If you haven't noticed, precision shooters can be a pretty finicky bunch
Put up a reticle design and it will be both loved and hated within the same group so I understand it is a hard field to navigate. That being said I am surprised more manufacturer's don't understand the industry they're trying to market to better. Back in 2015 a little scope company from Austria shook things up when they introduced a new line of reticles in their 6-24x56 scope with strange parallax adjustment location at the top of the scope, you guessed it, Kahles. When they introduced their "Gen III" scope updates they also introduced a brand new reticle series called SKMR (nicknamed "schemer"), this new reticle design departed from the traditional .5 mil hash marks of most every other manufacturer and offered .2 mil hash marks and a fine center dot. As most of the Hider's already know, this reticle garnered a lot of attention from the community, especially those interested in the PRS style sports and long range dynamic shooting. But how did this "little mom and pop" scope company from half way across the world figure out a reticle that worked so well for shooters here in the states? I'm not sure which came first for Kahles, hiring Jeff Huber (of Nightforce fame and now owner and founder of ZCO) or building a relationship with Shannon Kay (owner of K&M Shooting Complex), but Kahles listened and soon the "Shannon Kay Milling Reticle" or SKMR was born and began to take the competition scene by storm as many shooters saw the advantage of making quick and precise adjustments with those .2 mil hash marks. Soon after other manufacturer's began to follow suit with their own .2 mil hash designs. But the point is that Kahles realized their knowledge gap with the American market and looked to partner with some experts in the industry to better address this new rising sport (PRS).
Oddly enough, three of the biggest holdouts are three of the largest scope manufacturers - Nightforce, Leupold and Bushnell. Nightforce finally woke up in 2018 with the introduction of the Mil-C followed by the Mil-XT reticles, Bushnell partnered with George Gardner of GA Precision (GAP) to create the G2 and G3 style reticles but these still use the traditional .5 mil spacing though the G3 tried with a couple little .2 mil ticks that don't seem to be that helpful with their location. But Leupold is the enigma, being a company founded right here in the USA you'd think they'd be tapped into the PRS base and I thought for sure when the Mark 5HD line was introduced they were going to have a new reticle that fit this .2 mil hash profile. Maybe because of their relationship with HORUS, which stands for "
HORibbly
Ugly
S***" (okay, so I'm a bit biased
), I don't know, but the TMR is about as plain as a mil reticle comes and the CCH and HORUS are just way too busy and distracting leaving many Leupold fanboys scratching their heads wondering when Leuppy would come out with a reticle that was more usable. Enter the PR2 Mil reticle and to be honest I'm still scratching my head wondering what young millennial engineer at Leupold went before the board and said, "now listen, we know that competition shooters love all these .2 mil hash reticles with Christmas trees that have reference points every full mil below horizontal, but we're not going to offer that...", "we're not?" the board responds perplexed, young millennial retorts, "no, because we're Leupold and we do things our way". Okay, it's doubtful it happened the way I envisioned, but coming out with a .25 mil hash spacing and providing Christmas tree horizontal reference every 2 full mils seems a bit odd. That being said, it is much better than the TMR and mosquito net reticles they've offered previously and I'll try to reserve judgement until we get some more real world field reports on it.
But to khuber's point above, why only in the 5-25 and 7-35? Why not put this reticle in the 3.6-18x44? To be honest, I'm not interested in the 5-25 and 7-35 (too much competition with better reticles, greater FOV, and the like in that market) but I am interested in the 3.6-18x44 but not many scopes in this range are as light or as short as the Leupold, which sets it apart from many others. I reviewed the 3.6-18x44 a couple years ago and was critical about certain features but overall really liked the scope and what it had to offer, but I won't touch these scopes (for my own personal use) with the current reticle offerings and high upcharge of illumination. For Leupold, it seems to be a dance of "two steps forward and one step back" and hopefully Leupold will soon find a dance partner who really knows how to dance
One other boutique scope company has finally sought some advise from the US market and that company is March. I've always been intrigued at how their engineers can push the envelope so far with their 8x FFP erector designs but after reviewing the 3-24x52 a few years ago I felt they could really benefit with a good .2 mil design. Last year I had the opportunity to see a new reticle design by the Hide's own ILya (Koshkin) and at first I thought "okay, that works" but as ILya explained it to me I began to see the light and earlier this year I was able to review March's new 5-42x56 HM scope with ILya's reticle called the FML-TR1 and putting the reticle into some field use began to quickly see the advantages of the design and it has become my favorite reticle to date. I mention this to say that just because I may not think a reticle will work well on paper (or rather online), we really have to wait to see how it looks through the scope.
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