Interesting. If I were involved with marketing of a riflescope, I would beat on them, and show them holding zero. That would be the basis of my marketing campaign. If you don’t have durability and zero retention in a scope, nothing else matters. At least not to me.
Stunt or not, that NF video where they freeze the scope in a block of ice, shoot the scope with a shotgun, pound a big nail into a stump with it, and then put it back on the rifle and shoot is a powerful and convincing video. There’s also the video of the NF guy beating the scope on its side and putting it back on a collimator. Despite your claim of NF not demonstrating anything, that sure demonstrates something to me — that the manufacturer has confidence in their product. I’d love to see Swaro or Zeiss or Leica, for example, do something similar. The fact that they don’t speaks volumes. Pretty glass, questionable construction. It’s only reasonable to surmise that if a manufacturer were actually building demonstrably durable scopes, they would be marketing such. I’m in no position to question your knowledge of the industry, but as a consumer it’s hard to believe that everyone is impact testing, as you state.
It doesn’t have to be that elaborate, but I find it shocking that the vast majority of scope manufacturers show no demonstration of durability at all in their marketing materials. If, as you say, “All the major manufacturers I have talked to in any sort of a detail do side impact tests” yet they are not showing us, they are doing themselves a disservice as it creates a perception that they are doing nothing. Only Trijicon, NF and kinda March (that I am aware of) show or make any claim at all of performing any sort of impact testing. Their loss.[/quote]
This...exactly. I'm not necessarily drinking the Form koolaid, but anyone that is questioning the mechanical reliability of Nightforce is simply wrong...or revealing their own biases. It's not just "marketing" if it's true. I won't argue other scope manufacturers have more "features", but if dialing values, RTZ, and zero retention are the primary goal (and they certainly are for me)...I'd sure like to know what scope manufacturer does that better.
That last part isn't rhetorical btw. If anyone believes there is a more reliable scope lineup than NF for tracking, return to zero, and zero retention as the primary goals then I'm all ears.
Last edited by iddave; 03/05/24.
