Well I switched the XTR 3 over to my 223 for my next 2 matches (Raton SRM this past Sunday and Ireland Guardian at the end of the month.
For those of you that don't know, Raton NM hosts the SRM Match on the NRA Whittington Center. 10 stages. 6 targets per stage. 1 shot per stage. I shot pretty well but had several blunders. Started off awesome by forgetting my pack at home which had my ear pro, tripod, kestrel, and sling in it. Made for a long day. Esp on the stage where you have to be elevated about 30" to clear a brush pile.
After the smoke cleared, my squad walked a little more than 5 miles (we started on stage 2 so had to essentially walk the course 4 times - 1 walking in, 1 shooting across, 1 walking back to stage 1, and 1 walking out from 1. Made for a long, but very fun day. Love this place. Favorite match of the year. Was super happy to end up shooting a 48/60 on the day. No bad stages, just didn't capitalize when I needed to. The tripod stage hurt and an easy prone stage, we had a target go down and I missed the near target both times. Very annoying this shooting sport lol.
Anyways to the point, the XTR3 is a fantastic scope. The glass was great and more often than not I was able to catch trace on my bullet. Granted its a 223, but its still awesome to catch that. At no time did I notice or was I able to see any CA and the resolution made all target acquisition very quick and easy.
FOV was in one word amazing. Very rarely did I have to zoom zoom down to find targets and when I did it was easy to quickly find the targets.
One thing you will notice almost instantly while looking through this scope is that the "black ring" inside the scope is almost non-existent. I don't know how Burris did it, but it is possibly my favorite feature of the whole scope package. Its almost like the scope "disappears" when looking through it. hashtaglove
Zeroing the scope on my rifle was a wiz. My biggest pet peeve on a scope is when you need to rezero the knobs and cant get the allen in the hole that is on the opposite side of the turret so you have to either get up or twist the knobs. so redic that scope manufactures did this. The new XTR3 has the 2 allen holes on the back side right in front of your face for easy knob rezero. Love this.
The knobs were very clicky but almost too firm for me. Just a disclaimer, I much prefer the dreaded "mushy" clicks the old M5 steiners were known for. That being said, the clicks are very tactile and ea click clunks into place no problem. Cranked up to 20 mils above my zero, the hashes lined up perfectly. Towards the end of the day, I was quite used to the knobs and was really enjoying the stiffer more pronounced clicks.
Last part that caught my eye is the new SCR-2 retc. The .1mil wide center floating cross is so small it doesn't block any of the target while allowing a very precise hold. This match this weekend had several small targets on the close stages. Usually they make me nervous due to the small size makes for an easy miss if your wind is off even as little as .1 or .2 on your hold. With this small center cross, it was like I could be more precise (0.05 wind hold on the left tip of cross) and just really mainly added to my confidence.
The only time I did a hold over was on the bush pile stage and that was due to short time allowed and shaky position. Not the experience Ill need in a PRS match but it worked without a hiccup.
Overall, very happy. Cant wait for them to get in the wild.
Regards,
DT
