sheepishly put them up to his eyes. He's like, holy crap. Yeah. You can't tell the difference between eight and ten. No. You cannot tell.

If you did a Pepsi challenge with somebody, they would never know what they're looking for. Yeah. But you can absolutely see a difference on the field of view. Yeah. And field of view, maybe we talk about the importance of field of view just a little bit. Yeah, for sure. And usually you'll trade. One of the really impressive things about our SoaroVision package, one of the things we were able to figure out is usually you trade field of view for eye relief. And eye relief is how far from this lens your eye needs to be to make a good picture. And normally if you have really long eye relief, you have a very small field of view. With our SoaroVision technology, we've actually figured out a way to have both. You have to have both really long eye relief so it's comfortable to use or you can use it with glasses on. And still have. And still have wide field of view.

I prefer to have a wide field of view because I don't, first of all, I don't move my optic as much. So let's say I put my eights on a tripod. I can see more without touching them. I can see a bigger swath of country without touching them. So I don't have to move them as often. So, you know, when you're moving them, you can't see anything anyway. So I can look at more country without moving them. It feels less claustrophobic. It's like it pushes the edges of your field of what you're looking at out a little bit so it's a little more immersive of an image. And I don't feel like I miss much. Yeah. And then you said the human eye is made for an eight. Yeah, an eight power is the optical ideal for the human eye. Yeah, the eight by 42 is the golden ratio. That's the perfect ratio for the human eye. So then I decided I'd need another pair of eights. So I got the eight EO ranges.

And so when we're talking about putting them on a tripod, I don't know if maybe we should delete this part or not. But you can. Easy. They can be retrofitted to be able to attach to a tripod. They can. And mine have not been yet. And I know yours have been. Mine did because I talked to you. Made it happen. And I got them back. And they're in my office. Yeah, I'll get there. I didn't want to put them down during the hunting season. Yeah. Anyway, it's pretty fun stuff to talk about. And it does get a little bit technical. And at some point, you just want to go in the field and start hunting. Sure. And I get it. But having the best optics for what you're doing, I think, is important. So you can't have too many optics. Yeah. And we're getting to the point where, with optical design, it's hard to do much different. You know, like you're bound by the laws of physics, right?

It's the way the light moves through glass and all of that stuff. Really, what you can do is you can add electronics. Yeah. To, you know, to increase the functionality or whatever. So one of the objections to an optic that, you know, now is not just an analog optic. It has some electronic function to it is battery life, right? What happens when the battery goes dead? Well, what happens when the battery goes dead is you just have a fantastic spotting scope without image stabilization. The battery is a rechargeable battery. It's got about a 12-hour use line. Continuous. Continuous. Yep. So it's got… Probably got two or three days. Yeah. When I used it in Montana antelope hunting, I used it for two days and didn't even have to charge the battery. I never turned it off. If the… It has a sensor. It knows if it's being jostled or not.

So if it doesn't detect any movement for a while, it will kind of go into a low power mode to save the battery. And then as soon as you bring it up, it comes right back up. The stabilization comes right back up. And you for sure can use it without stabilization. But the battery life is long enough to be useful. And it's, you know, the battery comes out to recharge it. You can hot swap it, throw another battery, and get a spare battery and go for several days. Yep. Yep. So one thing I want to talk about a little bit is what we experienced out here. A, you've dropped one. Okay? Yeah. So we've got Colby here. Besides the unlimited swaro points that he has, he gets to drop whatever he wants. Yeah. I dropped it on the concrete from my head high. Didn't lose your job? Which isn't… Yeah. Didn't lose your job? My head high. I'm not standard size. So I'm a front size. So yeah.

Dropped it from about three feet. Thank you. No, it's not a front size. Yeah. So I dropped one of these on the ground. So it has one of the downsides to physical stabilization or electronic stabilization in an optic is it's a little bit fragile. Can be. So we talked about those first binoculars you could get 20 years ago. Some of those were so fragile that you just during normal use, that floating lens would come out of place and you'd have to send them off to get them fixed. When this system is armed or electrified, that lens essentially is floating in there. It's not physically connected really to anything. It's got to be able to move around. And so if it gets dropped, if this type of stabilized optic gets dropped while it's turned on, usually that's a catastrophic failure. This has an accelerometer in it.

