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Rifle Scopes Impressions from the range...
- Thread starter Samegawa
- Start date
This is a great review. I've very excited to hear about the Kahles K624i 6-24x56 FFP MSR IR. I'm interested to get a perspective on the ruggedness of this optic. Thanks for all the hard work!
Hey Guys,
Thank you for kind words and encouragement! I´m back translating and will start to post the rest of the scopes we looked at this upcoming week. Sorry that it has taken me so long, but life is sometimes unpredictable...
Stay tuned ;-)
Thank you for kind words and encouragement! I´m back translating and will start to post the rest of the scopes we looked at this upcoming week. Sorry that it has taken me so long, but life is sometimes unpredictable...
Stay tuned ;-)
Thank you for checking in concerning the upcoming reviews. Your work in presenting the reviews is very appreciated and especially so because you also have to translate the data.
U.S. Optics ER-25 5-25x58 FFP GAP-MIL IR
And so we were in totally unknown territory, none of us had ever tried US optics. We did not know what to expect. When mounting the scope to the rifle it was almost absurd how large it was. The Erek knob gave an almost sinister look to the scope. This clearly is not meant for hunting, the tactical and military intentions is delivered loud and clear.
US Optics turret design was different but we liked how it was constructed. Heavy duty everywhere, from magnification setting to Erek knob, wind adjustment, parallax and illumination. This looked promising. Clicks were in .1 mil increments and felt solid with positive tactile and audible response. Not too tight setting between clicks. Some of us thought the turrets might shift during transport or moving through brush since the Erek knob is large and the clicks is distinct but not super hard.
The scale took a little while to get, but once we got it there were easy to understand. Zero stop were a little more complicated and we ended up not using it this weekend. George stepped in again and took us through the phases in the evening. Good solid design, but not as easy as the March scopes.
The reticle came across as new to us, but I have to say it´s the easiest reticle I have used. You just get it at a glance, I wish all design were this well made. It is our experience that stress makes you stupid, adrenaline does things to your brain which is not flattering.
This design I think has saved lives more than once, the more you add in a reticle the longer it takes to learn it. K.I.S.S. is something we learned in the military and this reticle became my unexpected love this weekend. Just could not stop shooting once I lay behind this reticle, I forgot it was there… I just shot naturally without thinking like I had have the reticle for years. Good job USO!
And like that wasn't enough, the illumination were voted as the best overall. Super crisp and could set as low as we wanted, controls super easy to find and use. One button for on/off, two below adjusting intensity up and down. It worked well even with gloves and I can´t recall seen such a nice illumination on any scope.
Backlight on this scope was not perfect, it displayed a bluish color distortion. We did remove sunshade and ARD of course. Given the fact that the objective was the second largest among the scopes and the Hensoldt ”Hubble” presented backlight problems, it would seem to be unavoidable to take away all backlight problems with such a large lens.
In daylight it performed well without any problems, 3D feeling was ok and you got a sense of distance in the field. Clarity and resolution were good. Eyebox is generous up to about 20 magnification, after that the eye box gets a bit more demanding for the user, but not as much as the March 5-40x56.
No complaints about tunnel vision on low magnification. We shot with the scope out to 500 m and it did well regarding clarity and resolution, but we had probably hoped for a little more ”pop” and 3D feeling. In the darkness it performed well, but again, it did not stand out in the crowd. Actually it was somewhere in the middle in our opinion.
The USO 5-25x58 is such a large scope with a super rugged look to it, so we subconsciously expect something extraordinary… and you get a well performing rifle scope. In ur opinion it is a heavy duty scope, with everything packed with it (ARD, sunshade and flip-up) that does not disappoint optically. But it is not as extraordinary like we had hoped. Unrealistic? Yes, probably…
One regret we had was that we should have chosen another gun for this giant. It looked and felt a little out of place on the Remington (see pic) and it is of course something that affected our impression despite our best effort to just evaluate the optic.
And so we were in totally unknown territory, none of us had ever tried US optics. We did not know what to expect. When mounting the scope to the rifle it was almost absurd how large it was. The Erek knob gave an almost sinister look to the scope. This clearly is not meant for hunting, the tactical and military intentions is delivered loud and clear.
