I bought a 4-16x50 and the glass quality is very good and the Mildot reticle is very good as well (no MSR option for that one). Turrets are nice and big and easy to turn. They have a good feel to them with nice clicks and ergonomics. The illumination is easy to access on the parallax adjustment knob and works well even in bright light if you so wanted. Clarity across the field of view is very clean and crisp and better than my Nightforce F1 by a decent margin. I can see .30 cal bullet holes at 300 yards that the Nightforce F1 would have a hard time resolving.
Build quality appears excellent and rugged. The 34mm tube meant I needed to buy new rings, but this just seems to be the way the industry is going.
A nice thing about the Steiner over the Nightforce is the reticle lines extend to the edges no matter how low you take the magnification. On the Nightforce F1, the reticle will not extend to the edges at lower powers and I find at lower magnification the F1 reticle is harder to see vs. the Steiner at the same power.
Compared to the S&B 5-25, the Steiner 4-16 had no tunneling effect at lower powers. The S&B tunneling became very apparent under 7X power or so. I think the 5-25 Steiner should not have tunneling either so that is a big plus if you like using lower powers for positional shooting not using a bipod (which I often do).
Zero stop is reliable and easy to set. You loosen two set screws on the turret, raise the turret about 1/8in, turn it over the amount you want to adjust the scope, push the turret back down and lock down the set screws. It's the fastest zero stop I've used on a scope so far and you don't need to pull off the turret caps which is nice as it prevents the possibility of getting dirt/debris into the mechanism.
The eyebox on the Steiner seemed better to me than the Nightforce F1. It is more forgiving and easier to get behind with better eye relief from my comparisons.
I did a tracking test with it when I zeroed the optic and it was perfect. Vertical tracking test was also flawless out to 13 mils elevation when I had it at the range.
Overall I like the Steiner and it's just a question for me of how they hold up long-term after being beaten up a bunch in the field. My Nightforce scopes have been flawless so that's the benchmark I'm going to use.
I have a 5-25 coming that will be put on a new rifle build so we'll see how that goes (with MSR reticle). The drop down turret indicator honestly seems a little gimmicky and just one additional thing to go wrong on an optic. But, we'll see. I prefer less bells and whistles and places where water/debris can cause problems. However Steiner does have a lifetime warranty and asserts they are waterproof to a certain submersion depth.
So far the Steiner I think is coming into the market with a serious product and is in the game to compete against all the higher end scopes. Their price point is good considering the quality of optics if you shop around.
