Scope field evaluations on rokslide

[WeiserBucks]

Four of us took Five different Atacrs and five different Mark 5s outside to the range at 1500 yards to compare glass. Three of the Atacrs were the same and unnoticeable. The others all had exhibited a visible difference between each example. One of the Leupolds was clearly behind the glass quality of the others.

On a range trip there were seven of us with everything from TT, ZCO, NF, Leupold, Athlon and Vortex. We got to compare all of them and we were surprised at what we saw which led to the comparison of the NF and Leupolds. One of the Mark 5s a 7-32 at the original range session stood out from all the others in broad day light. The ZCO was also noticeable brighter than the rest. When you have access to all of them and aren't looking at them in the store you can visibly see the difference buddy! (ie most assume the ZCO is brighter than the NF Atacr and it is till it begins to get really dark and then the contrast in the Atacr comes out and in my opinion makes up enough of the difference to deter me from buying the ZCO over the NF based on glass alone.

You're talking glass and I'm talking function. Are you refusing to to accept that some shat simply fails? Quit talking about glass and other irrelevant garbage. I've owned them all and have culled the junk, not because of glass and pro staffers, ecause I need it to work in the middle of the Alutean islands, not your buddies shop.

Top quality glass gets me nowhere if it fails. Maybe you and your fellow pro staffers can get together in a shop and quit accepting $$$$$$$$$ and free scopes that fail outside your comp life and get it together. F' your cars too, cool repeated deflection.

 

[Paladin300]

Four of us took Five different Atacrs and five different Mark 5s outside to the range at 1500 yards to compare glass. Three of the Atacrs were the same and unnoticeable. The others all had exhibited a visible difference between each example. One of the Leupolds was clearly behind the glass quality of the others.

On a range trip there were seven of us with everything from TT, ZCO, NF, Leupold, Athlon and Vortex. We got to compare all of them and we were surprised at what we saw which led to the comparison of the NF and Leupolds. One of the Mark 5s a 7-32 at the original range session stood out from all the others in broad day light. The ZCO was also noticeable brighter than the rest. When you have access to all of them and aren't looking at them in the store you can visibly see the difference buddy! (ie most assume the ZCO is brighter than the NF Atacr and it is till it begins to get really dark and then the contrast in the Atacr comes out and in my opinion makes up enough of the difference to deter me from buying the ZCO over the NF based on glass alone.

You're talking glass and I'm talking function. Are you refusing to to accept that some shat simply fails? Quit talking about glass and other irrelevant garbage. I've owned them all and have culled the junk, not because of glass and pro staffers, ecause I need it to work in the middle of the Alutean islands, not your buddies shop.

Top quality glass gets me nowhere if it fails. Maybe you and your fellow pro staffers can get together in a shop and quit accepting $$$$$$$$$ and free scopes that fail outside your comp life and get it together. F' your cars too, cool repeated deflection.

Well I guess we final touched a nerve! First of all I bought and paid for every scope I own. And I drive a Jeep and a pick up. I have received bows and other stuff as a pro staffer. Over the years. I don't shoot competitions anymore. Even when I did for what it cost to go on hunts and shoot competitions I could have bought twice what I was given. I barely won enough to cover the difference and I won or finished in the top 20 a lot. I did own a shop for about seven years. Still had to pay for everything. Most of us are just ordinary guys with regular jobs who are pretty good at shooting things. If you have read any of my other post you would now I favor S&B and Leupold for hunting scopes because they just work in that application. That comes from being around PHs on three continents Africa and Alaska primarily. Never hunted the Alutean Islands maybe there you needs something all together different than you do in Alaska or Norway. Again it is just my experience. And again my point was not glass but quality from one brand or model to the next even among the same company. I personally never buy a scope I haven't taken outside and played with first. But I have that option because I have access, most don't. I am not rich as a matter of a fact it is one reason I have quit pursuing certain game because the cost has become to high. In the 1990s and early 2000s you could book a plains game safari for about 5500 and take 7 animals plus your airfare and tips. Today that same hunt cost 10000-15000 plus airfare and tips and a cape hunt is 25000, if your going after the big boys. Alaska bear and moose are about the same. A Texas Aoudad hunt cheep is 3500. It has all gotten out of hand but that is a discussion for another day. When it comes to scopes pick what you like that fits your needs that you can afford and go hunt. Which has been my point all along. You don't need a 3500 Atacr to do that. And for most it is more than they will ever need or use for LRH which is the point of this forum. Blessings friend.

 

[WeiserBucks]

Your story is changing. F'ing hilarious.

Alaska? Norway? Guided hunts?

Half an hour ago you were talking about comparing scopes in a shop.

 

[Paladin300]

Your story is changing. F'ing hilarious.

Alaska? Norway? Guided hunts?

Half an hour ago you were talking about comparing scopes in a shop.

