Re: SS HD 5-20x vs Nightforce 5.5-22x
Reports of the few people who have the SS 5-20 leave little doubt that it's a great scope. However, it should be interesting to see what happens with the price of it after the coupons expire.
One can only postulate, but I don't think they can keep it at the $500 discount price for long since it would undercut several of the other SS optics. The SS 3-9 has non-HD glass and is $600. The SS 10x42HD is $800. If you have a 5-20 with HD glass that's only a couple hundred dollars more with a LOT more features, I think it will severely undercut sales of those two SS scopes.
However, putting it at $1500 going forward; well, it will have a bit of competition at that price. Given the amount of SS 5-20 HD scopes that will flood the market at a newly purchased price of $1000, the second-hand market for the scopes will probably be quite a bit less than retail price. It wouldn't surprise me to see SWFA have a regular sale on the 5-20 HD at around $1299 or so. There doesn't seem to be much competition in that price range for a scope like this. When you get up to $1500, however, people will be comparing it to new and like-new NF, even if they are a SFP optic.