I have had the Leupold Mark 6 1-6×20mm sight for several months now. My purpose in acquiring the sight was to use it on a semiprecision AR chambered for 5.56mm NATO that was intended to fill the gap between an AR set up for close quarters use and a precision bolt action rifle.

As should be obvious to the experienced eye, nothing about the setup was intended to appeal to the featherweight aficionados crowd, and the scope fits right in with the metal handguard, Magpul PRS stock, and other accessories. With the Atlas bipod attached and 20 rounds of 64 grain Gold Dot ammunition, everything weighs about 11 pounds, and with 17 ounces of that being the sight itself. The 34mm maintube of the scope adds to the impression of size, but only because it’s big.





The scope designers evidently assumed that the sight would be used primarily for the sort of thing I had in mind.

Once the elevation is zeroed and the turret cap is set to the 0 position, it’s locked in place to prevent inadvertent movement. A small button must be pressed in to release the knob. In addition, the adjustment clicks are in 0.2 milliradian (mrad) increments, rather than the more common 0.1 mrad clicks found on other Leupold sights with milling adjustments. A “throw lever” is a convenient accessory for fast and easier magnification adjustments, and of course Leupold’s is probably the most expensive.

I like Vortex scope covers because they’re reasonably priced, very rugged, and fold flat against the scope body for a low profile. Unfortunately, the front cap that I ordered thinking from the description that it would fit the 20mm objective was too large, so thus far I’m using the one supplied with the scope.

The sight is available with several different illuminated reticles. Two are calibrated for 5.56mm or 7.62mm ballistics, but because I don’t like such things, I chose the third option, the Tactical Milling Reticle-D (TMR-D). I don’t know what the D refers to, but I have several scopes with TMR reticles that are very similar. The TMR-D does have a segmented circle around the central reticle dot, and that portion of the reticle is what’s illuminated when turned on. The diameter of the circle is 2.5 mrads, or 8.6 minutes of angle (MOA) according to Leupold; see here. That’s significantly larger than the 2 or 4 MOA dots typically found in sights like the EOTech or Aimpoint. The rotary illumination switch is large; easy to adjust deliberately, but not inadvertently; and in addition to “off” positions at both ends of the rotary movement, the light is turned off at every intermediate position between brightness settings. That’s a useful feature that older Leupold models did not have.

The reticle is at the first focal plane of the scope and therefore changes size when the magnification is changed. As a consequence the reticle arms become much thinner at low power. The illuminated circle segments are also affected the same way; at low powers, they tend to merge together and look much like the red dots of my Aimpoints. At higher powers, though, the segments are clearly separated and because there’s a central reticle dot, precise aiming is possible at higher magnifications. I designed targets that are specifically sized for use with the TMR-D reticle and they work well at 6 power at 100 yards.

Changing reticle size can sometimes pose a problem, but if we want the reticle calibration to be accurate at all magnification settings rather than just one, that’s a fact of optics life we must accept.

Most of my use of the sight has been shooting at small to medium-sized targets at distances from 100 to 300 yards. Today, however, I finally got around to using the scope and rifle in a course I designed that concentrates on shorter distances, multiple targets, and fast engagements. I usually shoot the course with an Aimpoint-equipped rifle, so I was curious to see how the Mark 6 would fare.

In short, it worked as well as I could ask.

Because I scan and shoot at close distances with both eyes open, very much visual distortion caused by the sight is unacceptable to me. That can be seeing things at different sizes due to optic magnification—even minor such as 1.5×—or distortion in shape or color, which is common at the edges of the image. I can’t say that looking through the Mark 6 sight at 1 power (zero magnification) when scanning doesn’t have any optical effect, but it is minor. When panning horizontally, objects near the bottom of the field of view appear to rise as the edge of the field approaches them. Oddly, I didn’t notice it at all until I decided to look again for this review.

And that brings us to today’s session. The course consists of 10 stages of fire as far as 100 yards and as close as 7 yards. The stages include multiple targets and demands for rapid engagements. For example, one stage involves firing three shots each at 7 and 15 yards, and I typically do that in less than four seconds.

The increased magnification was a definite help at the maximum range, but for all the other stages I had the sight set on 1×. The illuminated central dot eliminated any potential problems caused by the reticle’s reduced size. I set the level to 6 (out of 7), and never had any difficulty in seeing it in bright sunlight while engaging cardboard targets that almost exactly matched the color of the backstop berm.

I have fired the course many times before using an Aimpoint-equipped AR. Today I fired it three times and then checked my previous times at home. There was little difference for each stage today and the averages for previous sessions. Some I averaged a little better, some a little worse. The modified IDPA targets I use for the course have penalty zones that add times to one’s score if they’re hit. Of the 90 rounds I fired, I didn’t incur a time penalty once, and that’s what was unusual about today’s session.

The bottom line was that I was very content with how I performed with the Mark 6 sight. I still believe its best use is for intermediate range employment between a more conventional patrol rifle setup and a precision bolt action chambered for a more powerful cartridge and therefore more suitable for long distance purposes.

That is one optic I would like to lay hands on to compare with the LPV I have been using.


Thanks for the review.

Those look like excellent optics.

Sweet setup. It would be hard to do better.

Thank you for posting that. I found your shooting results to be particularly interesting.