So it senses if it's going to be, if it's being dropped, it senses it and shuts itself down and locks down immediately. So by the time it hits the ground, everything's locked down solid and it should survive it. Mine, the electronics were fine in mine. The glass was all fine in mine that I dropped. And I dropped it on concrete, well, on asphalt from about maybe four and a half feet high off the top of a suitcase in the backseat of my pickup truck. And all it did was kind of mash the front objective edge a little bit. But it's still, you could still use it. It's still usable. Yeah, still usable. Electronics were fine. Yeah. So I expected to look down and see it in pieces when I, yeah. I want to, so when we were out here, you were like, listen to it. Oh yeah. And we were all quiet, right? And you dropped it and just caught it. Yeah.

Within six inches or whatever, it went click and it locked. Yeah. I almost want to do that while we're sitting here. Can we do that and like hear it? Like what if I put my mic up next to it? I don't know if you'd hear it. I think so. Let's try it. Hold it above your head and drop it right in front of your face so you catch it right by your mic. You're giving it to me? You want me to do it? Yeah. Well, yeah. It's mine. You break it. Listen. Listen. Listen. There you go. Pick it up. Do it again. Yeah. Do it again. So you're letting it drop three, four inches. Yeah. It's not dropping far. Yeah. And it's locking. That's the locking. It locks itself down. Isn't that unbelievable? Yeah. Button on the rear to activate the stabilization. You press it for a couple of seconds and it turns on. It also is a battery indicator. That light is. And I forget how many times each blink means what.

Does it change color? It stays green. It's either red or green. It goes to red. When I drop it, it goes to red and shuts itself off. I think when the battery gets super low, it may go to red. I'm not sure. But the charger itself, when you put the battery in the charger, it actually indicates how much charge is left on the battery. Awesome. It's just a little tiny charger. So that's what I do is just drop it in there and look and go, it's still full for tomorrow or whatever. But I would think two batteries, it gets you through a four-day hunt. No problem. Without... You just don't look through a spotter that often. No. It probably lasts me a week. Yeah. Or longer or something. Depending on if you accidentally left it on. I think I'd still buy an extra battery. Yeah. I just love having the backup. Yeah. I don't know. I get sick of all the crap. Have you seen the stuff in my truck?

I mean, it's... Orifices are full. Yeah. I got cables and chargeable items everywhere. Get back to the camp trailer and it takes 10 minutes to plug everything in. It does. It does. I got to charge my watch every night. I got to charge my phone every night. I'm not doing the watch thing. Now I got to charge my spotting scope. Is that an iWatch? Yeah, it's an Apple Watch. Yeah? Yeah. Is it telling you you're good and healthy? I don't know. I don't know how to use it. Pick up your knees a little higher as you're walking. It says we're 5,600 feet. Is that close? Oh, wow. Yeah. Holy crap. Look at that. Yeah. That's what I use it for. Jeez. Wow. That and heart rate? Heart rate. Make sure I'm ticking. There you go. Pretty awesome. Do you remember... Tell us about the Swarovski warranty. I can't remember. Yeah. The optical system on all of our products is a lifetime warranty in the U.S.

So it's basically anything you can't touch, harm, or mess with from the outside of the scope is the optical system. Warranty. But if you can mess with it, drive over it, whatever. Yeah. That's obviously on you. But like the rubber armor, right? Over time, that may wear smooth or you may get some dings and dents in it or whatever. That's a 10-year warranty on that. There's a couple of different warranties on this product because the electronics have one warranty and the battery has another warranty. I think the battery is a two-year warranty on the battery. I believe the electronics in the scope are a five-year warranty. The... You know, I was working in this industry when a lot of the range-finding binos and all that stuff came out. And there was kind of a perception in the marketplace where like, okay, if my range-finder part of

my very expensive range-finding binocular stops working, then I just have a big, funky binocular, right? Big binocular, heavier than it needs to be or whatever. Like there was a perception that electronics couldn't be repaired or fixed because most of the electronics in your life, think about your big TV anymore. There's no TV repairman anymore. Your TV goes on the blink. You just throw it away and go to Costco and get another one. We can repair this. We can... We do this in-house. We build this in-house. So it's repairable. It's a lifetime product. It's an heirloom quality product. So it's not like when it's out of warranty, we can't fix it. We can still fix it. When it's out of warranty, there just may be a charge involved. It's never been that bad. No, it's not bad. Everything I've gotten back looks cherry-brown. Oh, it looks amazing. All wrapped and fancy.