US Optics turret design was different but we liked how it was constructed. Heavy duty everywhere, from magnification setting to Erek knob, wind adjustment, parallax and illumination. This looked promising. Clicks were in .1 mil increments and felt solid with positive tactile and audible response. Not too tight setting between clicks. Some of us thought the turrets might shift during transport or moving through brush since the Erek knob is large and the clicks is distinct but not super hard.
The scale took a little while to get, but once we got it there were easy to understand. Zero stop were a little more complicated and we ended up not using it this weekend. George stepped in again and took us through the phases in the evening. Good solid design, but not as easy as the March scopes.
The reticle came across as new to us, but I have to say it´s the easiest reticle I have used. You just get it at a glance, I wish all design were this well made. It is our experience that stress makes you stupid, adrenaline does things to your brain which is not flattering.
This design I think has saved lives more than once, the more you add in a reticle the longer it takes to learn it. K.I.S.S. is something we learned in the military and this reticle became my unexpected love this weekend. Just could not stop shooting once I lay behind this reticle, I forgot it was there… I just shot naturally without thinking like I had have the reticle for years. Good job USO!
And like that wasn't enough, the illumination were voted as the best overall. Super crisp and could set as low as we wanted, controls super easy to find and use. One button for on/off, two below adjusting intensity up and down. It worked well even with gloves and I can´t recall seen such a nice illumination on any scope.
Backlight on this scope was not perfect, it displayed a bluish color distortion. We did remove sunshade and ARD of course. Given the fact that the objective was the second largest among the scopes and the Hensoldt ”Hubble” presented backlight problems, it would seem to be unavoidable to take away all backlight problems with such a large lens.
In daylight it performed well without any problems, 3D feeling was ok and you got a sense of distance in the field. Clarity and resolution were good. Eyebox is generous up to about 20 magnification, after that the eye box gets a bit more demanding for the user, but not as much as the March 5-40x56.
No complaints about tunnel vision on low magnification. We shot with the scope out to 500 m and it did well regarding clarity and resolution, but we had probably hoped for a little more ”pop” and 3D feeling. In the darkness it performed well, but again, it did not stand out in the crowd. Actually it was somewhere in the middle in our opinion.
The USO 5-25x58 is such a large scope with a super rugged look to it, so we subconsciously expect something extraordinary… and you get a well performing rifle scope. In ur opinion it is a heavy duty scope, with everything packed with it (ARD, sunshade and flip-up) that does not disappoint optically. But it is not as extraordinary like we had hoped. Unrealistic? Yes, probably…
One regret we had was that we should have chosen another gun for this giant. It looked and felt a little out of place on the Remington (see pic) and it is of course something that affected our impression despite our best effort to just evaluate the optic.
Attachments
I'm really liking your impressions relative to the other scopes. It's very hard to quantify a scope in isolation or share relatable performance data with others but given your exposure to so many scopes at once and in shooting conditions really puts pros and cons into perspective by simple comparison. "This is greater than that", or "this is less than that" works for me. Keep it up, thanks!
Good evening and apologies for the delay, here is the next scope....
U.S Optics ER 3.2-17x44 FFP GAP-MIL
The next US optics was obviously related to the first, no doubt, however this scope emerged as a bit more sensible to us compared to the USO 5-25x58. Size and weight were good, and it felt very rugged and sturdy. The turrets similar to its big brother, continued the hardcore military appearance with plenty of attitude.
Since the turrets are similar to 5-25x58 and performed excellent I´ll just mention that they were of course huge in size compared to a 30mm tube and 44mm objective lens. What looked slightly funny when mounting the scope first evening, became more of a rugged serious platform during our shooting days. It happened to end up on my Ruger 308 tactical so the scope probably felt right at home. After the zeroing process this was my ”familiar gun”. Whenever lost in shooting sessions or I could not figure something out on the range, I returned to this setup.
We liked the turrets a lot, very easy and comfortable to use, generous space between clicks. Best illumination of all scopes on the line up. The reticle, as mentioned before on the 5-25x58, We love it! Just to clarify, all of us liked it, found it easy to understand and use. Parallax was generous in depth and easy to adjust. Magnification ring was the nicest in the crowd of scopes for us. Very easy to grip, smooth and no protrusions to obscure anything. It was so easy to adjust parallax, easy to adjust magnification and no shrinking eye box - thank you very much. It was for me a relief shooting with this scope compared to the March. Sight picture are wide, depth of field is decent (again, not like the Hensoldt) When looking through my notes from the weekend the most common word we used describing USO 3.2-17x44 is ”easy to use” and ”simple”. The resolution and clarity is very good although March and Hensoldt were slightly better.
