I'd buy a few of the scopes you describe, but I'd get more specific about the numbers. There will be tradeoffs.
Great eyebox - Good eye relief requires either a large eyepiece or proximity. I would sacrifice eye relief to gain FOV. An optics manufacturing company may balk at this for liability concerns. For MY SPR, I'll take 2 inches, rather than the traditional 3, as It's going on 5.56 gas guns only weighing 7 lbs+. Tempting as it may be for hunters, it should NOT go on your Seekins element in 7 PRC. Imagine the lawyers requiring a waiver to buy a scope. ACOGS with 1.5" eye relief were designed specifically for 5.56 and this should be viewed similarly.
Great reticle which works as well at min as it does at max magnification - Love the EBR 9 reticle for this, but would make 2 changes for a 2-12, which should emphasize performance at 12x.
A. Remove center dot entirely and leave a .10 mil space at the center of the crosshair, a la the mark 6 TMR reticle.
B. Cut the thickness of the illuminated interrupted circle to .1 mil. This should be sufficient with proper daylight bright illumination and it won't disappear as reticles do at 1x. With 2x at the bottom, it will have the same apparent the surface area at low mag, where it is needed. Nuclear bright illumination levels of the 1-10 would need to be retained.
mil/mil - Of course - As this is NOT a hunting scope.
Great turrets with zero stop - Better specify .1 mil adjustments, or they'll pull the .2 NX8 maneuver on you. To save weight and snag profile, I'd love the capped windage from the Gen 3. I'll take the L-tec elevation turret from the old AMG 6-24. MUST be 10 mils per turn and zero stop.
decent FOV - No less than 50' at 100 yards. More is better. The original ACOG 4X had 36' with 1.5" eye relief. I think the old binden concept would work great at 2x with a 12 degree FOV.
very good image quality - Hard to quantify glass, but say 90% light transmission or better. I'll gladly fork out $2K for top end Japanese, or better yet go back to the homegrown AMG glass idea.
parallax adj - Perfection would be to rip off the large dial at the base of the elevation turret idea from Kahles. no confusion with the illumination control and elevation/parrallax go together like peas and carrots. If pulled off the vortex shelf, the Razor HD LHT or Razor AMG parralax are simple, compact, light and straightforward.
illumination - Must have the same candela as the gen3 1-10 - don't have that on hand.
less than 28 oz - I would balk at 28 for an AR/SPR DMR for speed and balance reasons. The old PST was 18 oz and the LHT 3-15 is 19 oz. Even the LHT 4.5-22, with 50mm objective is 21.7 oz. This thing needs to balance on a 2 point sling and change directions like a fighting rifle. The stoner design was predicated on light weight - let's not ruin it. Let's do this right and allow a maximum of 20 oz.
You forgot to mention FFP, btw... There are plenty of nice, light, medium power scopes in SFP. If you don't specify it, they certainly won't make a 2-12 in FFP. Missing in this country is a shooting sport which requires leading targets moving at 5-60 mph at ranges from 50-500 yards. As a result, there is not much perceived need. Admittedly, I'm stuck with my memories of rolling tractor tires down hills with targets bungeed to them. I learned how well a balanced rifle length system performed at this, but felt I could do even better with the scope described herein. I was using Acogs at the time and they worked quite well, but lacked the adjustability and reticles needed to take it next level.
If necessary, I'd sacrifice elevation travel too, as I only need 11.5 mils to get Hornady Match to 1,000 with an 18" AR. Frontier runs hot and will do it with 9.5. Also, I'm OK with it requiring a canted mount, so 12 mils of total travel and a single turn turret will do. NO HIGH PROFILE MALL NINJA TACTICAL TURRETS PLEASE, as this is not a tactical scope. It's for a different purpose. Look at the ACOG adjustments and ponder why they are not the size and weight of coke cans.
A 30mm tube would be my preference. Fuck it, let's mill a piggyback RMR mounting point just forward of the elevation turret too.
THANKS VORTEX!!!
I'd love to hear a manufacturers explanation why they don't see a market for something so perfectly matched to the most produced rifle in the country. While I suspect they see where other similar scopes flopped, I'll argue that it ALWAYS has to do with the execution. Whether SFP, no illumination (or insufficient illumination), MOA only, no parrallax, funky reticle, chinese manfacture or just too damn heavy - You show me the MPVO and I'll tell you why I either didn't buy it.. or bought it and sold it. (Or still have it, but put it on a .22 because it's chinese) Yes, the NF 2.5-10 with mil dot was so effing close. No FFP though. I just couldn't set it at 5 or 6x and have my reticle subtend correctly... you know, 'cause it's heartbreaking when you can't rely on your reticle.
Now, let's see how the Steiner HS6i 2-12x42 sells when they release it with the mil reticle. You ARE releasing a mil reticle.......... RIGHT Steiner??? This will have the same quality and and engineering standards as your Bavarian optics, RIGHT Steiner???