Well, that's one of the benefits. There aren't that many true optics manufacturers out there. And we build this stuff in-house. So that's one of the reasons. What do you mean by that? So it's outsourced? There's not that many outsourcing? Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of brands. You'll see if you look closely at a lot of different brands, you'll see some products that are very similar with two different brand names on them. We don't do any of that on the Swarovski side. We build it all in-house. It's the best way for us to control quality. So these are our designs, our prototyping, however you want to look at it. This is designed, prototyped, manufactured, all that stuff in one facility. And we feel like that's the best way to completely control the quality from start to finish. You know, we don't make screws and springs. We have to buy some parts from some places. Of course.

And we don't make optical glass, but we grind it all in-house. We buy it in raw form and grind it and coat it in-house. You've been back. You've been back to the actual factory and all of that. I have. Is it pretty cool? It's amazing. Yeah, it's really cool. Yeah. Not only is it amazing from a manufacturing standpoint, you know, like the processes and the technology and all of that. It's in an extremely amazingly beautiful place. It sits right at the foot of the Tyrolean Alps in Austria, and it's spectacular. Wow. And there's some really cool stuff that happens. Like our one quick example I'll give is there's a river that runs essentially through our campus, and we use water out of that river. We need cold, clean water in some of the processes, right, like we're grinding glass. Yes, right. We do use some of that water.

We put water back into the river after we've used it, and it goes back in cleaner than it comes out. We clean it all up and put it back in the river. The other thing we do, though, is we pump that cold water into essentially radiators in the ceiling on our shop floor, and that cools the shop floor just with cold, radiant heating in the ceiling. Wow. Yeah, it's really cool. And in the winter, the heat from the machines essentially warms the shop floor. When I say shop floor, it's a gigantic, you know, manufacturing facility with tons of CNC machines all over the place. But little cool things like that, like we have a kindergarten daycare on the campus there for people that work there. With the stream that runs through it. The stream that runs through it. Everybody's got life in it. Stock to trap. Safety first. Stock to trap, yeah.

They've got a cafeteria where you can eat for like $4 a day. Your employees can eat for $4 a day. It's a really cool place. Pretty fun. Obviously environmentally controlled. Are you putting on whites to go in there? There are some clean, yeah, for sure. There's clean rooms. There's some parts of the factory that aren't, like where we're machining scope tubes and stuff like that. It's just a big machine shop. But then you get into the assembly and all that, and they're in clean rooms. It's pretty awesome. It's really cool. You should invite us to go once more. Come on. Let's go. You buy them? No.

I think it'd be worth your money. Settle down. Bump the brakes. Bump the brakes. No, it's really cool. And it's easy to see when you see the quality of the place where these are manufactured. It's easy to see where this quality of our products comes from. Like it's from top to bottom. And all of our processes, everything in there is just top notch. Pretty cool. Pretty awesome. Yep. I would argue, and this could be for the guys that need something to argue with their wife about getting a new product. It's an investment. Like we're looking for that. This is a total investment. It is. I bought, like recently I sold a pair of 15s, and I sold them for more used than I paid for them new. Yeah, isn't that crazy? Yeah. Because of time and appreciation. That's the way it is. Yeah. Yeah. It holds its value really, really well. It holds its value really well. For sure. It is.

It's one of the very few brands that does that. Yeah. There's other good brands that make great glass, and we sell it. Yeah. And we love them. We have a great relationship with them. And there's guys that are very loyal to certain brands. Yeah. As well as Swirl. They may have multiple different brands in their truck. Yeah. But what's that? Well, it's great about where we're at now kind of in this industry is there's really, even the bad stuff now is way better than the medium stuff used to be. It's kind of like archery equipment. Yeah. Like a really crummy bow from today is 10 times better than what we used 20 years ago. And it's the same here. Like a lot of the Pacific Rim stuff is getting actually quite good and starting to approach some of the quality of some of our stuff. Yeah. They're years behind us still. They'll never get there. They'll never. But it's...

