Re: SS 5-20 HD ????? Thoughts
I had my first "real" day with the 5-20HD shooting ground squirrels all day. While I had previously taken both my 5-20's to the range to zero them it wasn't that much time spent behind them. At the end of the afternoon today I was still extremely happy with it. The glass clarity was good enough to pick out a squirrel from similarly colored rock & brush in the mirage at 348 yards (longest kill of the day) and the reticle wasn't too thick as to completely cover the critter.
Even with extended periods of time behind the scope my eye never fatigued and I never had problems getting behind it on varied magnification levels. It is a very easy scope to get behind and stay behind for prolonged periods of time IMO. My friend who was out shooting with me had a NF 5.5-22 on his rig; we traded guns for a while and while both scopes were excellent we both felt the SS had the brighter and clearer image and an easier eyebox. He regrets passing on the group buy after I told him about it but is going to purchase a 5-20 at full price for another one of his rifles.
I didn't have any issues using the parallax knob or accidentally adjusting the illumination knob simultaneously. If you typically rotate your parallax knob by grabbing it between the sides of your thumb and index finger you'll probably have issues but it doesn't take long to retrain yourself to use only your fingertips and reach to the inside near the body of the scope. There weren't any focus/parallax issues as someone else mentioned-- if I adjusted the parallax until the target was in-focus and then shifted my head around there was no apparent reticle shift.
The power ring requires a conscious effort to grab & rotate so I will probably be picking up the throw levers. It's not difficult to find but the shallow scallop cutouts don't offer much in the way of "bite" for your fingers. The throw lever will take care of that... I just wish they were $30-40 instead of $60.
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: 7mmRM</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Turrets and click feel.
Decent. Not great, but not bad. Ill admit, the more I use 10mil + per rev turrets the less I like them. Ill trade all that ele in one rev for the positive click feel and space of the 5mil turrets. </div></div>
This is my only area of concern during use as well. While the detents feel pretty good on my two scopes having 10 mils per revolution on a ~1" diameter knob really runs the hash marks tightly together. Combine the closely spaced hash marks with a very slight amount of slop/backlash at each detent position and it's sometimes hard to see exactly how much you have dialed in. On my two scopes if you dial in one direction (up) the hash marks always line up but if you dial down then the hash marks end up about half way with the alignment mark on the scope body. For backlash reasons I always dial down past the target elevation and then dial back up to the desired elevation so it's not much of an issue but it's still worth pointing out. This is where I strongly prefer the "giant" elevation knob on my IORs-- even though they are the same 10 mils/rev as the 5-20 the IOR detents are extremely solid with zero backlash and the 0.1 mil marks on the elevation knob still have plenty of space between them.
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: al22300</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Every scope had a different feel to the turrets and had one or more of the problems mentioned above. The biggest problem for me is a canted reticle and I can't live with that. I really wonder if most guys check their scopes for that issue. In the end the third scope has a reticle with almost no cant and is close to being centered left and right in the scope so I kept it. It does however have slop in the turrets but It does not bother me too much. I did not have any issues with the things that were mentioned in the original post.
I have a few other SS scopes and the reticles have always been perfect. Also they have never let me down mechanically. One problem that all of my scopes have is that the turrets do not line up with the indicator mark (one of my pet peeves). I do not want this post to be considered a dig at SWFA since they have always provided me with good CS. I must be either an unlucky guy or maybe a bit harder to please than the next.
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I checked both of my 5-20's with a plumb line to verify reticle cant & elevation erector travel and they were good; if I squared the reticle to the plumb line and then cranked the elevation knob through the full travel the center of the reticle tracked the plumb line. Sounds like you had some bad luck for sure. I didn't notice the reticles being off center in the sight picture enough that it jumped out at me. I'm pretty picky too and that is something I probably would have noticed almost immediately.
Also, I agree with you on feel consistency. While the turret feel is very similar between both scopes I currently have one scope has a stiffer parallax knob and the has a stiffer magnification ring. Typical manufacturing tolerances I suppose. I have 3 3-18 x 42 IOR's and each of them have a slightly different feel to the parallax, turrets, and mag ring. Same goes for the pair of Bushnell 3-12 x 44 FFPs, they each feel a little different. I'm not particularly concerned about the feel as long as they all function & track properly.
Even with my gripe about the "tight" hash mark spacing on the 10 mil knobs I think SWFA did a darn good job. If I was to redesign or modify the scope my first priority would be to keep the elevation knob 10 mils/turn but make it at least 0.5-0.75" larger in diameter to space out the hash marks more, leave the windage knob as-is in diameter but change it to 5 or 6 mils/rev to space out the hash marks more, and I would add an integral short cat-tail to the mag ring. Basically, I'd add all the features & ergonomics I prefer from my 3.5-18 x 50 IOR. Tool-less zero adjust turrets would be nice too but that would probably be a big cost adder.
Are the 5-20s perfect? No, and for the price I didn't expect them to be perfect. Cramming 10 mils/rev onto that size of turrets is the weak spot of the scope's ergonomics IMO. Are they a good value for the money and do they perform at the level that should be expected at the price point? I think yes and in some areas they outperform the price point IMO-- namely elevation travel and glass clarity/brightness.