The USO 3.2-17x44 had very little tunnel effect and it seems to command the 3.2-17 magnification with a good eye box and a good field of view. In backlight the scope was outstanding, we could not provoke any mist, haze or ghost rings, and we saw yet fine though the scope right up until the sun entered field of view. The reticle did great in backlight, it was crisp, clear and black no matter what we did. Use this scope in backlight with confidence!
When we tried this scope in dusk and darkness we were surprised how well it did, especially if you consider the 44 mm objective lens. We found it to perform as well as the march 3-24x42 when you looked through them. But when shooting in dusk/dark we could shoot the USO 3.2-17x44 a bit longer due to a more forgiving eye box and larger depth of view. This was noticeable when changing alternating targets of different distances.
All things considered, the U.S optics 3.2-17x44 was a pleasant experience, and although most of us were amazed with the optical performance of Hensoldt and March, we agreed on the ease of use, surprisingly good optical sharpness and resolution, excellent reticle and best overall illumination. And all of this packed into a compact very rugged scope with all the attitude you could wish for. One of the participants put it ”-If my life depended on the scope of my rifle, I´d like to have this one.”
U.S Optics ER 3.2-17x44 FFP GAP-MIL
The next US optics was obviously related to the first, no doubt, however this scope emerged as a bit more sensible to us compared to the USO 5-25x58. Size and weight were good, and it felt very rugged and sturdy. The turrets similar to its big brother, continued the hardcore military appearance with plenty of attitude.
Since the turrets are similar to 5-25x58 and performed excellent I´ll just mention that they were of course huge in size compared to a 30mm tube and 44mm objective lens. What looked slightly funny when mounting the scope first evening, became more of a rugged serious platform during our shooting days. It happened to end up on my Ruger 308 tactical so the scope probably felt right at home. After the zeroing process this was my ”familiar gun”. Whenever lost in shooting sessions or I could not figure something out on the range, I returned to this setup.
We liked the turrets a lot, very easy and comfortable to use, generous space between clicks. Best illumination of all scopes on the line up. The reticle, as mentioned before on the 5-25x58, We love it! Just to clarify, all of us liked it, found it easy to understand and use. Parallax was generous in depth and easy to adjust. Magnification ring was the nicest in the crowd of scopes for us. Very easy to grip, smooth and no protrusions to obscure anything. It was so easy to adjust parallax, easy to adjust magnification and no shrinking eye box - thank you very much. It was for me a relief shooting with this scope compared to the March. Sight picture are wide, depth of field is decent (again, not like the Hensoldt) When looking through my notes from the weekend the most common word we used describing USO 3.2-17x44 is ”easy to use” and ”simple”. The resolution and clarity is very good although March and Hensoldt were slightly better.
The USO 3.2-17x44 had very little tunnel effect and it seems to command the 3.2-17 magnification with a good eye box and a good field of view. In backlight the scope was outstanding, we could not provoke any mist, haze or ghost rings, and we saw yet fine though the scope right up until the sun entered field of view. The reticle did great in backlight, it was crisp, clear and black no matter what we did. Use this scope in backlight with confidence!
When we tried this scope in dusk and darkness we were surprised how well it did, especially if you consider the 44 mm objective lens. We found it to perform as well as the march 3-24x42 when you looked through them. But when shooting in dusk/dark we could shoot the USO 3.2-17x44 a bit longer due to a more forgiving eye box and larger depth of view. This was noticeable when changing alternating targets of different distances.
All things considered, the U.S optics 3.2-17x44 was a pleasant experience, and although most of us were amazed with the optical performance of Hensoldt and March, we agreed on the ease of use, surprisingly good optical sharpness and resolution, excellent reticle and best overall illumination. And all of this packed into a compact very rugged scope with all the attitude you could wish for. One of the participants put it ”-If my life depended on the scope of my rifle, I´d like to have this one.”
