My initial review of a March 3-24x42 I have on my hunting rig:
- The scope size is excellent. Compact, low turrets, and low weight. This is a nice relief from tactical scopes that are very big, bulky, heavy and getting worse in all three of those areas.
- Magnification range from 3-24 is pushing things, but you need to use it for what it is and that is a compact scope that can go to very high powers if you need it. I wouldn't buy this scope if you are looking to run it over 20X all the time. If you are running it in the 4-16 range though I don't see that much difference over my NightForce 3.5-15 in terms of ergonomics, field of view, etc.
- At 3X I see it is not as crisp towards the edges as I'd like, but at 4X this completely goes away.
- At 24X the exit pupil (EDIT: I removed the term eyebox which is not the right way to describe this) is tricky, but it's infinitely better than my 15X scopes because they don't go to 24X at all! I think this power would be good for fixed position relaxed shooting, scoping a hill for game, etc. I don't know if I'd run it that high in a match on weird obstacles. Then again, I rarely run a scope over 15X in a match, and normally dial down to 8-10X to get a wider field of view anyway.
- With the above, at 24X the image is excellent and I could put rounds onto the shoulder of an IPSC target at 500 yards no problem with this scope. The image quality at 24X is very good.
- Parallax can go down to something like 10 yards or less which is handy for close-range practice. The parallax control is pretty sensitive at the very close ranges. At distance it seemed more forgiving.
- Illumination is a push button 4 position with high/low modules. I've only ever used illumination a couple times (once during a night shoot and another time very early morning hunting) with my NightForce. I've not used the March yet under conditions that need illumination. But I can tell you now that the low range module is more than sufficient, and probably still too bright if your eyes are night adjusted. They need to come up with a better way to turn the illumination lower, although I do like the simplicity of the button control and think they should keep that part. The entire reticle lights up which I like for low-light shooting if hold-offs are necessary.
- The turret clicks feel excellent. The knobs are easy to manipulate and read. Zero stop is simple to set. The turrets are also low profile so they are more comfortable for carrying and not snagging on gear.
- The zoom and parallax controls were a bit stiff when I first got the scope, but seem to be breaking in. They are very smooth and quality feels excellent.
- The glass quality is excellent, as is to be expected from the Japanese. I've not done a resolution test yet, but the clarity is better than my NightForce F1. At long distance the scope allowed me to clearly split bullet splash marks on a target that other scopes I have would have blurred together. I was happy with the performance.
- I've not tested the scope in very low light yet. Being 42mm I expect it will not do as well as a 50mm+ scope. But then again this scope is *far* smaller than my 50-56mm scopes which is a good trade for shooters that don't need extreme low-light performance.
- I have not tested the scope under hard field conditions yet so cannot comment on mechanics of the scope. However I will say overall build quality appears excellent and each scope is hand assembled and tested so I expect overall QC to be excellent as well.
- The reticle is clearly marked with mil holdovers, but I wish the numbers were smaller/spaced a little bit more away from the vertical. However I really like the tapered stadia lines which draw your eye right to the center when on lower powers. On the highest power the reticle can become thick, but still very useable.
- The warranty is five years which I actually *prefer* in a product. Lifetime warranties mean a manufacturer needs to build that into the product either by increasing the overall price, reducing the internal quality, or combination of the two to offset future replacement percentages. It also means each buyer is basically subsidizing every idiot that abuses their gear and expects a replacement forever when they do something dumb. Five years of warranty is more than enough to cover any kind of reasonable malfunction you'd expect to have in a rifle scope. Most scopes that are going to go south are very likely to do it within five years.
Overall, why would someone want this scope?
1) You don't want a monster piece of glass on your rig adding weight and bulk.
2) You want to occasionally use power over 20X, but primarily stay in the lower ranges for most shooting.
3) You want high quality optical performance in a compact and well constructed package.
I'm going to also run this scope on my precision rifle rig next year just because I want to see how it works. I'll post a longer-term review in the future.
