I would agree, the market is somewhat saturated; however, this new 4.5-28x52 based on what I've seen so far fills an interesting niche. Let me give a little background. Years ago what drew me to the 3-24 series scopes was having wide FOV at the low end but being able to dial up magnification when needed, but in a small/lightweight package, something few scopes at the time were offering, so in essence the 3-24 covered two scopes, a 3-15 and a 5-25 in one, at least that was the hope. The 3-24x42 was too "dark" for me, especially in low light situations, but the 3-24x52 was a big improvement and it had no issues even keeping up with the Kahles K624i's 56mm objective in low light situations when both were set at 12x (where I usually do most of my low light testing). What bothered me most about the scope was the reticle, the FML-1 was great as a center dot scope but the rest of the reticle was too thick at higher mags and mil hashes came at .5 mil and having used the SKMR in the Kahles spoiled me; glass was never an issue for the March, I was always impressed, CA was controlled very well, as good or better than the Schmidt scope I had at the time and resolution was really good between about 5-20x with a bit of distortion below 5 and a little loss of resolution above 20x but not bad (certainly not as bad as what I experienced with the Nightforce NX8 2.5-20x50 with regard to distortion). DOF and finicky parallax also bothered me with the March, I found in transitional situations I had to play a lot with the parallax. I have always had the opinion that if March could "fix" these issues, I would buy that scope in a heartbeat (as long as the price was right). I did a review of the March, Kahles and Schmidt 3-20 a number of years ago but that was when the Hide was on Scout and all that information is lost; however, I do a slight recap in my review here -
https://www.snipershide.com/shootin...ht-tactical-scope-evaluation-part-ii.6255263/
To be honest, the 4.5-28x52 is somewhat of a surprise. March has always used an 8x erector for their long range FFP design (3-24 and 5-40) but my knowledge of optics continues to grow and I understand it is harder to make a high magnification erector scope and still have a forgiving DOF/Parallax, and being spoiled by scopes that offer this has me looking for this feature in almost everything these days. March is introducing the new 5-42x56 High Master which actually increased their erector to 8.4x; however, I'd rather see a 3-25x56 for my personal uses but I have a feeling it would run into similar issues as the 3-24 so my hope is the reason March dropped to a 6.2x erector was to correct some of these issues. Let's assume they have and the 4.5-28x52 has forgiving DOF/Parallax a great eyebox and superb resolution throughout the range. So what does this scope offer that others do not within its class, one of the most interesting new features is the use of the wide angle eyepiece offering very wide FOV throughout the magnification range, ILya has a prototype of this scope and he is saying the scope offers better FOV at 4.5x than the ZCO ZC420 does at 4x, and I was fairly impressed with the ZCO FOV so that is noteworthy. So with that in mind let's do a quick comparison with specs gleaned off the interweb so far:
March 4.5-28x52 compared to:
- Vortex Razor HD Gen II 4.5-27x56: Advantage for March - Weight, over a pound lighter | Size, almost 2" shorter | Wider FOV
- Steiner M7Xi 4-28x56: Advantage for March - Weight, around 4 oz lighter | Size, over 2.5" shorter | Wider FOV
- Nightforce ATACR F1 5-25x56: Advantage for March - Weight, over 8 oz lighter | Size, almost 3" shorter | Wider FOV
- Schmidt & Bender PMII 3-27x56: Advantage for March - Weight, around 10 oz lighter | Size, almost 3" shorter
- Schmidt & Bender PMII 5-25x56: Advantage for March - Weight, around 10 oz lighter | Size, almost 4" shorter | Wider FOV
- Schmidt & Bender Ultra Short 3-20x50: Advantage for March - Slightly shorter and lighter | Higher Magnification
- Tangent Theta TT525P 5-25x56: Advantage for March - Weight, around 10 oz lighter | Size, almost 4" shorter
- Minox ZP5 5-25x56: Advantage for March - Weight, around 4.5 oz lighter | Size, almost 4" shorter
- Kahles K525i 5-25x56: Advantage for March - Weight, around 4.5 oz lighter | Size, over 2" shorter | Wider FOV
- Kahles K318i 3.5-18x50: Advantage for March - Weight, around 3 oz lighter | Wider FOV | Higher Magnification
- ZCO ZC527 5-27x56: Advantage for March - Weight, around 8 oz lighter | Size, over 2.5" shorter | Wider FOV
- ZCO ZC420 4-20x50: Advantage for March - Weight, around 5 oz lighter | Wider FOV | Higher Magnification
Outside of the Vortex above, most would consider these scopes to be the alpha class competitors, I have left out many of the lower class scopes because I see March as competing at the alpha class level. The Steiner M7Xi I had a lot of hope for last year when it was announced but my hopes were dashed when the FOV wasn't that great, it suffered from heavy CA and many reports said over 20x it struggled in resolution, I hope the March does not suffer the same fate.