It's the one thing you guys are very innovative. I just can't believe. I mean, if you guys... I mean, you're looking at what we're dealing with.

Maybe read off a few of the specs, like length-wise and a few things like that. Yeah. The straight is 45.9 ounces. The angle is 51.9 ounces. Yep. So you're looking at... This is in metric.

Looking at about 10 1⁄2 inches in length on either one. So they're nice and compact. I would say two... Very compact. Water bottle and a half. Yeah. Maybe. We have the same diameter as the Monster. Yeah. It's 1 1⁄2 white Monster. I thought we did a drink Monster. I've had so many questions. It's like, no, John. And by the way, John, is that your Monster? Yeah, I have one of them. We went over this. It went from two a day... So we're talking moderation. To two a week. Oh, yeah. Moderation. Good for you. Moderation in all things. Anyway, so here we are in the eyepiece. This is the power. This would be the focus. Yep. You can still attach it to a tripod. It comes with an Arca Swiss foot. Yeah, in the box. A little lanyard. Lanyard spot there. Eye cup. This is nothing like... Yep. Eye cup diameter is the same as the ATX or the ATC, STC.

So if you've got a digiscoping adapter that fits those, it'll fit this. It's really hard to work here. It really is. I could see. There's not... It's kind of like... I've got boxes in my office that I haven't opened yet. I'm like, oh, I just... You know what I mean? At some point, do we hunt just to use the gear? That's true. Yeah, you've got to justify all the gear you've got. No, I just like to use the gear. Am I hunting because of the game or am I hunting because of the game? Yeah. I'm somewhere in the middle. Yeah. I mean, it all makes for a fulfilling life. For sure. Well, in good gear, good gear no matter whether it's this stuff or whatever, a nice rifle or good boots or whatever, it all improves your enjoyment. It adds to your enjoyment in the field. It does. It's like, you know, there's nothing worse than being cold and wet and tired and, you know, having gear that's failing you.

So... It's the truth. Wow. Yep. Flannel worked, you know. Yeah. And old regular binos, my Redfield, whatever they were, 10x50s, I think they were. They worked. Yeah. I thought they were awesome. Yeah, for sure. They weren't awesome. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. And so, anyway, any takeaways, Wyatt? You were working it over outside a little bit. Any takeaways, what you felt like? Would it find a place in your truck? It probably deserves a place in my truck. I mean, it's earned its way there, probably. Yeah. I was really shocked on how efficient or, I guess, impressive it really is when you turn on that image stabilization, how it locks it in and you can, like I said, read street signs at 2,000 yards. I mean, that's a lot. You're going to be able to tell if it's a 350 bull or not. Yeah. Yeah. You know?

Yeah, anecdotally, I was, my buddy's got an elk tag, one of those hams tags in northern Utah. And so, we were up last weekend. I was glassing, just sitting on a glassing point in my truck and I could see the highway down below me, but 3.12 miles according to Onyx. And I could read the, where it says speed limit 45 or whatever, I could read that. But I'm like, am I really reading it or do I just know that that's what it says because it's a speed limit sign? Well, there's another sign, but I didn't know what it said. It said slow vehicle turnout ahead. And I was able to read, you know, those five inch tall or four inch tall letters handheld. At three miles. At 3.1 something miles. Yeah. Impressive. Yeah. Wild. Yeah. Okay. So, we're talking price range-ish in the threes, right? We didn't crest four. Yeah. Well, no, barely. The angle's just under four, 39.99 and the straight's 38.50. Yeah.

Yep. Yep. So, anyway. At the time of this recording. Well, I mean, with Colby here, this is what they are. That's right. If you want to call in, we'd love to visit with you. So, anyway, very, very tough to, they're going to be high demand, tough to get. Yeah. We're going to chase it for a little while. They're slow to build, for sure. Yeah. They're a highly technical product. It's kind of like that 115 objective. I was like, what's the deal with the 115? And you were like, you don't understand. They're, like, losing money trying to make that. Yeah. There was a lot of waste with that lens. It was, it's, we're building that lens. Now, we've got it figured out better. But we started off by building that lens on a machine that was never meant to build a lens that size. So, it just took forever to get it right. Yep. It did. Yeah. There's a lot of waste.

