A laser for cosmic bowling

The Streamlight TLR VIR II with the EFL from Darq industries.

Walter first saw the beauty of the night sky through a grainy tube on a lonely night in Quang Tri Provence in fight that ended up being called The First Battle of Khe Sanh. A first generation Starlight Scope was attached to a scout sniper’s m14 looking over the valley for Charlie. In a subsequent letter home, Walter protholotized about seeing the Milky Way to his dear mother, Mrs Sobchak. Checking out at her local Ralph’s a few days after receiving Walt’s, as she called him, letter she noticed a Popular Mechanic magazine with an illustration similar to what her sweet son had rambled about in his limited correspondence home. Curious about what Walt was experiencing over there, she bought the magazine, read it cover to cover and saved it for him in a box that she promptly gave to him upon his return stateside shortly before the great shame of the fall of Saigon. Walter, why in the fuck are you boring bowlers with family heirlooms on a Monday morning?

Are you listening to Walter’s story Donny? Walter is about to make a point here. For the next few decades as Walter floated around from Police to Private Investigator to writer at Soldier of Fortune, Walter kept a tab on night vision, all of which was various iterations of Vietnam Era Tech. It wasn’t until Walter hitched a ride on the back of a Humvee into Kuwait in the winter of 1991 when he saw night vision being used in a meaningful different way. Those early pvs7’s that he saw slowly made their way into pop culture. The point is this Donny, civilian bowler’s understanding and implementation of night vision has always lagged behind behind military technology, sometimes as much as decades. Take one scroll through Instagram and you’ll see tactics and kit perfected 20 years ago in a sand hut half a world away fighting people who’s lives have largely been unchanged in the last thousand years. A clone rifle with a laser that can double as a signaling tool for aircraft and satellites. What and the fuck are you doing, playing dress up or bowling? Hell Walter has used and owned LA5 NAVSEA’s. They are slick like a red 93 VETTE, but they have no place on a Bowler’s rifle that has even the smallest inclination to the idea that near peer bowling might transpire.

So years ago, ago, Walter sold off his LA5’s, PEQ15’s and his MAWL and invested that money in ammo, scopes and another set of Binos. Walter realized that he had no desire to broadcast his location to anyone in the same Valley with so much as a security camera, a Galaxy phone, or a Moses forbid pair of modern night vision. Well What about inside of structures and photonic barriers in transitional Lighting!?!? What are you a fucking park ranger arresting people for having errant, unregistered marmots? There’s a zero percent chance that you will be bowling if the power grid is up. Well what about inside of structures, where theres no ambient light. Now thats a valid point, and well, Walter has found a solution for that. Enter the Streamlight TLR VIR II with the EFL from Darq industries.

The beauty of this laser is its simplicity. The Darq EFL focuses the super wide spill of the IR LED of the TLR giving you an illuminator that matches the power of a full laser Illuminator. Sure the beam isn’t perfect as MAWL, but it’s 1/10 the price and you can mount it on a pistol or a rifle and if push comes to shove, you can use it as a white light. It keeps your rifle light and balanced. The aiming laser keeps up with the MAWL and other high end civilian lasers. For 450-500 all in you have a laser that you can use in CQB classes, protecting the Chicken Coup from predators or any other cosmic bowling scenarios a reasonable person can dream up.

Walter’s recommendation for those wanting to bowl at night, as put your money into binos and a thermal weapon sight. Darq Industries sells those too. Skip the heavy expensive shit on the end of your rifle, leave that for the Park Rangers and Clone Nerds.