Or is it the official unofficial one? Hell, I don't know. Frank has his all mounted up all proud on his TacOps but he's snowed in and will likely die a cold and horrible death in if the snow keeps up, so I figured I'd better post something with this bad ass scope being available for order AND SHIPPING tomorrow, April 25th.
I posted some quick info here with some beautiful rifle porn, check it out if you haven't already.
http://www.snipershide.com/shooting...5x42-~-some-initial-impressions-pictures.html
Some more great info from these two fellows:
http://www.snipershide.com/shooting/snipers-hide-rifle-scopes/187642-swfa-3-15x42-classic.html
http://www.snipershide.com/shooting...a-3-15x42-only-$699-best-value-entry-ffp.html
Now Jon A has MUCH better pictures of the reticle than I was able to take, so I'll leave my pics to a minimum, just a couple to prove that I actually did make it out to the range and this review is based not on hand holding through my living room window, but from actually laying behind the gun and shooting some groups (which were great groups, but forgot to take pictures of those, but just trust me).
Let's start with the most important Q&A: Should you buy this scope tomorrow when it's available? I'd say the answer is a solid yes, for the money it's a great scope at a good value and it will serve you very well. The SWFA line of scopes have been known for their ability to provide a good scope at a solid value price point and this one does not disappoint.
Some highlights of the good.
Reticle and knobs are mil/mil. Solid clicks that are well spaced, very audible and tactile feel. I really like the SWFA Mil-Quad reticle, glad this scope has it too.
Glass is very good. I didn't hop back and forth between 5 different scopes to evaluate the glass as I typically do, I've learned that doing that doesn't really tell you as much as you'd think. I will say though that I had my 5-20 SS out there and going between the two I never really thought that one was better or worse than the other and that does say something. My 5-20 is very good and very bright, I would notice if the glass was substandard and I'm happy to report that it's not. The glass on the 3-15 is very good to excellent for the price point and it's way more than adequate for any hunting or tactical style shooting. Winning.
Eye box and eye relief. No real scientific testing here, but I made it a point to be aware of these two things. The eye relief was good, plenty of room for comfort at max magnification, happy with the eye relief. The eye box was real easy to get behind too. Again, I didn't jump between scopes, try to find shadows, etc....but once I had my cheekpiece adjusted right and everything settled in I can say that getting a good sight picture took no thought or effort. Every time I got behind the scope the sight picture was just there and good, it didn't take work to get a good clear sight picture.
Parallax Adjustment. I only shot at 200 yards, but I was happy to adjust the scope to where I thought it looked good and then I looked at the parallax knob to find the dot nicely centered between the 100 and 300 yard marks. Excellent.
Power ring, parallax knob, turrets, etc. Everything turned smoothly like it should, felt good, worked well. Didn't have a tight elevation turret and a sloppy windage one, etc etc. Everything on the scope felt clean and moved freely. One of my SS 5-20x50 HD's is a bear to adjust the power ring, not so with this one. Enough tension that it won't move by accident, but when you go to turn it then it moves easily and smoothly.
Tracking I didn't test. SWFA scopes are known for being pretty darn reliable, I didn't feel that I needed to spend the time (nor did I have the time) to run an extensive tracking test. It tracked as expected while I got a quick zero using the reticle for adjustments, no reason to believe it won't track as expected.
The price! I think $699 is a very good price point for this scope. It's a good value to be able to put rugged and reliable mil/mil optics on a few rifles. I see them ending up on a 22, my coyote chaser and at least one 243/260/308 AR of mine....haven't decided which one. Probably the 243 DPMS Hunter will get the first one.
So now for the bad....yes I do think there are a couple things that could be improved on, so here they are.
Weight. Yes, it's a smidge heavy for the power range of the scope. It'd be the bomb if it came in closer to 20oz, but really I'm sure that once it's all loaded up on a 10+ pound rifle it's unlikely I'd be able to tell the difference in 4oz.
Windage knob - I see this as a versatile scope that can be tactical, but would love to go hunting with you too. I wish that the windage knob didn't hang out there quite so far, it'd be even better if it was capped. Seriously, who dials wind anyhow?
Lastly, and I need to check this one, I think the reticle is a little thin. The specs say it's thicker than the 5-20x50 HD, but in my quick comparison I didn't think so. I like thick reticles, thicker than a lot of guys do, do I was hoping for a nice thick reticle at 15X that was still usable at 3X. After 5X the reticle gets pretty thin, you won't be doing any low light in the backwoods shooting at 3-5X. I'll try to do another reticle comparison between the 5-20 and 3-15 tonight and update this.
