In January I went to a Long Range 101 course with Apex Training Solutions. I figured that would be a good excuse to upgrade my glass so bought a Steiner M7Xi 2.9-20x50 a month prior to the course.
There's not much information out there on the M7Xi's or Apex Training Solutions so I figure I'd get some first hand out to the community.
Stay tuned; I have good and bad things to say.
I put the M7Xi on a LEO contract Rem 700 short action 308 with a 24" M24 barrel. This proved to be a good combo to run during the course to learn and sharpen my skills on.
Rifle pictured on the top of this particular "bring a gun to work day" picture.
The M7Xi:
My first impression of this scope was that it felt like a tank. But it was more than just the sheer weight of this tactical style of optic. Everything from the feel of the turrets to the mag ring came together to give it a feel like a tool intended to be used hard.
The oversized turrets were a welcome feature. I had grown accustom to holding for targets out to 800yds, but this course seemed like the perfect opportunity to try dialing on the fly for longer shots. During the course there was a drill where we were to engage targets from 300-800 timed. The targets were at roughly 100yd increments. I dialed for every shot and was confident in my adjustments all the way out without coming off the gun.
The zero stop was very easy to set. It's as easy as loosening the set screws and turning to zero after mechanically zeroing the scope.
After zeroing, the stop would actually stop at .5mils past your zero. I like having that option.
The parallax was also easy to use and seemingly forgiving within the mag ranges that I used.
The reticle I went with was the MSR-2. It may be my favorite non tree style reticle for general field use. I can't tell you how many times I used the measuring scale in the reticle during the ATS course just to gauge target sizes and judge wind based on marriage float angle. The center aiming point was fine enough that I felt confident in my precision when zoomed in and the thick bars that bleed into the reticle from the sides draw your eye to the center naturally.
The scope comes with robust flip caps made by Tenebrex. All high end scopes should come with good quality flip caps such as these in my mind.
Now for some of the bad.
I would have called this scope the S&B killer [and it would have taken 1st place for scopes that I've spent time behind] if it wasn't for this key [critical] thing.
The glass and eye box at higher powers....
Let me explain.
At low-mid power the eye box was incredible. The eye relief actually didn't seem to need to change [much if at all] throughout the entire mag range for that matter. Once you got above 15x the eye box got incredibly tight. When you were at 20x if felt like you couldn't get out of the scope shadow. Forward, backward, side-to-side, up, or down, you had some slight shadow. This seemed to be a sacrifice they made in order to have this broad of a magnification range.
The glass clarity seems to suffer in the higher mag ranges too. Even if you tried to tweak the ocular focus and the parallax to cheat it into focus it didn't seem to matter. For this reason, I didn't go above 16x during the course.
I was disappointed to say the least. I've spent time behind or owned other top tier scopes, so these gripes are well compared and warranted. I find myself obsessed with obtaining gear that I know I won't outperform. This scope was almost it...
Just to make sure I wasn't crazy I had other guys and instructors look through my M7Xi and they confirmed that it was nearly impossible to focus at 20x even when going back and forth playing with the parallax and ocular focus. My buddies basic PMii 5-25 on the other hand looked great at 20-25x by comparison.
I've since sold the M7Xi because I have little tolerance for things that I spend that kind of money on that don't work out for me. I recognize that perhaps it was a lemon and I should have reached out to Steiner to see what they would say about it, but it seems that it worked so well in every other way that it was surely a downfall of Steiner attempting to squeeze that large of a magnification range into an otherwise fairly small feature rich tactical optic.
After the course I sold the M7Xi for a song to another hide member and replaced it with a good old fashion ATACR 4-16 on that rifle. There are serious gripes I have with the ATACR's too, but they're solid optics and their features are good enough for my uses on this 308 rifle.
Apex Training Solutions, Long Range 101:
The ATS cadre were all young. That was my initial impression. I was initially worried that I might have wasted my money because they were all younger than me and I'm not old. lol
But come to find out they had fairly impressive resumes. Marine sniper instructor, DOS sniper instructor, special focuses on urban sniper craft, helicopter sniper techniques, etc,... just to name a few credentials.
They were all Marines too. As was about half the class, so we all got along pretty well.
They had a good balance of professional classroom time and application of theory on the range.
In the classroom on the first day we covered basics like fundamentals of marksmanship, elements of a good shooting position, proper trigger and breath control, etc... They did a good job with the basics in that they were brief enough as to not beat a dead horse, but were also thorough enough that everyone was tracking appropriately.
The first day on the range the cadre ran the students through a number of drills to establish confidence in the fundamentals and also gauged where everyone in the class was at with their individual skill levels.
On the second day in the classroom the instructors breached into slightly more advanced material. They did a general class on external ballistics and wind calling, then covered cocepts such as building dope charts, axial form factor, advanced wind calling & ranging techniques, etc.. All to say, the second day was where I learned the most.
On that second day, we did more advanced confidence building drills [that I now have in my toolbox of drills] and did some timed/scored tests to see where we were at. The wind was ripping back and forth and stuttering between 5-15mph. It was a heck of a day to practice wind calling, but it was also an opportunity to reflect on how to overcome imperfect field conditions. Marriage was evident at 700-800yds, so we used that as a teaching tool for a few concepts, which was cool and something that I didn't otherwise know was useful.
All in all, as someone who's had firearms/marksmanship training from gov & state, and who competes semi regularly in shooting comps, I walked away with a lot for a basic 101 class. These young dudes proved to be pretty solid instructors and were approachable. I'd recommend their 101 course to shooters new to long range as well as advanced shooters who have never had formal instruction or haven't had formal instruction in a while. Looking forward to making time for their long range 102 course sometime down the road.
