Can anybody who has time behind the March 1-10 compare it to a NF ATACR 1-8?
I’m looking for optics for a “do it all” 14.5” AR. Glass quality, brightness, reliability and size/weight are all important. I’m familiar with NF quality and robustness, never dealt with a March scope before.
Weight and Size: The March is the clear winner on weight and size, not really even a contest.
As for the rest of it, I suspect you will have a lot of trouble getting any quality answers as there simply are not enough of these March scopes in the wild to have many opportunities for comparison. But in general:
Glass: March seems to have a reputation for very good glass. So does the NF. But glass clarity is subjective, dependent heavily on the individual, and highly subject to cognitive bias. Personally, I have not found NF glass overall to be any better, or worse, than anything else in its price comparison. I have never seen any March glass, so I have no opinion.
Durability: Again, tough to know. The ATACR is known to be durable, but I have never seen anything reporting March durability, neither good or bad. You will be able to find singular incidences of both early failure and of long-term trouble-free use for any product. None of this really speaks to anything about expected durability of a median product from a company. Since there are so few March scopes to examine, I doubt you will find anything meaningful being reported.
Things Not Mentioned: The March does have more magnification than the NF, though that may or may not matter. The Dual Focal reticle is also an advantage to the March, if it works as well as claimed.
But the one crucial thing that the March has over every other scope in the class, including the ATACR, is the adjustable parallax. The weight already had me considering the March as a replacement for my Vortex. But it is the parallax adjust-ability, more than anything else, that convinced me to drop the money on the March. If I find durability issues, and I bet it will show up for me doing Run N Gun competitions, then I will know I made the wrong choice. And everyone here will know about it as well.
My guess? And these are just guesses based on the few measurable specifications, what I have seen for myself, and what people I trust have had to say on the subject: The March will be at least equal to, and in many cases be significantly better than, the NF in everything but durability. The durability question will take a long time to answer. And if issues start to arise, March may address them with upgrades and design changes for no charge. They seem like a company that desires to produce the best product they can, so I would not be surprised if this is their response if issues start appearing. Then again, they may say "So Sad, Too Bad". Time will tell
In the end, if you want answers to your questions, you will probably have to do like me and others buying them unseen, and find out for yourself. If you wait on someone else to figure it out, you might be a while.