School me on how to evaluate the quality of rifle scope glass

[Will16]

Rifle Scopes - Nightforce NX8 2.5-20x50 - Initial Thoughts

Backstory When the Nightforce NX8 long range scopes were announced I raised an eyebrow. Over the years I’ve had or used many different long-range scopes from the budget category all the way into alpha class, but in all that time I have never owned a Nightforce and the reason is because they...

www.snipershide.com

 

[Rick Richard]

@jd126 preaching to the choir man. Unless it's some super low quality, NC star, Barska, or Truglo I can't tell glass quality either. I've given up on looking for "quality glass" and am more concerned with ability to hold zero, track true, return to zero, true parallax, and loud/positive/tactile clicks. That glass quality stuff is like asking "what's the best cartridge?"

Too many folks overlook these facts in my opinion. Weight, clarity maybe the ole reliable name brand does not mean a thing if you can't reliably place shots where they need to be. Just my opinion as yours.

 

[Capt RB]

The reason why the 4.5-27x56 Razor is so popular in PRS is 2 fold.
1) Factory support is first in the industry
2) There is nothing a more expensive scope does in the realm they are used.
The biggest difference in costs is coatings durability not what they do for light transmission. Image quality is better described as we got enough right at this price point.
Once you get 1000 street price you have to know what you can live with and what you can't with image quality weight resolution and tracking uniformity. All will make the shot in daytime conditions. It is the twilight and poor quality conditions that the top end earns it''s stripes. Unless your a professional needed vs wanted becomes the question

 

[aushunter1]

If your out in the middle of the day apart from actual features & mechanics of scopes the cheaper end & more expensive end are not far apart.

The true test in in the dawn & sunset hours where the better glass & coating set themselves apart from the cheap or average.

In the end it comes down to what you can afford.

 

[nksmfamjp]

It has yet to be demonstrated that a $3500 rifle can do anything a $1500 one cannot. However $3500 scopes can be demonstrated to be superior to $2500 ones.

Can you show me?

 

[Will16]

Rifle Scopes - Middle Weight Low Light Tactical Scope Evaluation Part II

So glad to be off Scout and back on the "old" Hide The Scopes – this year Minox ZP5 5-25x56 Vortex AMG 6-24x50 Schmidt & Bender PM II Ultra Short 5-20x50 Bushnell Elite Tactical DMR II-i 3.5-21x50 The Scopes – last year Schmidt & Bender PMII 3-20x50 Kahles Gen III K624i 6-24x56 March F...

www.snipershide.com

 

[tomsd]

I have a laminated military chart 127 yards from my porch. I use it for determining which scope has better resolution. There 13" wide deer antlers in the woods 131 yards from the porch. I use it for low light comparisons. Before this I thought my Bushnell 6500 4 1/23-30X50 was as good as my Nightforce 12-42X56. In those days I used twigs and leaves on the trees about 125 yards away. What a wakeup. I discovered one does not get what one pays for but what one shops for if they want quality. This is based on my side by side with gobs of brands including Swarovski, Vortex, Schmidt & Bender. S&B have great glass.

If someone wants a copy of this chart I could try to email it. I'm not very computer savvy.

 

[oneeyejohn]

Rifle Scopes - ZCO ZC420 v Kahles K318i v Schmidt Ultra Shorts v Minox ZP5

Three scopes walk into a bar, the first is a ZCO, the second a Kahles and the third a Schmidt… and so the joke goes, but in reality, it was 6 scopes, and Minox joined the party as well and the punchline of the joke is… well read on and we’ll get there. Right before SHOT 2018 I was thrilled to...

www.snipershide.com

Thanks for this information. oneeyejohn

 

[tomsd]

Would love a copy of the report.

I have looked through many scopes at Gun Shows, Gun Stores, etc - and while European glass used to be the Gold Standard - others have definitely closed the gap - such as Vortex, Burris, Lepould of course, Nikon and on and on.

It's really what works best for your eyes - NOW !!. Growing up - I used a fixed 4x Weaver - and thought it was super. But that was with young eyes --- so now with a little bit of cataracts, and some vison change etc - appreciate the 3x9 or 4x12 etc for hunting purposes - and of course - a higher power for long distance plinking.

 

[340Wby-4-everything]

Great comments all. A really easy way to compare them that I use to buy optics, look thru them all at medium to dark colored targets at dusk and dawn or immediately pre-sunrise and post sunset. This will show you clarity, fringing, and light gathering - all keys to quality of glass.

 

[5.56×250]

I think clarity is important . I dont however put clarity at the top of MY list of important features. For me, tracking accuracy and toughness are more important by a huge margin. Decent glass is a great feature to help judge a trophy or spot a hit on paper, but good binos will cover you on those needs, but a scopes main job is aquiring zero, holding that zero through rough treatment, and having the ability to return to base line zero after dialing up for longet shots. The best way to determine those abilities is through testing on the range.
It really amazes me how much attention is given to optical clarity and how little attention is actually given to what the scope is intended to do, allow you to repeatably hit your target.

 

[Will16]

I think clarity is important . I dont however put clarity at the top of MY list of important features. For me, tracking accuracy and toughness are more important by a huge margin. Decent glass is a great feature to help judge a trophy or spot a hit on paper, but good binos will cover you on those needs, but a scopes main job is aquiring zero, holding that zero through rough treatment, and having the ability to return to base line zero after dialing up for longet shots. The best way to determine those abilities is through testing on the range.
It really amazes me how much attention is given to optical clarity and how little attention is actually given to what the scope is intended to do, allow you to repeatably hit your target.

I agree that tracking and durability are more important than glass but this thread is for determining glass quality and imperfections. He is most likely looking through them in good light conditions without shadows or anything, compiled with he doesn't know what to look for and that's why he can't tell the difference.

 

[AaronSkipDavidson]

I love this topic! Since I'm not an expert it's an area with lots left to learn! Like most engineering problems, I want narrow the topic to simplify. Best glass is to subjective. We need to get more specific.

The article I published at Revic Optics breaks down the major optical aberrations we deal with in rifle scopes. The truth is as a consumer most of those don't mean anything to me. In other words, even the cheapest scopes seem to do good enough. Only a handful of these aberrations seem to differentiate all riflescopes.

I would suggest a different approach to this forum discussion. Rather than the global vague and subjective discussion of which glass is best, why don't we rank our top 5 optical aberrations in order of importance and why.

Then we can have a very much more objective discussion about how scopes rank on these individual, sometimes measurable parameters.

The end result is that for most scopes, the optical designer had to make decisions and trade-offs to get the system that he felt was optimized. Engineering problems are always about optimizing trade-offs for the desired outcome.

I personally would suggest that you could bracket scopes into 3 categories. Sub 800, sub 2500, and spendy! Most optics in these classes will be of similar class, although there are surprises out there.

 

[AlphaDogs]

Can you show me?

If you were here I could dig out one of each and easily show you.