If any of you guys have any questions about either of these reviews feel free to post in this thread or PM me.
Cheers.
There's not much information out there on the M7Xi's or Apex Training Solutions so I figure I'd get some first hand out to the community.
Stay tuned; I have good and bad things to say.
I put the M7Xi on a LEO contract Rem 700 short action 308 with a 24" M24 barrel. This proved to be a good combo to run during the course to learn and sharpen my skills on.
Rifle pictured on the top of this particular "bring a gun to work day" picture.
The M7Xi:
My first impression of this scope was that it felt like a tank. But it was more than just the sheer weight of this tactical style of optic. Everything from the feel of the turrets to the mag ring came together to give it a feel like a tool intended to be used hard.
The oversized turrets were a welcome feature. I had grown accustom to holding for targets out to 800yds, but this course seemed like the perfect opportunity to try dialing on the fly for longer shots. During the course there was a drill where we were to engage targets from 300-800 timed. The targets were at roughly 100yd increments. I dialed for every shot and was confident in my adjustments all the way out without coming off the gun.
The zero stop was very easy to set. It's as easy as loosening the set screws and turning to zero after mechanically zeroing the scope.
After zeroing, the stop would actually stop at .5mils past your zero. I like having that option.
The parallax was also easy to use and seemingly forgiving within the mag ranges that I used.
The reticle I went with was the MSR-2. It may be my favorite non tree style reticle for general field use. I can't tell you how many times I used the measuring scale in the reticle during the ATS course just to gauge target sizes and judge wind based on marriage float angle. The center aiming point was fine enough that I felt confident in my precision when zoomed in and the thick bars that bleed into the reticle from the sides draw your eye to the center naturally.
The scope comes with robust flip caps made by Tenebrex. All high end scopes should come with good quality flip caps such as these in my mind.
Now for some of the bad.
I would have called this scope the S&B killer [and it would have taken 1st place for scopes that I've spent time behind] if it wasn't for this key [critical] thing.
The glass and eye box at higher powers....
Let me explain.
At low-mid power the eye box was incredible. The eye relief actually didn't seem to need to change [much if at all] throughout the entire mag range for that matter. Once you got above 15x the eye box got incredibly tight. When you were at 20x if felt like you couldn't get out of the scope shadow. Forward, backward, side-to-side, up, or down, you had some slight shadow. This seemed to be a sacrifice they made in order to have this broad of a magnification range.
The glass clarity seems to suffer in the higher mag ranges too. Even if you tried to tweak the ocular focus and the parallax to cheat it into focus it didn't seem to matter. For this reason, I didn't go above 16x during the course.
I was disappointed to say the least. I've spent time behind or owned other top tier scopes, so these gripes are well compared and warranted. I find myself obsessed with obtaining gear that I know I won't outperform. This scope was almost it...
Just to make sure I wasn't crazy I had other guys and instructors look through my M7Xi and they confirmed that it was nearly impossible to focus at 20x even when going back and forth playing with the parallax and ocular focus. My buddies basic PMii 5-25 on the other hand looked great at 20-25x by comparison.
I've since sold the M7Xi because I have little tolerance for things that I spend that kind of money on that don't work out for me. I recognize that perhaps it was a lemon and I should have reached out to Steiner to see what they would say about it, but it seems that it worked so well in every other way that it was surely a downfall of Steiner attempting to squeeze that large of a magnification range into an otherwise fairly small feature rich tactical optic.
After the course I sold the M7Xi for a song to another hide member and replaced it with a good old fashion ATACR 4-16 on that rifle. There are serious gripes I have with the ATACR's too, but they're solid optics and their features are good enough for my uses on this 308 rifle.
Apex Training Solutions, Long Range 101:
The ATS cadre were all young. That was my initial impression. I was initially worried that I might have wasted my money because they were all younger than me and I'm not old. lol
But come to find out they had fairly impressive resumes. Marine sniper instructor, DOS sniper instructor, special focuses on urban sniper craft, helicopter sniper techniques, etc,... just to name a few credentials.
They were all Marines too. As was about half the class, so we all got along pretty well.
They had a good balance of professional classroom time and application of theory on the range.
In the classroom on the first day we covered basics like fundamentals of marksmanship, elements of a good shooting position, proper trigger and breath control, etc... They did a good job with the basics in that they were brief enough as to not beat a dead horse, but were also thorough enough that everyone was tracking appropriately.
The first day on the range the cadre ran the students through a number of drills to establish confidence in the fundamentals and also gauged where everyone in the class was at with their individual skill levels.
On the second day in the classroom the instructors breached into slightly more advanced material. They did a general class on external ballistics and wind calling, then covered cocepts such as building dope charts, axial form factor, advanced wind calling & ranging techniques, etc.. All to say, the second day was where I learned the most.
On that second day, we did more advanced confidence building drills [that I now have in my toolbox of drills] and did some timed/scored tests to see where we were at. The wind was ripping back and forth and stuttering between 5-15mph. It was a heck of a day to practice wind calling, but it was also an opportunity to reflect on how to overcome imperfect field conditions. Marriage was evident at 700-800yds, so we used that as a teaching tool for a few concepts, which was cool and something that I didn't otherwise know was useful.
All in all, as someone who's had firearms/marksmanship training from gov & state, and who competes semi regularly in shooting comps, I walked away with a lot for a basic 101 class. These young dudes proved to be pretty solid instructors and were approachable. I'd recommend their 101 course to shooters new to long range as well as advanced shooters who have never had formal instruction or haven't had formal instruction in a while. Looking forward to making time for their long range 102 course sometime down the road.
If any of you guys have any questions about either of these reviews feel free to post in this thread or PM me.
Cheers.
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