I must confess that first and foremost I read/watch reviews rather than do them. That being said I'm going to try to touch on some things I wished others had mentioned about the X-sight II beforehand, or at the very least how it seems to perform using older firmware. So with those things in mind here I go.
The first thing I'll note is this. Getting this scope to zero on my .25 Wildcat with a picatinny to dovetail adapter wasn't terrible. The main issue is this setup seems to make the scope higher than I'd like, but I suspect this issue will be resolved once my Wildcat's new rail comes in. Others that don't have this option should be aware of this and plan accordingly on a bullpup setup. Rifles like my BT65 .30, M-rods, or any other with adequate adjustments will certainly have less of a problem. Also due to my bad eye sight and skipping two years without new glasses I can't knock the difficulties I've had getting things into focus on the eye piece, but its definitely different compared to my regular scopes. Also don't expect the scope to stay on constantly or be something that'll easily fit into the roomiest of rifle bags or cases.
That out of the way its onto the real reason I bought it, the night vision. This scope has a great deal more sensitivity compared to my old setup. Without the illuminator that came with the unit on and only using the outdoor lighting I have available on my rural property I was easily able to see into the shadows on a level just below what my old setup was capable of with my T20 going. Using the lighting that came with the unity any dark area in my view was easily view-able out beyond 60 yards. That's certainly a good up swing, but there is a downside. The image pixelates to a degree on higher magnifications, but that was something I expected as well and I was still able to hit my spinners at 40yard even with this issue. The upside is this setup is far less cumbersome than the old one.
Setup and zeroing wasn't as straight forward as I was lead to believe. For one it'd of been nice if someone had mentioned in reviews I'd gone over that even though the scope is zeroed in yards, but the measurement for distance it uses in the Standard setting is feet. The bonus side to all this is once I had it zeroed and remembered to adjust the distance accordingly the scope held zero for the distance that was input. I'm hoping that going to a newer firmware may give me the option of yards over feet for the distance, but until then it's just something I'll have to deal with. Another thing is in the settings itself on my current firmware there was an option to change what exactly the device is. Such as I could switch between 3-14x or 5-20x. Also for now it doesn't remember the last magnification that was used before it was shut down, so each time it starts off at its lowest. That isn't a bad thing particularly if you need to make quick shots like I have in the past. I've missed quite a few opportunities due to needing a lesser magnification to get on target easier. The last thing that still perplexes me is the G setting. For now I have it set on G7, but I doubt that's correct for the diabolo shape.
All said and done the units done what I needed it to do. It's managed to hit my spinners out to 40 yards and instead of searching for and relying on eye shine for my shots I can now make out clear images at 3x and take it from there, and I know that if I have the distance right and put the dot on the target its going to hit.
Once I get some more experience using this new toy I'll be sure to add in some more tips and or other things I think folks may be curious about but haven't run across anywhere else.
The first thing I'll note is this. Getting this scope to zero on my .25 Wildcat with a picatinny to dovetail adapter wasn't terrible. The main issue is this setup seems to make the scope higher than I'd like, but I suspect this issue will be resolved once my Wildcat's new rail comes in. Others that don't have this option should be aware of this and plan accordingly on a bullpup setup. Rifles like my BT65 .30, M-rods, or any other with adequate adjustments will certainly have less of a problem. Also due to my bad eye sight and skipping two years without new glasses I can't knock the difficulties I've had getting things into focus on the eye piece, but its definitely different compared to my regular scopes. Also don't expect the scope to stay on constantly or be something that'll easily fit into the roomiest of rifle bags or cases.
That out of the way its onto the real reason I bought it, the night vision. This scope has a great deal more sensitivity compared to my old setup. Without the illuminator that came with the unit on and only using the outdoor lighting I have available on my rural property I was easily able to see into the shadows on a level just below what my old setup was capable of with my T20 going. Using the lighting that came with the unity any dark area in my view was easily view-able out beyond 60 yards. That's certainly a good up swing, but there is a downside. The image pixelates to a degree on higher magnifications, but that was something I expected as well and I was still able to hit my spinners at 40yard even with this issue. The upside is this setup is far less cumbersome than the old one.
Setup and zeroing wasn't as straight forward as I was lead to believe. For one it'd of been nice if someone had mentioned in reviews I'd gone over that even though the scope is zeroed in yards, but the measurement for distance it uses in the Standard setting is feet. The bonus side to all this is once I had it zeroed and remembered to adjust the distance accordingly the scope held zero for the distance that was input. I'm hoping that going to a newer firmware may give me the option of yards over feet for the distance, but until then it's just something I'll have to deal with. Another thing is in the settings itself on my current firmware there was an option to change what exactly the device is. Such as I could switch between 3-14x or 5-20x. Also for now it doesn't remember the last magnification that was used before it was shut down, so each time it starts off at its lowest. That isn't a bad thing particularly if you need to make quick shots like I have in the past. I've missed quite a few opportunities due to needing a lesser magnification to get on target easier. The last thing that still perplexes me is the G setting. For now I have it set on G7, but I doubt that's correct for the diabolo shape.
All said and done the units done what I needed it to do. It's managed to hit my spinners out to 40 yards and instead of searching for and relying on eye shine for my shots I can now make out clear images at 3x and take it from there, and I know that if I have the distance right and put the dot on the target its going to hit.
Once I get some more experience using this new toy I'll be sure to add in some more tips and or other things I think folks may be curious about but haven't run across anywhere else.
