Greetings.
Caveat Emptor: This is not a short post!
The singular reason for this post is that I owe it to the folks who have helped me in the past with scope details, suggestions, and so on. If even they find it tedious, I understand.
Please know up front that I have nothing profound to say. And I am not trying to say something in order to say something. I have felt for months that I owed an update to those that have taken the time to assist me, and today a brief chat with Steve123 found me with some free time, became my prompt, and so I am going to take care of this errand.
Months ago I had only owned and looked through a Hawke Vantage 3-12x44 (almost entirely), a Helix 6-24x50 (briefly), and I found out I owned a Philippine-made Nikon because it was tucked away on a gun I didn't use for over ten years. I have somewhat recently sold it to a member who appreciates it more than I could have.
The Hawke Vantage worked quite well for short-range target and pesting. Then I found out about all kinds of scopes, and also about all kinds of details that I knew nothing about, or didn't think at all about, such as turrets, FoV, DoF, chromatic aberration, contrast, etc., and especially, alpha-tier glass. I have since logged many hours on this forum, YouTube, and online, and have had a phone and Zoom conversation or two.
Members variously advised me to (1) buy lots of scopes as able and check them out and/or (2) to get what I chiefly wanted (at that time), which was a March. I did a bit of both.
Besides the Vantage, I now own a Hawke Sidewinder 6.5-20x44, a Helix 4-16x44, an Athlon Ares ETR 3-18x50, and a Vortex Razor HD LHT 3-15x50.
Additionally, I was able to look through a member's March 1-10x24 (not the Shorty), and I bought a March 4.5-28x52--a piece of aluminum and glass furniture. I only kept the March for about one week and returned it, as I could not presently justify the price (sigh!), though I got it on a great sale.
I am still very much in the experimental stage, and have never even mounted the Sidewinder, the Ares, nor the Razor! They are in tip-top condition.
My closing thoughts are going to be few, for conciseness reasons, if it's legitimate to use that word at this point.
1. Turrets (and turret clicks) are easy to distinguish, and they do vary widely.
2. Eye relief, 'finiky' parallax, and to a much lesser degree, 'finiky' eyboxes are to a fair degree in, well, the eye of the beholder. For example, I was baffled by the way the parallax behaved when I first peered through the March 1-10x24. After minutes of shooting, I decided I may really like this demanding parallax because you knew exactly when the parallax and focus were on, and when they were not. You were there or you were not. The so-called 'lack of forgiveness' could be a settling thing for the right person in the right context (big word) who does not need fast acquisition or DoF. In another vein, the Razor LHT, a hunting scope, has what is to me an awful lot of eye relief. It seems more than the numbers say. I acclimated. And many people complain about the one or the other Helix's 'finiky' eyebox. I am fine with it, or I am simply used to it.
3. Image Quality takes more time to discern, and one needs to start looking for things like chromatic aberration, which glass keeps a flat image outside the center (the March 4.5-28x52 did, and the Razor does almost as well), edge-to-edge sharpness, if it matters to you, and which glass deals with direct sunlight.(Again, the March was just short of stunning here; I found the learned Glassaholic's comments on this to be reinforcing, as he said the 4.5-28 excelled in this regard even among the Alpha scopes he was testing and may be the very best there is. I thought the sun disappeared!)
4. My ranges are too modest to really test scopes as they should be tested, I guess, and I am still so new I am not sure I am the better judge of things. I wish at times that some of you were around to say, "Hey, look at this," or "Are you considering that?” Wie Shade! (German for, "What a shame.")
5. I think that ZCO puts out great glass, which won't shock anyone who knows scopes. If I could have one scope right now, it would be the ZCO 4-20x50. I would give up my parallax and weight preferences for that glass. It is supposed to be up there with the Tangent Theta in IQ and perhaps beyond just about everything else. I am not being tendentious, have never looked through one, but that's what I get from a distance.
