SIGforum.com Main Page Mason's Rifle Room Considering a 1-4x LPV scope for my AR - what do you suggest?
Main Page Mason's Rifle Room Considering a 1-4x LPV scope for my AR - what do you suggest?Go | New | Find | Notify | Tools | Reply | |
| Go ahead punk, make my day |
Vortex Viper PST Gen 2 1-6x24 is great and 1x to me. Yes, it's heavier that the Trijicon and Steiner 1-4s, but it's 1-6x and true daylight bright (unless my experience with two 1-4 Accupowers - great scope but it isn't what I would consider daylight bright). | |||
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I have a Steiner PX4i and it's one heck of a scope for the money. | |||
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The March 1-4.5X24 is the bee's knees in this range. It also has a side focus, something lacking in every other 1-4 or 1-4.5 scope. http://www.bullets.com/shop/br...24mm-scope?src=march It's a little pricey, but it's a March. | |||
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| Music's over turn out the lights  |
 you were not kidding!David W. Rather fail with honor than succeed by fraud. -Sophocles | |||
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"Member" |
I love my Meopta's but if I were starting over again today I wouldn't buy one. Not because they're not great scopes, I'm just no longer using them enough to justify the cost.  _____________________________________________________ Sliced bread, the greatest thing since the 1911. | |||
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| Sigless in Indiana  |
Yeah... holy cow.... | |||
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Hey, go big or go home. What are the other cute sayings? "Cry once, buy once." "You get what you pay for in optics." "It's better than a sharp stick in the eye." "Don't take wooden nickels." This optic is actually quite popular on the Service Rifle circuit because it is the only 1-4.5X optics that has a side focus to eliminate parallax. When you are going to shoot from 200 to 600 yards in one day and you get to shoot in 1000 yard matches with your Service Rifle, you want that side focus. I looked through it at SHOT and I was truly impressed with this scope. If I were still shooting SR, I would probably get one. But I am past my SR days, and now spend multi-kilobucks on March scopes for F-class. The 1-4.5X March is probably overkill for most people, I get that. There are many other nice 1-4X scopes around. | |||
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| Sigless in Indiana |
Totally understand the rationale given that criteria. Heck I guess it's not that much more than the Swaro that was THE gold standard 3-gun scope for a long time before Vortex, Kahles and Burris ramped up a bunch of good 1-6 scopes. | |||
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1-6? Pshaw, that is so last decade. Here is a 1-8X24 FFP. http://www.bullets.com/shop/br...24mm-scope?src=march They also have a Shorty 1-8X24 FFP that weights a mere 17 ounces. http://www.bullets.com/shop/br...orty-scope?src=march | |||
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| Gracie Allen is my personal savior! |
[OT] (Sigh) If we can have cheaper, clearer, illuminated 1-6 and 1-8 power scopes with a low end that's closer and closer to a true 1X, then why can't we have shorter, lighter, clearer, cheaper, illuminated true 1X to 4X or 4.5X scopes that are every bit as durable and affordable as current 1-4X scopes? [/OT] OP, FWIW, I've been very happy with a couple of Steiner P4Xi scopes. Catch them on some kind of sale and they really do represent very good value for the money. Unless you spend the kind of money it takes to get a good Leupold, most 1-4X scopes are going to weigh about a pound and (I think) be about 10 inches long. | |||
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| Sigless in Indiana |
 A 1-8 is the point where I think a FFP becomes necessary. That shorty would be fun to try out. I know March builds fabulous stuff. You just don't see it as much in 3-gun circles. The JM-1 reticle in the Razor scopes is worth a lot in regard to fast and intuitive holdovers. | |||
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I don't want to start sounding like a March super-fanboy, but my experience with their products and the time I spent in their booth at SHOT has given me a lot of insight. One thing I learned is that March scopes are definitely NOT for everyone. They are all handmade in Japan in small batches using what they consider to be the best materials. Each scope is fully inspected before leaving the factory so defects are very rare. They are definitely not mass-production items. March Optics Inc has a factory technician in the US and he was in the booth while I was there. We spent time talking about riflescopes. (I think he was testing me for a while at first. Then he opened up a lot more.) I knew a great deal about their high-end SFP scopes but their FFP offerings were "new to me." That's the problem with specialization; I'm a high magnification freak and the FFPs don't do it for me. However, after I playing with their FFP offerings, I am truly impressed. For one thing they have the 8X zoom ratios that no one else has for things other than the 1-8. That 1-8X24 is so smooth and so solid. The Shorty 1-8 is something else, must be seen to be believed. I really liked the 3-24X52 and that 5-40X56 was something else. They all focus all the way down to 10 meters. One of the things I learned at SHOT is that the March scopes are very strong. The 34mm tubes are double thickness and because they are hand-built, they tell me that they hold up very well under harsh conditions. It really was an eye opening experience. But yes, the March scopes do have an eye-watering price, which may well be a reason why you don't see that many in PRS, whereas they are more popular in F-class and benchrest, etc. | |||