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I will add something to the march optics. Once you have your rifle setup to YOU the eye box IMO is a non issue, at least to me. I can pull my head, put it back down on the gun with eyes closed, then open then and I have a perfect sight picture every time in pretty much any position. The floating dot IMO is perfect and I absolutely love it. I never thought I would EVER use 40x being a PRS guy but on certian stages I do and I will say it does help. I don't find the movements being magnified/exaggerated as you would think or normally see but rather almost the opposite for me. I can easily pick a certian point on a 4" square turned on its side like a diamond at 720 yards and put the shot on one side or the other (on a calm no wind day). That i something I simply can not do with my S&B 5x25 P4F or my Steiner MSR setup. I'm completely sold on the March optics and will continue to run them on all of my match guns leaving the S&B's and Steiner on guns my wife and daughter shoot.
IOR Tactical 6-24x56 FFP SH-1 IR
The IOR 6-24x56 did of course attract our interest, it has tactical in the name and in appearance. It sports rugged design, easy to understand functions and with a few interesting tweaks. Mounting it on the Tikka T3 sporter seemed as a good match since it is fairly large and heavy. One thing to note is the 35 mm tube, which requires IOR mounts. The design of the housing made it impossible to use the favored Spuhr ISMS mount.
The turrets on elevation and windage are large and comfortable, easy to grip with or without gloves. The color indicator for left and right were well liked among us, it saves time and made us comfortable with just a glance. Again simple works. The clicks were distinct and well separated. We felt them with gloves and were audible. The IOR 6-24x56 has 0.1 mil adjustment on elevation and windage turrets. Increments are clearly marked and are easy to read. Some of us felt that the turrets might be too big and could move when carried slung on the shooters back, since they have no locking design. One suggested that it would be better with just a little lower elevation turret. ”It looks and feels just a little uncomfortable” he said.
Parallax adjustment was short, ok to adjust but we would have preferred it to have more movement, allowing more precise adjustment especially with gloves or cold fingers.
Magnification adjustment has a ”cat tail” and this feature looked odd and somewhat unnecessary to us when we mounted it during the evening. But on the shooting mat it worked fine and were a good feature, useful and not in the way. When sighted in we could adjust from 6 to 24 without breaking position, with ease.
The IOR 6-24x56 sports a mil reticle called SH1 (see pic) it has the standard
.5 mil marks with a floating dot as center. Some of us really liked it and some had a hard time to focus on the dot. A straight forward reticle that is easy to understand and use. Illumination is located in the center of the reticle, we found this to be very useful in dusk/darkness. Intensity could in addition be set really low were no eye adaptation loss could be noted from any of us. No bleeding were detected on highest setting during daytime. However the dot seemed very small on lover magnification during daytime. Illumination adjustment was done by push buttons, with increment i cycles. Again well built and easy to get to from prone position.
The optical qualities of this scope during daytime is really good, steel targets appear crisp and clear, face recognition at 400 m was no problem. IOR 6-24x56 stands up well in the crowd of scopes gathered this weekend. We had no optical distortion, clarity and resolution did our shooting justice.
Field of view is impressive for 6x magnification, and there was little tunnel effect.Depth of view was good, but not quite as good as Hensoldt. On the higher magnification we noted that the eye box got smaller, and we had to adapt our shooting position.
In dusk we did however spot some weakness, since we wanted to compare to the other scope on equal term we pushed magnification up. The IOR prefers to be shot a a lower magnification in dusk, more so than for example Hensoldt, Kahles, USO. If it is due to eye relief or parallax difficulties, I don´t know but it was hard to shoot in dusk on high magnification.
Back light performance for the IOR is again good, without any nasty optical effects. However the reticle is not as crisp in back light and that causes problems, especially on lower magnifications.
One thing to note is that after dismounting the scope we found that the tube was not anodized like the other scopes on our test. It was less durable and when attempting to remove the raisin we used to protect the scope from scratches from the mounts, we discovered that the paint started to come off. We don´t know what they use for coating their scopes but we recommend to be careful when mounting the scope to rings and when cleaning the body.
IOR 6-24x56 has many things going for it, and the price is very competitive. We regret not using the S.P.I.X more, the idea is not unique to IOR but it was the only scope in the crowd that did.