Again, I want to thank all of you who have given me some good dope! S7
Caveat Emptor: This is not a short post!
The singular reason for this post is that I owe it to the folks who have helped me in the past with scope details, suggestions, and so on. If even they find it tedious, I understand.
Please know up front that I have nothing profound to say. And I am not trying to say something in order to say something. I have felt for months that I owed an update to those that have taken the time to assist me, and today a brief chat with Steve123 found me with some free time, became my prompt, and so I am going to take care of this errand.
Months ago I had only owned and looked through a Hawke Vantage 3-12x44 (almost entirely), a Helix 6-24x50 (briefly), and I found out I owned a Philippine-made Nikon because it was tucked away on a gun I didn't use for over ten years. I have somewhat recently sold it to a member who appreciates it more than I could have.
The Hawke Vantage worked quite well for short-range target and pesting. Then I found out about all kinds of scopes, and also about all kinds of details that I knew nothing about, or didn't think at all about, such as turrets, FoV, DoF, chromatic aberration, contrast, etc., and especially, alpha-tier glass. I have since logged many hours on this forum, YouTube, and online, and have had a phone and Zoom conversation or two.
Members variously advised me to (1) buy lots of scopes as able and check them out and/or (2) to get what I chiefly wanted (at that time), which was a March. I did a bit of both.
Besides the Vantage, I now own a Hawke Sidewinder 6.5-20x44, a Helix 4-16x44, an Athlon Ares ETR 3-18x50, and a Vortex Razor HD LHT 3-15x50.
Additionally, I was able to look through a member's March 1-10x24 (not the Shorty), and I bought a March 4.5-28x52--a piece of aluminum and glass furniture. I only kept the March for about one week and returned it, as I could not presently justify the price (sigh!), though I got it on a great sale.
I am still very much in the experimental stage, and have never even mounted the Sidewinder, the Ares, nor the Razor! They are in tip-top condition.
My closing thoughts are going to be few, for conciseness reasons, if it's legitimate to use that word at this point.
1. Turrets (and turret clicks) are easy to distinguish, and they do vary widely.
2. Eye relief, 'finiky' parallax, and to a much lesser degree, 'finiky' eyboxes are to a fair degree in, well, the eye of the beholder. For example, I was baffled by the way the parallax behaved when I first peered through the March 1-10x24. After minutes of shooting, I decided I may really like this demanding parallax because you knew exactly when the parallax and focus were on, and when they were not. You were there or you were not. The so-called 'lack of forgiveness' could be a settling thing for the right person in the right context (big word) who does not need fast acquisition or DoF. In another vein, the Razor LHT, a hunting scope, has what is to me an awful lot of eye relief. It seems more than the numbers say. I acclimated. And many people complain about the one or the other Helix's 'finiky' eyebox. I am fine with it, or I am simply used to it.
3. Image Quality takes more time to discern, and one needs to start looking for things like chromatic aberration, which glass keeps a flat image outside the center (the March 4.5-28x52 did, and the Razor does almost as well), edge-to-edge sharpness, if it matters to you, and which glass deals with direct sunlight.(Again, the March was just short of stunning here; I found the learned Glassaholic's comments on this to be reinforcing, as he said the 4.5-28 excelled in this regard even among the Alpha scopes he was testing and may be the very best there is. I thought the sun disappeared!)
4. My ranges are too modest to really test scopes as they should be tested, I guess, and I am still so new I am not sure I am the better judge of things. I wish at times that some of you were around to say, "Hey, look at this," or "Are you considering that?” Wie Shade! (German for, "What a shame.")
5. I think that ZCO puts out great glass, which won't shock anyone who knows scopes. If I could have one scope right now, it would be the ZCO 4-20x50. I would give up my parallax and weight preferences for that glass. It is supposed to be up there with the Tangent Theta in IQ and perhaps beyond just about everything else. I am not being tendentious, have never looked through one, but that's what I get from a distance.
Again, I want to thank all of you who have given me some good dope! S7
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