I've always had to compromise to get my ideal scope until recent ultra shorts have come out, my favorite has been the S&B 3-20 but lack of a decent tree reticle has always had me selling them, the most recent one I purchased was a 2018 model with MSR2 reticle which was the nicest I've seen but the 18 mil turrets were the worst I've experienced, I ran the Kahles K318i for quite a while because it performed extremely well optically but the narrow FOV and the fact it didn't go up to 20x caused me to send it to a new owner. The ZCO ZC420 really impressed me the most, it didn't have quite as good FOV as the Schmidt US, but it wasn't bad either and it performs outstanding optically with great DOF/Parallax, eyebox and resolution, but it is on the heavy side for an Ultra Short which has always been a deterrent for me. To date, my favorite scope has been the Minox ZP5 5-25x56 and is what I have on my two main long range rifles that I use for hunting as well, but it is long and a little heavier than I prefer but acceptable for the outstanding IQ it provides and it does have my favorite reticle for a long range/tactical/hunting scope (albeit just a tad on the thin side and would prefer it to be slightly thicker).
So with that said, my short answer to your question, Kickin45, is that the March 4.5-28x52 seems to bridge the gap between the Ultra Shorts I love and the long range (5-25ish magnification) scopes, true it doesn't have the 56mm objective that the long range scopes have, but I've found today's 50mm scopes to do extremely well in low light situations. so I'm willing to give up a little on objective size if it means other areas are improved. As long as the March does outstanding with DOF/Parallax, eyebox and has superb resolution throughout the magnification range I can easily see this scope replacing my ZP5's, but... and it's a big BUT, it has got to perform on a level with the ZCO, ZP5 and Schmidt when it comes to optical excellence and all the aforementioned features.
If the March 4.5-28x52 can do all that, and be delivered in such a short and lightweight package, then that is what will set this scope apart from everything else out there as it would effectively fill the role of what used to take two scopes in the past to do.
All that being said, I have a history of getting too excited over new scope announcements only to be let down by the actual scope in its production form, but I'm always hoping, and for March, they seem to have the engineering prowess to pull off such a scope and I'm really hoping this will be "that" scope. The only new scope release that hasn't let me down of late is the ZCO ZC420 so my expectations of the March 4.5-28x52 will be along the lines of how well that scope compares to the venerable ZC420.
) for the 4-20 AMG ever since I got my hands on the 6-24 AMG which was soon after it was announced; however, I do not expect to see a new AMG for a while most likely not this year. I think the best chance of a new scope would be in the Gen III lineup but while I expect somewhat of a weight reduction I do not expect enough. I believe the Gen II's were geared toward the competition community alone and for the most part they could care less about weight, and I don't see that changing with Gen III, I think the new Gen III long range scope will probably check off all the boxes except for one and that's in the weight category. I could be wrong, and I hope I am wrong but I just don't see that happening unfortunately.