The IOR 6-24x56 did of course attract our interest, it has tactical in the name and in appearance. It sports rugged design, easy to understand functions and with a few interesting tweaks. Mounting it on the Tikka T3 sporter seemed as a good match since it is fairly large and heavy. One thing to note is the 35 mm tube, which requires IOR mounts. The design of the housing made it impossible to use the favored Spuhr ISMS mount.
The turrets on elevation and windage are large and comfortable, easy to grip with or without gloves. The color indicator for left and right were well liked among us, it saves time and made us comfortable with just a glance. Again simple works. The clicks were distinct and well separated. We felt them with gloves and were audible. The IOR 6-24x56 has 0.1 mil adjustment on elevation and windage turrets. Increments are clearly marked and are easy to read. Some of us felt that the turrets might be too big and could move when carried slung on the shooters back, since they have no locking design. One suggested that it would be better with just a little lower elevation turret. ”It looks and feels just a little uncomfortable” he said.
Parallax adjustment was short, ok to adjust but we would have preferred it to have more movement, allowing more precise adjustment especially with gloves or cold fingers.
Magnification adjustment has a ”cat tail” and this feature looked odd and somewhat unnecessary to us when we mounted it during the evening. But on the shooting mat it worked fine and were a good feature, useful and not in the way. When sighted in we could adjust from 6 to 24 without breaking position, with ease.
The IOR 6-24x56 sports a mil reticle called SH1 (see pic) it has the standard
.5 mil marks with a floating dot as center. Some of us really liked it and some had a hard time to focus on the dot. A straight forward reticle that is easy to understand and use. Illumination is located in the center of the reticle, we found this to be very useful in dusk/darkness. Intensity could in addition be set really low were no eye adaptation loss could be noted from any of us. No bleeding were detected on highest setting during daytime. However the dot seemed very small on lover magnification during daytime. Illumination adjustment was done by push buttons, with increment i cycles. Again well built and easy to get to from prone position.
The optical qualities of this scope during daytime is really good, steel targets appear crisp and clear, face recognition at 400 m was no problem. IOR 6-24x56 stands up well in the crowd of scopes gathered this weekend. We had no optical distortion, clarity and resolution did our shooting justice.
Field of view is impressive for 6x magnification, and there was little tunnel effect.Depth of view was good, but not quite as good as Hensoldt. On the higher magnification we noted that the eye box got smaller, and we had to adapt our shooting position.
In dusk we did however spot some weakness, since we wanted to compare to the other scope on equal term we pushed magnification up. The IOR prefers to be shot a a lower magnification in dusk, more so than for example Hensoldt, Kahles, USO. If it is due to eye relief or parallax difficulties, I don´t know but it was hard to shoot in dusk on high magnification.
Back light performance for the IOR is again good, without any nasty optical effects. However the reticle is not as crisp in back light and that causes problems, especially on lower magnifications.
One thing to note is that after dismounting the scope we found that the tube was not anodized like the other scopes on our test. It was less durable and when attempting to remove the raisin we used to protect the scope from scratches from the mounts, we discovered that the paint started to come off. We don´t know what they use for coating their scopes but we recommend to be careful when mounting the scope to rings and when cleaning the body.
IOR 6-24x56 has many things going for it, and the price is very competitive. We regret not using the S.P.I.X more, the idea is not unique to IOR but it was the only scope in the crowd that did.
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What was your opinion about the reticle thickness?
The 35mm IOR rings that came with my 6-24x56 had sharp edges on them. I moved my scope forward to adjust the eye relief and the tube got scratches on it from both rings. IOR could have done better with the finish on these and anodizing would be a big improvement.
IMO, IOR didn't stack up well compared to some of the other higher quality scopes I've owned. Although the glass is pretty good.
The 35mm IOR rings that came with my 6-24x56 had sharp edges on them. I moved my scope forward to adjust the eye relief and the tube got scratches on it from both rings. IOR could have done better with the finish on these and anodizing would be a big improvement.
IMO, IOR didn't stack up well compared to some of the other higher quality scopes I've owned. Although the glass is pretty good.
Reticle thickness... well, maybe it starts to get a little on the heavy side after about 18 magnification. But there were difference in opinion among us regarding this matter.
What I can say is that the floating dot makes up for the slightly heavy reticle on high magnification and we did not see the reticle design itself as a problem when shooting during this weekend.