I do apologize I am just having fun with you. Again I am not trying to argue with you about a particular brand of scope. And if you read all my post on this post or going back a few years you will see that I have been consistent in my accounting of my experience. I have been blessed in life to have traveled most of this world with my fathers work and my own. As a result I have been afforded the opportunity to hunt in places most only dream of. I will not apologize for that. But I will call a spade a spade and when someone claims to have broken 20-30 scopes of every brand known to man except brand C I am just going to call foul. With my experience and I have some. I have not seen that. Think what you will I spent 10 years as a pro staffer and I still have connections that allow me to play with stuff. That said with what I have access to I could own anything I wanted but I choose S&B and Leupold for my hunting rifles, as do most PHs I know. I have not experienced a failure on a hunt or a miss that was not my fault. Take that for what it is worth. It is just my opinion and personal experience. As Mark Twain once said don't raise your voice my friend, improve your argument.

 

[WiscGunner]

I just completed year 3 with my LHT. Well I have a couple more hunts this year, but my rough math says that it's killed 16 animals in 3 years, from 17 yards to 834 yards. I haven't had a POI impact in 3 years. Not saying it's a NF but it's funny how fast everyone on RS wrote off the LHT after one test. I've dropped mine multiple times, it's ridden thousands of Miles in a truck, 100s of miles on a rzr, been packed on foot 100s of miles and it's never given me one issue.

I think one of the issues with the test is that there is ONE test scope. It might be the one scope that performs great, or the scope that performs terribly. It's not feasible to test 10 scopes, but it's something to think about that you're getting a sample size of ONE.

Which torture test is more realistic? A scope that's been hunted hard for 3 years and never had an issue, or a scope that was dropped a couple of times and failed.

Statistically speaking, the failure id worth more. it is like winning the lottery. If a manufacture makes 100,000 of a model and they have a 1% failure rate, your odds of finding a single bad one is very slim compared to how many would be good. Test a second version...will you win the lottery twice? The point of the testing on RS is not so say which scopes pass but rather to show which ones are more likely to fail. Passing drop test is expected just like I expect my lottery ticket to not be the winning one. Form has numerous times mentions NOT to take these test as gospel and especially not to trust him but rather he is creating a format for other to follow so they may test their own gear without anecdotal remembrance of some subjective "hard use" .

I would strongly encourage you to run the test as is it laid out either to help your fellow shooter avoid a bad scope or to encourage them that there are in fact good LHT's made.

Sniper's Hide had a field day poo-pooing these test, I think largely because of wallet bias, yet several members went right out and tested their scope (is the intent) including a LHT owner whom also won the lotter and scored a rare failure. How rare is yet to be seen as more people test their scopes. I look forward to seeing other test their version

 

[willfrye027]

Recently had a new 22 creedmoor that was shifting zero. Scope was a swfa 3-9 that is supposed to be one of the reliable, passes drop tests kind of scope. I immediately blamed the scope. After re-torqueing the action, remounting rings, swapping scopes around…found out it was actually my barrel not torqued enough to the action (prefit barrel nut setup, didn't torque it on enough). Scope was/is fine. The gun system now stays zeroed on 12-18in drops. Personally 36" is more than I feel like risking a total breakage of something.

My biggest take away from following along with these drop tests (other than just start with a model that seems to pass) is how to trouble shoot and identify a zero shift.

All of my rifles now have a baseline 20 shot group and perfect zero. Periodically I will check a 100 yard zero and if the round falls outside my 20 shot expected group..I know there has been a shift somewhere.

I've since identified weak points in my bedding/torque, rings/mounts, and my buddies leupold scopes..so far none of my scopes have been the culprit since switching everything over to bushy LRHS and SWFAs. And now all my systems are rock solid as they can be.

Everything in a rifle system can fail, my goal is to know what that point of failure could be and correct it before it has a chance to ruin a hunt.

 

[trapper1954]

I , back in the day, would put the scope in a cradle and center the hairs, lap the rings, mount it on the rifle, bore sight it using mostly the adjustable base not the turrets so much. Then I would do the run the scope around in a circle test and if it didn't return to where we started it was removed. And those rifles were free floaters and had actions glued in wood stocks.
test= shoot paper, run it 4 clicks right, 4 clicks up, 4 clicks left, 4 clicks down, shoot it. That will show you the slop in the inside movement.

 

[Axl]

My problem with every Swarovski I have owned has been the eye boxes. They are just to tight for my liking. I never kept them long enough to see if they would fail at the 400 round mark. Again, most hunter will never get to four hundred rounds and if you are shooting that much a Swarovski is probably not your best option. Agreed that the problem with NF is the reticle choices as well for me as the ocular bell on the Atacr. In the test of the PM2 it initially failed but he states that he tightened the rings to between 20-22 ft lbs because he noticed the scope had moved in the rings.

Nice, but this is another paper tiger from you.
In post 285 you said "He adjusted and noted the increase in ring poundage on the scopes that passed but made no such adjustments on those that failed"

I am asking you for the second time. Which scope(s) were you talking about in the tests???
The answer will be 1 sentence long, and will contain the name of the scope or scopes. This is called put up or shut up.

