Well my annual trip to South Dakota to shoot prairie dogs has ended and as promised here is my experience with the new glass being put in scopes against the mirage created by the heat. A little background. I was using a NF ATACR 7-35x56 with F-1 while my son was using my older Nightforce Benchrest 8-32x56 with F-2. Using two similar scopes from same manufacture gave us a fairly control experiment with only real difference being the type of glass. I have used the Benchrest for the last five years and am quite familiar with its strengths and weaknesses but in order to have a side by side comparison my son shot it on his rifle. For those who have never shot prairie dogs they offer some unique challenge when you move out past the 500 yard mark. At this range and beyond they present a sub-moa target. Also, the shooter pretty much acts as his own spotter and seeing bullet strikes which is necessary for making corrections can sometime become difficult. Initially one uses the lower powers with its wider viewing area to spot the dog and then zoom in for shot placement being careful not to go too high in magnification as to lose sight of where
the shot hits but high enough to get a good site picture. All shooting this trip was done at a minimum of 500 yards and maxed out at 1200 yards. The first day we started getting mirage almost immediately. Out to about 800-900 yards I was still able to see the dog on max but there was a lot of distortion and there was no way I could see where bullet hit. Had I had someone spotting for me I could have used max power for shooting. Since I had no such luxury I dialed back to 24-25 and shot most of the morning while my son dialed back to 21. His eyes are a lot better than mine because when I would shoot an occasional shot with the Benchrest that morning I dialed back to 19. Dogs in the 1000-1200 yard range could only be seen at the 18-19 range but we had to stop with the long range shooting as smoke from a nearby fire drifted in and anything beyond 600-700 yards was obliterated. Later that evening the smoke cleared and it cooled off and we got to do some 1000+ shooting with both scopes on max power. The second day was cool and we were able to use both scopes at whatever power we wanted. Initial conclusion from the trip is the new glass is definitely better than the older glass in clarity. My perception about its capabilities in mirage is that it is an improvement and for me allowed me to see through the mirage we were experiencing better than my old scope did. I'm sure I'll think of a dozen things left out but I just got home and am a little tired but wanted to get this out.

Good write-up. I look forward to discussing it further when you rest a bit.

NikonUser thanks for the kind words. Be happy to talk with you anytime. Just a couple more thoughts that came to me. If you are investing in one of these new HD/ED glass scopes you might want to consider ruggedness in you purchase equation. In over 15 years of prairie dog shooting I have never even bumped my scope in the transportation truck. This hunt it went into the dirt twice, once when a strong gust of wind caught the shooting table while I was up and the second was when I did a half-gainer down a hill after stumbling walking to my shooting bench. Both times I dusted it off, turned it to zero and put a couple shots through it. Both time it performed perfectly. The second thought was about the ffp aspect of the scope. I expected it to assist in hold over shot but what I did not expect is the reading you get helps refine your scope settings and help dial in when there were multiple targets in the area.

Interesting observations. I have three Nightforce NXS scopes which have always tracked reliably and never gone out of adjustment on their own. OTOH, I've never thought the clarity was anything special. In fact, I'd say most of my Leupold VX3s and VX6s are sharper and brighter.

Good to hear that NF has upped the quality of their glass to match their mechanical system.

quote:

Originally posted by MNSIG:
Interesting observations. I have three Nightforce NXS scopes which have always tracked reliably and never gone out of adjustment on their own. OTOH, I've never thought the clarity was anything special. In fact, I'd say most of my Leupold VX3s and VX6s are sharper and brighter.

Good to hear that NF has upped the quality of their glass to match their mechanical system.

I have an NXS that is not as sharp as the Zeiss Conquests scopes I have so I know what you mean.
In fact that was what made me hesitate buying this scope.