- The scope size is excellent. Compact, low turrets, and low weight. This is a nice relief from tactical scopes that are very big, bulky, heavy and getting worse in all three of those areas.
- Magnification range from 3-24 is pushing things, but you need to use it for what it is and that is a compact scope that can go to very high powers if you need it. I wouldn't buy this scope if you are looking to run it over 20X all the time. If you are running it in the 4-16 range though I don't see that much difference over my NightForce 3.5-15 in terms of ergonomics, field of view, etc.
- At 3X I see it is not as crisp towards the edges as I'd like, but at 4X this completely goes away.
- At 24X the exit pupil (EDIT: I removed the term eyebox which is not the right way to describe this) is tricky, but it's infinitely better than my 15X scopes because they don't go to 24X at all! I think this power would be good for fixed position relaxed shooting, scoping a hill for game, etc. I don't know if I'd run it that high in a match on weird obstacles. Then again, I rarely run a scope over 15X in a match, and normally dial down to 8-10X to get a wider field of view anyway.
- With the above, at 24X the image is excellent and I could put rounds onto the shoulder of an IPSC target at 500 yards no problem with this scope. The image quality at 24X is very good.
- Parallax can go down to something like 10 yards or less which is handy for close-range practice. The parallax control is pretty sensitive at the very close ranges. At distance it seemed more forgiving.
- Illumination is a push button 4 position with high/low modules. I've only ever used illumination a couple times (once during a night shoot and another time very early morning hunting) with my NightForce. I've not used the March yet under conditions that need illumination. But I can tell you now that the low range module is more than sufficient, and probably still too bright if your eyes are night adjusted. They need to come up with a better way to turn the illumination lower, although I do like the simplicity of the button control and think they should keep that part. The entire reticle lights up which I like for low-light shooting if hold-offs are necessary.
- The turret clicks feel excellent. The knobs are easy to manipulate and read. Zero stop is simple to set. The turrets are also low profile so they are more comfortable for carrying and not snagging on gear.
- The zoom and parallax controls were a bit stiff when I first got the scope, but seem to be breaking in. They are very smooth and quality feels excellent.
- The glass quality is excellent, as is to be expected from the Japanese. I've not done a resolution test yet, but the clarity is better than my NightForce F1. At long distance the scope allowed me to clearly split bullet splash marks on a target that other scopes I have would have blurred together. I was happy with the performance.
- I've not tested the scope in very low light yet. Being 42mm I expect it will not do as well as a 50mm+ scope. But then again this scope is *far* smaller than my 50-56mm scopes which is a good trade for shooters that don't need extreme low-light performance.
- I have not tested the scope under hard field conditions yet so cannot comment on mechanics of the scope. However I will say overall build quality appears excellent and each scope is hand assembled and tested so I expect overall QC to be excellent as well.
- The reticle is clearly marked with mil holdovers, but I wish the numbers were smaller/spaced a little bit more away from the vertical. However I really like the tapered stadia lines which draw your eye right to the center when on lower powers. On the highest power the reticle can become thick, but still very useable.
- The warranty is five years which I actually *prefer* in a product. Lifetime warranties mean a manufacturer needs to build that into the product either by increasing the overall price, reducing the internal quality, or combination of the two to offset future replacement percentages. It also means each buyer is basically subsidizing every idiot that abuses their gear and expects a replacement forever when they do something dumb. Five years of warranty is more than enough to cover any kind of reasonable malfunction you'd expect to have in a rifle scope. Most scopes that are going to go south are very likely to do it within five years.
Overall, why would someone want this scope?
1) You don't want a monster piece of glass on your rig adding weight and bulk.
2) You want to occasionally use power over 20X, but primarily stay in the lower ranges for most shooting.
3) You want high quality optical performance in a compact and well constructed package.
I'm going to also run this scope on my precision rifle rig next year just because I want to see how it works. I'll post a longer-term review in the future.
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