 

[Paladin300]

Nice, but this is another paper tiger from you.
In post 285 you said "He adjusted and noted the increase in ring poundage on the scopes that passed but made no such adjustments on those that failed"

I am asking you for the second time. Which scope(s) were you talking about in the tests???
The answer will be 1 sentence long, and will contain the name of the scope or scopes. This is called put up or shut up.

Again, as stated above, the S&B PM2 initially failed his test. He noted slippage in the rings and tightened the rings from 18lbs to 20-22 ft lbs per his note. It doesn't take much slippage to move POI. Once he did that he invalidated all his previous test because he changed a variable. The zero changed could have change because of slippage rather than internal components. The coating on some scopes could cause less slippage, the angle of the impact being slightly different could effect slippage, the size of the scope tube etc. He made a change on the S&B and noted high ring pressure on others thus invalidating his own test. For them to be completely valid all variables must be the same every time, that just the reality of it. That said it may not change the results but I bet it does, especially on the truck test. I have never seen a high quality scope loss zero riding around in a truck where the rings are properly tightened. I put my personal rifle in my truck and usually leave it all season in the back seat un-cased. It has never lost zero. I think that is what kind of makes me raise my eye brows.

 

[Snowboy]

Isn't weird that we are willing to accept re-zeroing our rifles every year?

I think the term for most of us is re-check our zero.
For most of my hunting career every year when the check is done the point of impact has not changed. Occasionally while hunting I have dropped my rifle and needed to fire a few rounds to confirm POI and it has usually been just fine. I believe I am super lucky or that all the extra time that I take to properly mount the scope has paid off.
I have owned many different brands of scopes but most have been ok after a drop. This year it was my Burris RT6 on my Rem. 700 bolt action. I had a bad ankle stepped in a hole and threw my rifle down hill about 15 feet. Checked back at camp and took the x- out of the bullseye. All good. I killed a deer the next day, confidence is important in shooting.

 

[Old Rooster]

What was nuts to me was how fast the vx5hd lost zero from riding in the back seat!

I have a friend that bought a vx-5 when they first came out and it has been in the back of his truck all over Montana back roads every season and has never lost zero yet.I clean his rifle after each season for him and he says,don't touch that scope,it's still perfect!
I don't know.I would love to be able to afford all Nightforce scopes and still feed my wife and I every day but I don't see that happening any way soon.

 

[Darryle]

Statistically speaking, the failure id worth more. it is like winning the lottery. If a manufacture makes 100,000 of a model and they have a 1% failure rate, your odds of finding a single bad one is very slim compared to how many would be good. Test a second version...will you win the lottery twice? The point of the testing on RS is not so say which scopes pass but rather to show which ones are more likely to fail. Passing drop test is expected just like I expect my lottery ticket to not be the winning one. Form has numerous times mentions NOT to take these test as gospel and especially not to trust him but rather he is creating a format for other to follow so they may test their own gear without anecdotal remembrance of some subjective "hard use" .

I think in this entire thread, the nugget is above

The take away for me is who uses a system that is more like to fail and who has a system that gives the highest chance for durability.

As far as the retesting at a higher torque, I would have to look at the weights of all of the scopes. Did he only re-torque the heavier scopes?

I know that the chances of me having an accident are slim, but it did happen to me while I was distracted by killing a rattlesnake. I will find out later today if my system failed. I know that the brand is one he tested that failed that has never given me an issue.

I have seen members of several different forums try to replicate the testing, post their results and then all of the fallout and ridiculousness that ensued.

In a perfect world, we have vehicle insurance for the other guy, not ourselves.

 

[Rosebud]

It's been excepted for as long as I've been hunting, That if you drop your rifle you pretty much have to expect the zero to move and check it ASAP. But if your dropping something from three feet bad stuff WILL happen. Today's scopes have so many features and small moving parts. Well, not much of a thought has to go into something moving. My rifle and scope ride in a padded case in all the vehicles it's transported. I expect bad things to happen if its dropped. I don't ride on horses anymore, my chevy RST has a very smooth ride. And I carry my rifle to wherever I'm hunting. I've never had one loose zero setting in a box blind. If this guy doesn't think vertical drops onto turrets from18, 36 inches to be abusive then I'm not going hunting with him. PS, he's not just dropping the scope, mostly what the scope makers do. He's adding a eight pound rifle to it. It's either expect it to happen, or return to shooting iron sights.

 

[Ckleeves]

The weird emotional attachment people have to inanimate objects is a strange thing. Packs, scopes, cartridges etc.

There is nothing wrong with just being honest with oneself and saying "I paid a bunch of money for this thing and it's a pile of junk". It's not an easy thing to do but it's needed at times.

It takes a lot of time and rounds to prove an individual scope. I picked up a Tenmile on the latest sale, I don't trust that individual scope right now. I trust the other one I have, it's been tested and is great. The new one might be a pile of junk because it hasn't been tested or proven.

I have never had a single problem with an Atacr, but I bought one from a guy that had just gotten it back from warranty work. Once again that scope has been through the wringer and at this point has had no issues.