The Tikka T3 Sporter was hard to part with :-( It has a 20" barrel and shoots like a dream. Favorite setup was with Hensoldt "Hubble" Awsome setup and not too bulky and heavy, just a very good match in handling and balance. We will long for this rig when behind our own guns and scopes for sure ;-))
What I can say is that the floating dot makes up for the slightly heavy reticle on high magnification and we did not see the reticle design itself as a problem when shooting during this weekend.
The Tikka T3 Sporter was hard to part with :-( It has a 20" barrel and shoots like a dream. Favorite setup was with Hensoldt "Hubble" Awsome setup and not too bulky and heavy, just a very good match in handling and balance. We will long for this rig when behind our own guns and scopes for sure ;-))
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Thanks man for all this work, is very well made review! I think is the large scope test made in Europe.
Keep "feed" us with information!
I use one IOR 3.5-18X50 FFP MIL/MIL with SH1 reticle wich have the same tube diameter of 35mm but I am not so sure that the housing is the same (??) and I succeed to use a SPUHR mount (SP-5602 ) with this scope. The only thing that I can not use is the rotation index system because the spring housing is in the same area where (in the mount) is the cutting for gauge/tool.
Here the dimension of my scope for housing area:
My rifle in .308 cal. using IOR scope with SPUHR base:
Best
Cristi
Keep "feed" us with information!
I use one IOR 3.5-18X50 FFP MIL/MIL with SH1 reticle wich have the same tube diameter of 35mm but I am not so sure that the housing is the same (??) and I succeed to use a SPUHR mount (SP-5602 ) with this scope. The only thing that I can not use is the rotation index system because the spring housing is in the same area where (in the mount) is the cutting for gauge/tool.
Here the dimension of my scope for housing area:
My rifle in .308 cal. using IOR scope with SPUHR base:
Best
Cristi
I really appreciate the reports you are doing. I am in the market for a new scope and many of the ones you used are in consideration. I'm just not sure if I can hold off my procurement until you get through them all. Thanks again for sharing your insight and experiece.
GREAT THREAD!!! tag for later
man you gotta love the swedes...i think this thread ought to be a sticky.
man you gotta love the swedes...i think this thread ought to be a sticky.
Hi Guys,
Thank you for your patience and encouragement. Hope you still find it worth your time...
Nightforce 8-32x 56 MLR SFP
Nightforce is known to us for its ruggedness and overbuilt construction. We saw exactly that, a solid reassuring construction with aggressive turrets for good grip in wet and cold conditions. The design signaled ”tactical use” and it had our attention. Although we also had our doubts, good glass usually costs a lot of money and the Nightforce cost less than the ”super glass” from Germany and Japan… What could we expect, and how would it handle the competition? Placed on a Customized Tikka 6,5x55 we set out to find out…
As mentioned the turrets are well made and very sturdy, we got an excellent grip with or without gloves, which were a benefit to us especially at the end of the day when fatigue starts to set in and slippery turrets causes you to miss clicks and get lost. It was simply easy to count clicks without having to grip very hard on the turret, less tension equals more precision and speedy adjustment with less error! Elevation and wind adjustment are generous especially for a 30 mm tube. Clicks were good, easy to hear and feel, although we were spoiled by March and we would like it to have slightly more distinct ”click” if anything… .1 mil increments is a good ”practical” standard even on higher magnification, which we appreciated after the March 5-40´s .05 knob spinning.
Parallax adjustment is located on the left opposite the wind adjustment and has the same rugged nice grip turret we like. It also doubles as on/off button for illumination. Feel and resistance is good and travel is reasonable.
The MLR reticle is straight forward and in second focal plane provides a good size thickness for 100 m as well as 1000 m. It could not be used for ”milling” unless calibrated against a known target at a known distance which we omitted to do. But if we would the hashmarks would do the job nicely. The reticle appeared fairly crisp and rendered no complaints from us.
But, and it is a big ”but” when we turned on the reticle illumination the light was really bright, and we realized we had to remove the battery to adjust it. We could hardly believe that a scope maker of this level could make something this impractical. We understand that this is something NF is moving away from, but not to be able to adjust illumination when you're in the field, in the dark is just ridiculous. After a while we agreed on that once the illumination is turned down really low it would do the job OK, and if you know where you shoot and under what circumstances you shoot this would be less problematic. And it did not bleed to excess when the illumination level was turned down to more sensible levels.
