What is your Favorite Long Range Scope and Why?

[HunterShooter]

Bought a Swaro X5 3.5-18 x 50 and absolutely love it. The pain of paying for it subsides as soon as you shoot it!

 

[dkee]

My Favorite long range scope is my Huskemaw Blue Diamond 5-20x50. I love it's light weight and Huskemaw's easy to use turret system.

What is yours and why?

In my experience the glass on the S&B PMII 5x25 series is unsurpassed. Premier scopes (when still being made) are just as good. Kahles another good choice but I prefer mil-dot to MOA reticles; also first focal plane.

 

[Woodstuff]

I love my Shepherd 2.5 x10 it has range to 1000 yards . First focal plane cross hairs as well as second focal plane all zeros are visible in scope view and if for some reason scope is broken you can see it in scope view as the two sets of cross hairs will not line up. I have taken deer at 704 yards and have never had one problem with this scope and it has a full replacement life time watrenty to original owner. The scope is caliber specific.

 

[oja0530]

7-35 ATACR Mil-C
Easy reading of reticle. Especially for holdovers, etc... Also can't go wrong with a NF F1.
All my scopes are NF. Except one, but looking to upgrade to NF 1-8 ATACR, very soon.

 

[Thunderrun]

For a SFP scope,the Sightron SIII series is hard to beat. They have very good glass,and will track with the best scopes made. I have 5 of them.

In FFP,I really enjoy using my IOR Valdada Recon. It has been excellent in every way I've used it. I recently bought a Revic scope but haven't mounted it on anything yet,USPS has been playing games on getting my rings delivered.

The Athlon Cronus & Cronus BTR scopes are also very good FFP scopes for the money. I have an original Cronus,and while it's not in the same class as scopes that cost $2500 and up,it lacks very little in operating like one.

Not in the same class? What is it lacking? I know glass is subjective to each individual's eye, but I don't see a great deal of difference in clarity or contrast between the Cronus, NXS or the only Schmidt and Bender I had it next to. At least not enough to justify the price difference. I guess I'm curious as to what I am missing out on.

 

[Barrelnut]

Not in the same class? What is it lacking? I know glass is subjective to each individual's eye, but I don't see a great deal of difference in clarity or contrast between the Cronus, NXS or the only Schmidt and Bender I had it next to. At least not enough to justify the price difference. I guess I'm curious as to what I am missing out on.

It is hard to tell the difference between the glass on a lot of scopes just by casually looking thru them in a store or even at the range sometimes. They make resolution charts for scopes. They are kinda like "eye charts". Put one up at 100 yards and test the scopes against the charts and the differences will easily be evident. That exceptional resolution, IMO, is what you are paying for in the higher end scopes. Probably some sturdier mechanics too, but a lot of it is the glass quality. I'm sure my Vortex would be nowhere close to an S&B in resolution.

 

[Txhillbilly]

Not in the same class? What is it lacking? I know glass is subjective to each individual's eye, but I don't see a great deal of difference in clarity or contrast between the Cronus, NXS or the only Schmidt and Bender I had it next to. At least not enough to justify the price difference. I guess I'm curious as to what I am missing out on.

The turret feel isn't even close,even after removing the O-ring on the Cronus turrets,they aren't even close to the turrets on any of the higher priced scopes. The scope is really close optically,but the coatings make the contrast seem way off to me. On a bright sunny day,I almost need sunglasses to use the Cronus. I can use my IOR or Swarovski scopes in the same light without them.
Performance wise,my Cronus tracks real good. It held it's own shooting from 700 yds out to 1793 yards right next to my rifle with the Recon scope on it.

The NXS isn't anywhere near as good as the Cronus optically,my Sightron SIII scopes have better glass than the NXS series. The ATACR is a different story,it has great glass!

 

[orch]

.

 

[OLI62]

Tangent Theta. Next to NF are the best tracking scopes I've ever owned. The glass is the best I've ever looked through to my eye's. Have been very rugged too.

 

[Beardeddeer91]

Vortex viper PST gen 1 cause that's the one on my main LR gun!