But one thing I'd like to touch on, if I can, is that, you know, we haven't showed this to very many people. You guys, of course, got a sneak peek of it and all that stuff. But I get a lot of questions about when's the bino coming. Right? I didn't know we could go there. We can go there. There's two answers, though. And one's an easy one and one's kind of a complicated one. Which one would you like? Well, I know. We rambled about it. But five years from now, you can probably talk about it. But for right now, no. Okay. We're always working on new stuff. That's the easy answer. I know it's coming. You know, I don't even know if it's coming. You need to listen. I know. I need to listen a little bit more closely. Yeah. So if you look at this, if you compare this to, like, the ATC from a price, but very similar optical system. And this adds about $1,500.

The stabilization adds about $1,500 to the price. Pretty close. So extrapolate that to a binocular. We're not going to make a... You've got an expensive bino. We're not going to make a crummy one if we make one. You're trying to decide. I'm sure if I'm Swaro, I'm trying to decide what the market can bear. Yeah, for sure. If we made one today, it would be, let's say, $6,000 and be shaped like a shoe box. Right? We've got some room to go before we get the miniaturization and the design down to the point where we can put it in a binocular and still make a binocular shape. Yeah. That makes sense. So we're not there yet. All right. Well, I love it. I like new products, though, especially from Swaro. I'm geeking out. This is so awesome. Logie Bear. I love it. We're going to have to start docking his wages, just putting in a little savings. Can we do that?

It's like a retirement fund, but it's just my optics fund. Just a bino fund. The dock is like 5%. Whatever you want to do. Whatever you want. You want to sign like another two years where you can't go anywhere? And then you'll just give them to me for free? It's possible. Five years. Nothing's free. Really? You'll give us five? It depends on how much free I'm doing. I'm not going anywhere.

Logan is always in negotiations. He's always up for a good deal. He is. Yeah. I've told Logan if I can get him to spend his whole paycheck at our store every week, that would be my goal. He does a great job. Pretty soon we got grocery delivery. Jenna, will you call Walmart and have it delivered to Logan's house? Why? We got him locked in. We got to pay his fees. These are great ideas. I'm in. So they're writing them down. We got a year to the contract every time you come up with an idea like that. This is also. Logan, why don't you tell us about the little betting scheme you got going? What app do you use? Oh, the law she is awesome. Oh, my. Logan's lost some money on the Jeffrey Epstein files. I did. I lost. I was convinced that the Epstein files were not going to get released. The next day after I put money on it, Trump comes out. 50 bucks. Let him out. Release him.

I want a unanimous vote. Now you're at, what, 3% of winning? I lost all that money. You did lose it? Yeah, because they canceled it because the House voted unanimously. Oh, so they're coming. Yeah. So that was done. What other money have you got? What else did you bet on? I got a little bit of money on J.D. Vance being the next president of the United States. Oh, my. Logan, you are the reason why we can't have lottery tickets in the States. That's right. I'm buying stock options. Is this all legal in Utah? Yeah. You buy it as stock options. So it's this app that buys it that you bet through stocks. I got it. It's kind of like pirating movies. It's awesome. Kalashii. This isn't a paid promotion. It's how we keep the new generation broke. I love it. I mean, what? Do we know how to do this? I have no idea. Me neither. Once you learn, you'll never stop. I'll bet Devin knows.

Devin did know what the app was as soon as I said it. I don't know that he's on there, but. He's privy to that kind of stuff. All right. Well, pretty awesome. Kobe, we appreciate you coming in. Yeah, appreciate having me. It was awesome. Yep. Just love being part of the cutting edge. It's kind of a perk of being a dealer. Having said that, we don't get him any sooner than anyone else. Right. This is the first time we've had it in-house. And what day is it? What, the 19th? We got six days, and it'll be out. And so, anyway, but it is fun. And so, anyway, we've got some, of course, we've got some ideas. If you ever wanted to listen and take us over to the factory, we would tell them what we want. Sure. Yeah. Like a straight BTX and stabilized. Straight BTX. 35 power. Stabilized straight BTX. How about this? Straight pair of binos, 35 power stabilized. There you go. Who's got a pen?

