Keen to hear your thoughts once you've had more time comparing the Steiner and Minox?
Just with looking from the house with it this morning. I can see homes, trees, businesses, etc for about 2 miles out. It does have very slight CA on those high contrast areas. More so on higher mag range. Once you get to max mag at 28x the optic loses a little bit of clarity, but seems on par for these kind of optics with huge mag ranges. At 20x it's fantastic! Really bright, clear and we'll defined image. From 4-22 or so I think the M7xi does VERY VERY well and is very close to the brightness of the Minox. The illumination is about the same as Minox. Parallax at close distance it's a little tight or finicky. I like the minox turrets better because if the feel of each .1 mil click. More defined and tactile. The M7xi is actually really nice but just not as audible. But no slop at all. Feels good. I like the TT, USO b series, Minox, elevation turrets slightly better. The Steiners have little lighter sounding but good clicks and overall are very good.
Eye box is better then the Minox. Just slightly. The FOV is awesome on the M7xi. Probably has to do that it goes to 4 instead if 5x. But wow it's a nice large picture. The glass is slightly better IMO on the Minox overall. I can't see any CA no matter how much snow and dark/light contrast I look at on the Minox. Minox colors at higher mag are more true. Parallax adjustment on the Steiner is pretty tight. It does focus very nicely for a very crisp image, but it's a tight window when rolling that dial. The Steiner wins in the length and weight. Up to 20x mag, you may not tell much of a difference in picture quality vs the Minox other then the CA. Both are bright and excellent image. FOV goes to the Steiner. Eye box goes to the Steiner. The Windage turret on the Steiner feels the same as the elevation and I don't know if I've felt that before on any high end optic. There is almost always a worse Windage turret. These are the same.
For me, the Minox elevation turret and it's glass, and the more forgiving parallax are my initial "still like the minox more" but given that I'm very used to the Minox and have a total of zero rounds down range on the Steiners, it's a little early to make the call.
Summarize:
Glass, colors, contrast, CA Minox
Eyebox Steiner
FOV Steiner
Elevation Turret Minox (my preference but the Steiner is really good with no complaints)
Windage Turret Steiner because it's the same as elevation. Minox feels different between the two.
Parallax adjustment Minox
Size Steiner
Illumination Tie
Reticles.. Both are great and completely different
The overall package of the Steiner is no slouch. Not at all. Hope to get to the range this weekend and get some trigger time behind them.