 

[brian y]

To me long range is 1000yds+, I was fine using my Leupold vx-6 to 700yds but when i went longer i could not see my hits or misses. My 60 year old eyes have had a lot of work on them and i needed better glass so i started doing some research and narrowed it down to about 4-5 of the top scope makers. As we all know they are not cheep and i started shopping around and also looking at used ones for sale. I lucked out and found a used MARCH 8-80x56 at a great price. All i am going to say is yes there is a big difference in glass on the higher end scopes. I am now the proud owner of another MARCH scope a HIGH MASTER 10-60x56 amazing glass again bought used.
I am not saying MARCH is the best scope out there but for what i need they work great.

 

[The Oregonian]

I agree with WeiserBuck. The most import criteria in a scope used for LR anything are:

1. First focal plain - it is hard to use a second plain reticle for anything unless you are super good at remembering to check the magnification of the scope before you use the reticle to judge holdover etc. Also, it is highly advisable if the turrets are the same scale as the reticle (e.g. Mil reticle and mil turrets or MOA reticle and MOA turrets).

2. Turrets have to track accurately. Preferably out of the box but it is critically important that it is reliable in the field. My hunts tend to involve long hikes over steep and challenging turrain in all types of weather. My equipment gets knocked around, wet, dusty and muddy. When I have a shot, I want to know that my bullet will go to my cross hairs if I do my job with probability 1.

3. Enough travel in the turrets so you can dial in enough drop to cover the full range of targets you intend to engage. Holding over your target when you had plenty of time to range the target, calculate an accurate solution and dial the solution into your reticle is always preferable to holding over. It is a bummer when you and your rifle can engage longer targets but your scope doesn't have enough travel.

To me, glass is secondary. Any FFP scope you buy today will have reasonable good glass. Even though I hike big distances with my equipment, weight is secondary. Good scopes that track well and are durable in the field tend to be a little heavy (notice that the military's equipment is almost always heavier than civilian equipment). To me, there is no point carrying a nice light rifle if you cannot reliabily take animals at 600 meters to 1,200 meters.

All of my scopes are Schmidt and Bender, which unfortunately are stupid expensive. I've measured their ability to track when they are new and retest all of them once a year. All of them track within the amount of error in my measuring methodology. One of my S&B scopes is 17 years old. It is all scratched up but still works great. I have no intention of replacing it. My advice is that whatever you chose, pick something that will last for at least 10 years. That will help you overcome the pain of purchasing an expensive piece of equipment.

There is an online YouTube course called Sniper 101. It is 100+ episodes on various longrange topics. There are three or four episodes covering optics and how to chose a scope to match your application. I cannot remember how long they were together but I believe that if you watched them all back-to-back it might take an hour.

On number one, it sounds as if you are saying that a scope must be FFP for LR shooting - in fact, it is the most Important criteria. I dial for elevation, or in a pinch can use reticle hash marks, and that works just fine for me. I dislike FFP scopes and am quite happy with everything about my SFP scopes....March 2.5-25x52, ATACR's in 5-25 and 4-16.

 

[Rich Coyle]

On number one, it sounds as if you are saying that a scope must be FFP for LR shooting - in fact, it is the most Important criteria. I dial for elevation, or in a pinch can use reticle hash marks, and that works just fine for me. I dislike FFP scopes and am quite happy with everything about my SFP scopes....March 2.5-25x52, ATACR's in 5-25 and 4-16.

Same here. I tried FFP and disliked them.

 

[Greyfox]

On number one, it sounds as if you are saying that a scope must be FFP for LR shooting - in fact, it is the most Important criteria. I dial for elevation, or in a pinch can use reticle hash marks, and that works just fine for me. I dislike FFP scopes and am quite happy with everything about my SFP scopes....March 2.5-25x52, ATACR's in 5-25 and 4-16.

For PRS/Tactical sports I use FFP exclusively. I find SFP much better suited for LRH, even after trying my high end FFP S&B and NF-F1 scopes the reticle substension never seems to be well matched for the shot.....for my tastes.