When looking through the NF 8-32 we saw what we needed to see in our field, there were no problems of identifying targets or spotting hits on steel. We could get a sense of depth in the field, but nowhere near the Hensoldt experience. It simply performed OK during daytime with no surprises as long as we stayed under 25 power. If we turned it up more the distortion on the edges set in, with color bleeding and grayish tone overall. It would give us a smallish eye box that we had enough of from March, but without the Superb March resolution. The Nightforce is however less picky with the parallax compared with March. A participant suggested half-joking that ”It is easy to adjust parallax on the NF 8-32 since it is indifferent in sharpness” He meant it was bleak, but on the other hand he would hit the targets he aimed at and he had actually more problems to hit with the March 5-40x56. Eyebox on the NF is not too bad, but stay under x25…
There was no question though that Nightforce does not, in our opinion, stack up against the competition in either resolution, contrast, color and sharpness. We found that it is functional and works well enough in each category, but does not excite or give you the extra ”pop” that we were so eager to find.
When we tested the NF 8-32 in the dark the disappointment continued. We had to stop shooting with it quite soon in spite of the large objective (56mm) It could not deliver a visual image of the target where the others could. The shooter who had this scope had to put down the rifle 20 minutes before the others. And he was the youngest of us with probably the best eyesight. He could maybe continued a bit longer if he had been less annoyed with the scope´s performance in dusk. But again, this was not a scientific test, just the impressions of the shooters during this day.
Backlight performance was fairly OK, but not good. We saw ghost rings and color distortion without the sun shade. Reticle was good and sharp though and that was appreciated.
We recognize that it is perhaps not fair to compare Nightforce 8-32x56 to a Hensoldt, March or Kahles, but when you have spent several hours looking through great glass, we just wanted more and forgot that against a Koenigsegg the BMW M3 is quite slow and boring. When we discussed the experience in the evening, we agreed on the fact that the Nightfroce 8-32x56 MLR SFP is not really that bad, it is just not as good as the best in the bunch.
Thank you for your patience and encouragement. Hope you still find it worth your time...
Nightforce 8-32x 56 MLR SFP
Nightforce is known to us for its ruggedness and overbuilt construction. We saw exactly that, a solid reassuring construction with aggressive turrets for good grip in wet and cold conditions. The design signaled ”tactical use” and it had our attention. Although we also had our doubts, good glass usually costs a lot of money and the Nightforce cost less than the ”super glass” from Germany and Japan… What could we expect, and how would it handle the competition? Placed on a Customized Tikka 6,5x55 we set out to find out…
As mentioned the turrets are well made and very sturdy, we got an excellent grip with or without gloves, which were a benefit to us especially at the end of the day when fatigue starts to set in and slippery turrets causes you to miss clicks and get lost. It was simply easy to count clicks without having to grip very hard on the turret, less tension equals more precision and speedy adjustment with less error! Elevation and wind adjustment are generous especially for a 30 mm tube. Clicks were good, easy to hear and feel, although we were spoiled by March and we would like it to have slightly more distinct ”click” if anything… .1 mil increments is a good ”practical” standard even on higher magnification, which we appreciated after the March 5-40´s .05 knob spinning.
Parallax adjustment is located on the left opposite the wind adjustment and has the same rugged nice grip turret we like. It also doubles as on/off button for illumination. Feel and resistance is good and travel is reasonable.
The MLR reticle is straight forward and in second focal plane provides a good size thickness for 100 m as well as 1000 m. It could not be used for ”milling” unless calibrated against a known target at a known distance which we omitted to do. But if we would the hashmarks would do the job nicely. The reticle appeared fairly crisp and rendered no complaints from us.
But, and it is a big ”but” when we turned on the reticle illumination the light was really bright, and we realized we had to remove the battery to adjust it. We could hardly believe that a scope maker of this level could make something this impractical. We understand that this is something NF is moving away from, but not to be able to adjust illumination when you're in the field, in the dark is just ridiculous. After a while we agreed on that once the illumination is turned down really low it would do the job OK, and if you know where you shoot and under what circumstances you shoot this would be less problematic. And it did not bleed to excess when the illumination level was turned down to more sensible levels.