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I have 3 LPV -- Leupold 1.5-5x Mark 4, Vortex Viper PST 1-4x, Vortex Strike Eagle 1-6x. All three are decent scopes. Of these, the Leupold has the clearest glass, which of course reflects its cost. IMO the reticle is really important in a LPV. I recommend getting your hands on any model you consider buying. What looks good in a catalog or on a computer screen may not be what your eyes see in person. Play with the magnification ring. It shouldn't be really stiff or really loose, but it's what works for you. Move your eye left & right, up & down, forward & backward. Determine how forgiving the eyebox is. Look at the reticle against a cluttered background. See if you can pick out the cross hairs and the subtentions easily. If you're looking for a red lighted center aiming point, make certain you view it in multiple types of light, against multiple types of backgrounds. Again, our eyes see things differently than what is shown on computer screens.This message has been edited. Last edited by: fritz, | |||
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From what I see on web retail, the March 3-24x is about the same price as S&B PMII 5-25x and just a couple hundred more than NF ATACR 5-25x. March is priced well below Tangent Theta, although there aren't that many Tangents in PRS, either. The biggest shortcoming I see with March's 3-24x is the windage portion of the reticle -- it's only marked to 4 mil or 10 MOA. My NF ATACR goes to 20 MOA. And yes, I use more than 10 MOA wind holds on a regular basis. | |||
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I understand what you are saying. If it's ok with you , I would like to pass on that observation to March and see if they can address it. | |||
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No problemo. Feedback is part of what makes products better. Umm, I assume you are referencing the reticle. Unless March doesn't want to be considered the second most expensive tactical scope.  Back to reticle issue. Some will state that when the wind gets so bad that 12, 15, even 20 MOA of wind hold is required, the shooter should start dialing wind. And that is a possibility. But as our targets in given stages in tactical matches become more complex, and as time constraints grow tighter, dialing both elevation and windage become a challenge. For example, in last summer's ELR match in Wyoming. BTW, once or twice a year, the wind blows in Wyoming. You kinda realize that when from your shooting position you can see a couple hundred turbines for wind farms. Two targets, both elk-shaped steel, at about 950 and 1650 yards. Course of fire was two shots at 950, then two at 1650, then two at 950, then two at 1650. IIRC 3 minutes for the stage, starting from a standing position, rifle port of arms. We were high on a ridge, shooting at a noticeable down angle to the close target on the valley floor, and shooting at a pretty level angle to the far target. Transitioning from the close target to the far one required maybe a 30 degree swing of arc from right to left. Per my dope tables, should have been 23 MOA of elevation for the close target, 56 MOA of elevation for the far one. More elevation than I care hold for in the reticle, so I was dialing elevation. A 10 mph wind for the close target meant 4.6 MOA windage. IIRC wind for me was in the 10-15 mph ballpark, so I would have been holding 5-7 MOA. Wind on the far target was much higher, at least 20 mph. Maybe as much as 25-30 mph. My windage for 10 mph was about 9.3 MOA. All I know is that I was holding my ATACR's full 20 MOA and missing down wind of the bull elk target. Afterwards, a buddy stated that my first shot didn't hit the target bull elk, but rather the second cow of his imaginary harem in tow. Funny, and sad but true. | |||
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Yup, I did mean the comment about the reticle. It's the funny part about FFP vs SFP. I live and shoot in the SFP world and my March scope has the MTR-2 reticle which at 40X (my usual magnification when shooting individual, covers 10 MOA on either side if the center dot. Holding 20MOA would actually prevent me from even seeing the target at 40X and I would have to dial down to 20X for that. In team match, if I am a shooter, I go 50X and place the center dot wherever the wind coach tells me and I fire when (s)he says to. The most I have ever held off was about 6 MOA, which actually places the center dot on the target next to me. We usually dial by that time, unless the wind is very shifty. On an FFP, you can hold 20MOA also, but at a magnification that will allow for that kind of field of view, like your 25X. At that point you're essentially talking about a full graduated horizontal line, without the fatter lines at the edges to help draw your eye to the middle of the scope. | |||
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Domari Nolo |
Thanks for all the replies, guys. I appreciate it. Even the info on those expensive March scopes is fun and interesting to read and learn. I definitely gotta get my hands on some of these scopes, but I called quite a few shops in the area and none seem to carry any of these I'm interested in. I should have attended the Great American Outdoor Show up in Harrisburg, PA last week. I bet they would have had a great selection to try out. Chris | |||
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Yeah, we've all missed out on opportunities here and there. Keep trying to get a hands-on with as many scopes as you can. IndianaBoy's picture on the first page of this thread is good. Understand that seeing it on a computer screen makes the reticle appear larger. I recommend reducing the image on your screen to roughly life size (use the objective specs for a ballpark), then put your eye about 3-4 inches from the screen. It sounds funky, but I find it's not that far off to how my eye sees the reticle. Definitely better than only using a 4" to 6" diameter image that we see in printed ads from the scope manufacturers. By the way, I don't own a Steiner, but their LPV do seem to be good scopes at a reasonable price. | |||
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I have the SWFA and it is nice and works with what I used my 16" AR for. The scope has a edch and lighted reticle. The diamond in the reticle at 200 yards is 8". Put a 8" diamond target at 200 yards, line up the reticle, this works good for testing ammo. | |||
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SIGforum.com Main Page Mason's Rifle Room Considering a 1-4x LPV scope for my AR - what do you suggest?
Main Page Mason's Rifle Room Considering a 1-4x LPV scope for my AR - what do you suggest?© SIGforum 2024