That about sums it up. Lots of positives and a few little gripes. I'd say it's a good buy for sure. And now for some pics....
I posted some quick info here with some beautiful rifle porn, check it out if you haven't already.
http://www.snipershide.com/shooting...5x42-~-some-initial-impressions-pictures.html
Some more great info from these two fellows:
http://www.snipershide.com/shooting/snipers-hide-rifle-scopes/187642-swfa-3-15x42-classic.html
http://www.snipershide.com/shooting...a-3-15x42-only-$699-best-value-entry-ffp.html
Now Jon A has MUCH better pictures of the reticle than I was able to take, so I'll leave my pics to a minimum, just a couple to prove that I actually did make it out to the range and this review is based not on hand holding through my living room window, but from actually laying behind the gun and shooting some groups (which were great groups, but forgot to take pictures of those, but just trust me).
Let's start with the most important Q&A: Should you buy this scope tomorrow when it's available? I'd say the answer is a solid yes, for the money it's a great scope at a good value and it will serve you very well. The SWFA line of scopes have been known for their ability to provide a good scope at a solid value price point and this one does not disappoint.
Some highlights of the good.
Reticle and knobs are mil/mil. Solid clicks that are well spaced, very audible and tactile feel. I really like the SWFA Mil-Quad reticle, glad this scope has it too.
Glass is very good. I didn't hop back and forth between 5 different scopes to evaluate the glass as I typically do, I've learned that doing that doesn't really tell you as much as you'd think. I will say though that I had my 5-20 SS out there and going between the two I never really thought that one was better or worse than the other and that does say something. My 5-20 is very good and very bright, I would notice if the glass was substandard and I'm happy to report that it's not. The glass on the 3-15 is very good to excellent for the price point and it's way more than adequate for any hunting or tactical style shooting. Winning.
Eye box and eye relief. No real scientific testing here, but I made it a point to be aware of these two things. The eye relief was good, plenty of room for comfort at max magnification, happy with the eye relief. The eye box was real easy to get behind too. Again, I didn't jump between scopes, try to find shadows, etc....but once I had my cheekpiece adjusted right and everything settled in I can say that getting a good sight picture took no thought or effort. Every time I got behind the scope the sight picture was just there and good, it didn't take work to get a good clear sight picture.
Parallax Adjustment. I only shot at 200 yards, but I was happy to adjust the scope to where I thought it looked good and then I looked at the parallax knob to find the dot nicely centered between the 100 and 300 yard marks. Excellent.
Power ring, parallax knob, turrets, etc. Everything turned smoothly like it should, felt good, worked well. Didn't have a tight elevation turret and a sloppy windage one, etc etc. Everything on the scope felt clean and moved freely. One of my SS 5-20x50 HD's is a bear to adjust the power ring, not so with this one. Enough tension that it won't move by accident, but when you go to turn it then it moves easily and smoothly.
Tracking I didn't test. SWFA scopes are known for being pretty darn reliable, I didn't feel that I needed to spend the time (nor did I have the time) to run an extensive tracking test. It tracked as expected while I got a quick zero using the reticle for adjustments, no reason to believe it won't track as expected.
The price! I think $699 is a very good price point for this scope. It's a good value to be able to put rugged and reliable mil/mil optics on a few rifles. I see them ending up on a 22, my coyote chaser and at least one 243/260/308 AR of mine....haven't decided which one. Probably the 243 DPMS Hunter will get the first one.
So now for the bad....yes I do think there are a couple things that could be improved on, so here they are.
Weight. Yes, it's a smidge heavy for the power range of the scope. It'd be the bomb if it came in closer to 20oz, but really I'm sure that once it's all loaded up on a 10+ pound rifle it's unlikely I'd be able to tell the difference in 4oz.
Windage knob - I see this as a versatile scope that can be tactical, but would love to go hunting with you too. I wish that the windage knob didn't hang out there quite so far, it'd be even better if it was capped. Seriously, who dials wind anyhow?
Lastly, and I need to check this one, I think the reticle is a little thin. The specs say it's thicker than the 5-20x50 HD, but in my quick comparison I didn't think so. I like thick reticles, thicker than a lot of guys do, do I was hoping for a nice thick reticle at 15X that was still usable at 3X. After 5X the reticle gets pretty thin, you won't be doing any low light in the backwoods shooting at 3-5X. I'll try to do another reticle comparison between the 5-20 and 3-15 tonight and update this.
That about sums it up. Lots of positives and a few little gripes. I'd say it's a good buy for sure. And now for some pics....