I don't think you need a pen. I think you already know. We've bit your ear enough. All right. Anyway. I do want to give some advice, though. If you're at all interested in getting these, get on our waiting list soon. Yeah. Like, just get it. So, we do have a waiting list.

There's nobody on it, because we can't talk about it yet. No. Except yourself. If you hear this. I am our first customer. If you hear this, you're going to be near the top. Yeah. I'm the top. I'm getting this AT balance. Yeah. Can we keep this one? No. No. You didn't even think about that. There was no hesitation. Zero hesitation. He's mean. I'm sorry. Not a chance. He's going. He's got another dealer. You probably got four or five more dealers you've got to stop at today. I might. Somebody taking you to dinner, at least? No. Nobody's taking you to dinner. Oh, good. All right. What are you doing?

Well, we got some wings in the fridge. Made Wyatt sweat a little bit. They were a little warm. Oh, yeah? They were warm. All right. Anyway, thanks again. Thanks for the update on what else is coming out. We can kind of read between the lines. I can neither confirm nor deny. Exactly. I'm just guessing. And pretty fun. Call us if you're interested. 435-263-0777. Epic Optics. Epic Outdoors. We're going to have them. We ordered heavy, knowing they were going to be a little bit tough to come by. Sure enough, they're going to be as tough as ever. Yeah, they're going to be tough. Swarrow always has positive thoughts when coming out with stuff. Sure. But then the demand always exceeds what they can put out. Yeah, we're always guessing. We don't know for sure. Especially when it's a product that's kind of revolutionary like this.

There are other products like this on the market, but there's no angled. Nothing else that's angled. Anything about tariffs? How's Trump? Is he hurting us or is he all right? We're at a 15% tariff on European goods. Okay. Yeah. It is what it is. It is what it is. Yeah. We had to take a little bit of a price increase in September. I'd pay it though. Yeah. I mean, we're supporting Trump, right? Yeah. So it just is what it is. It's the hunting industry and that's what we do. Worth it. Hashtag worth it. But anyway, off we go. You got anything else for us, boss? Huh? Me? Yeah. No. Nothing. Buy one. Get your eyes in one. You want us to? I may or may not be second on the list. I don't know. We'll see if Adam beats me there. I'm second. So you can't be second. Adam's not here. Okay. Then I'm third.

I'll give John the second spot. See? And anybody can use the excuse. You buy one. You need to sell it. You're going to make money. Oh, yeah. That's right. Yeah. Early spray given. All right. Okay. All right. We appreciate it. Of course, we're going to come out with everything on social as well as a little video clip of us using it and kind of looking through it, talking about it. All the specs and everything will be out on the 25th. Right now, it's the 19th, so we've got a little bit of time. You don't know that because you don't even know we're recording it at the moment. But, hey, got to keep it in the back of my mind so I don't spill beans too early and get in trouble. Could you imagine if Swarroll got mad at me? Yeah. And Trump would have to pardon me maybe.

But, anyway, hey, he's been pardoning some people, so whatever. I might be on the list. You might make it. I never know. All right. Thanks, everybody. Let's face it. If your goal is to kill big stuff, you need to draw quality tags. Quality tags are typically hard to draw. To increase your odds of drawing good tags, you need to apply in multiple states. That's where an Epic Outdoors membership can help. For only $150 a year, you get access to our consultants, our online tools, and to Epic-approved outfitters, and members-only optics discounts. With unlimited access to our team of consultants and access to the Epic Outdoors magazines, applying in multiple states is easy. No more worrying if you're applying for the best areas, no more applying for a unit where there has been a die-off, and no more missing opportunities where you could be in the field and not sitting at home.

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Epic Optics is an authorized dealer for Swarovski, Leica, Zeiss, Vortex, Leopold, Kawa, Sig Sauer, and more. Here at Epic Optics, we are committed to getting you the best deal for the glass that fits your needs. Go to EpicOptics.com or call in to speak with our consultants who will fit you with the perfect optics for your next hunt. 435-263-0777. If you're looking for your next hunting property, look no further than St. James. St. James are the experts at all sporting properties across the West. Their team of agents will spend the time getting to know you personally and find out which property out of the hundreds they have listed is perfect for you. If you've always wanted a property where you could hunt and fish, go online to StJamesSportingProperties.com or give them a call at 855-711-7577 to learn more.