When looking through the NF 8-32 we saw what we needed to see in our field, there were no problems of identifying targets or spotting hits on steel. We could get a sense of depth in the field, but nowhere near the Hensoldt experience. It simply performed OK during daytime with no surprises as long as we stayed under 25 power. If we turned it up more the distortion on the edges set in, with color bleeding and grayish tone overall. It would give us a smallish eye box that we had enough of from March, but without the Superb March resolution. The Nightforce is however less picky with the parallax compared with March. A participant suggested half-joking that ”It is easy to adjust parallax on the NF 8-32 since it is indifferent in sharpness” He meant it was bleak, but on the other hand he would hit the targets he aimed at and he had actually more problems to hit with the March 5-40x56. Eyebox on the NF is not too bad, but stay under x25…
There was no question though that Nightforce does not, in our opinion, stack up against the competition in either resolution, contrast, color and sharpness. We found that it is functional and works well enough in each category, but does not excite or give you the extra ”pop” that we were so eager to find.
When we tested the NF 8-32 in the dark the disappointment continued. We had to stop shooting with it quite soon in spite of the large objective (56mm) It could not deliver a visual image of the target where the others could. The shooter who had this scope had to put down the rifle 20 minutes before the others. And he was the youngest of us with probably the best eyesight. He could maybe continued a bit longer if he had been less annoyed with the scope´s performance in dusk. But again, this was not a scientific test, just the impressions of the shooters during this day.
Backlight performance was fairly OK, but not good. We saw ghost rings and color distortion without the sun shade. Reticle was good and sharp though and that was appreciated.
We recognize that it is perhaps not fair to compare Nightforce 8-32x56 to a Hensoldt, March or Kahles, but when you have spent several hours looking through great glass, we just wanted more and forgot that against a Koenigsegg the BMW M3 is quite slow and boring. When we discussed the experience in the evening, we agreed on the fact that the Nightfroce 8-32x56 MLR SFP is not really that bad, it is just not as good as the best in the bunch.
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Yep, NXS has been old in the tooth for a while now, might be time for the engineers to get out a clean sheet of paper for the NXS line.
Having owned more than a few of them I've moved on to the nicer FFP scopes and don't regret the decision at all. Got one 2.5-10x24 left and have been thinking real hard about selling it too. I actually liked Bushnell's HDMR better than NXS.
The Beast will be right there with the other top tier scopes though.
Having owned more than a few of them I've moved on to the nicer FFP scopes and don't regret the decision at all. Got one 2.5-10x24 left and have been thinking real hard about selling it too. I actually liked Bushnell's HDMR better than NXS.
The Beast will be right there with the other top tier scopes though.
Samegawa,
Thank you for all the work you and your buddies put into this extensive evaluation!!! I highly doubt anyone is upset that this thread was your first post...I know I'm not! LOL...keep up the good work, sir!
Thank you for all the work you and your buddies put into this extensive evaluation!!! I highly doubt anyone is upset that this thread was your first post...I know I'm not! LOL...keep up the good work, sir!
Samegawa,
I'm not in the market for a scope of this magnification right now (looking 1-6 or possibly 1-8), but the insights and details you've provided here are useful, thanks so much for making the time to document your experiences.
I'm not in the market for a scope of this magnification right now (looking 1-6 or possibly 1-8), but the insights and details you've provided here are useful, thanks so much for making the time to document your experiences.
That is part of the problem mixing old and new..
NF updated the competition line with the 15-55x and many in the industry consider that one of the best of the class.
The 8-32x is a bench rest / F Class scope with a different mission and is admittedly very old,
Also you have the new glass in the updated ATACR with much more Pop and color, greatly improved over the older line. Just like the BEAST.
NF updated the competition line with the 15-55x and many in the industry consider that one of the best of the class.
The 8-32x is a bench rest / F Class scope with a different mission and is admittedly very old,
Also you have the new glass in the updated ATACR with much more Pop and color, greatly improved over the older line. Just like the BEAST.
Great thread.
I would love to see an American company make optics of the quality of the Germans. Everything I read says we are getting better, but we are not there yet. One problem with getting there is; the closer you get, the harder the next step becomes.
I would love to see an American company make optics of the quality of the Germans. Everything I read says we are getting better, but we are not there yet. One problem with getting there is; the closer you get, the harder the next step becomes.
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