The ATACR is a non-starter for me.
It's only available in 2nd focal plane reticle, and has the same archaic zero stop adjustment as the rest of the nightforce line, which forces you to take the turret off, exposing the grease beneath to the dirt, and then index 4 little tiny screws.
The BEAST is the closest nightforce has come to getting it right in a 5-25, however the little +/- .1 mil lever again makes it a non-starter for me. It's innovative, but not intuitive.
S&B doesn't seem to be able to get their quality control figured out. We've had no less than a dozen S&B's come through our shop in the last month, and some have good clicks, while others don't. Some have a "grinding" noise when manipulating the parallax, others don't. Some have a magnification ring that is hard to turn, others don't. I've seen no less than 6 S&B PMII's go down in the last 6 months. The number one problem: They refuse to track. Turn the turret, and nothing happens. If you watch the video, you can easily see the deficiencies of the S&B turrets compared to Premier.
There is only one other optic that I would consider running on my distance rifles other than Premier, and I emphasize "consider." The Cassidian Hensoldt 3.5-26x56 is another great optic with very few shortcomings. However, they aren't available yet, and are looking to get $4000 a piece when they finally are!
In the last year, the group that I shoot with has had optics from every top manufacturer fail in some regard. I've been running Premier optics since late 2008/early 2009. I have yet to find another scope that allows me the speed and accuracy of adjustment that I get with the Premier. I shoot DTA's mostly, so I love the external zero stop adjustment.
