Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Upgrade from Swarovski Z6 3-18x50 BT L Plex

I have a McWhorter 6.5 Ackley Improved that came mated with this scope and it is a beautiful package, but I have one concern, the longevity and repeatability of the Swarovski elevation turret when dialing for longer range.

What would you recommend going to, weight isn't an issue, rifle is 13lbs outfitted, the only thing that might be an issue is finding a ring, rail setup that will work with some of the shorter tubed scopes on the market. NX8 comes to mind and something in the 4-32 range?

This the scope I am currently running




Thanks Darryle

I don’t think there is anything appreciably better on the market than that Z6. Any improvement in glass quality would be so minimal it would be hard to notice.

Spence

Check out the swarovski z8i....

It's not the glass I am worried about, it's the elevation turret repeatability. It has a standard plex crosshair and an adjustable elevation turret dial

I don't think you'll have the issues you are anticipating. This turret was made to be adjusted for range.

What would bother me more than repeatability would be that you're limited to 1 revolution of the elevation turret. My friend has a Z-3 4-12 w/BT and once sighted in and zero stop has been set, he has only 10MOA of elevation to use. There's more internal adjustment within the scope, but the BT only allows for 10MOA to be used. You can figure 10MOA will get you somewhere between 650-750yd elevation correction depending upon projectile and velocity.

Folks do a lot of things chasing max erector travel. Sloped bases, eccentric ring inserts, even some slight upward pressure with a biased full-length bedding can all gain one some travel. Swaro's BT, Leupold's original CDS both take a LARGE bite out of the gains only allowing 10-20MOA worth of travel.

I don't like the red/yellow/green thing Swaro has going on either. Give me MOA or MIL demarkations so I can accurately use every single click in the erector's travel, rather than 3 good points and 37 "guesses" given a 40-click (10MOA ) spin. Garbage in-Garbage out if you don't know where you're at precisely in your erector's travel.

Sounds like you need an X5.

Have you cranked on that Z6? In my experience the Z6 will dial to reasonable ranges of 800+ and do so repeatedly and reliably. I also think it’s the best all around hunting scope out there at reasonable weight. I’ve had zero issues with mine and several others that friends own. Even McWhorter sells a ton of them and Allan will tell you they have no issues. I think the purported reliability issue is largely hypothetical and/or based on their Z3 line which uses a different and lesser erector system. Don’t fix what ain’t broke. There isn’t much of an “upgrade” from a Swaro Z6. You are already on top of the heap!

I have all of the high-end scopes on my rifles. March, Schmitt & Bender and Swarovski Z5s,Z6s. To be truthful all are fantastic clear scopes and unless you really look close you cannot tell the difference between them. If I had to chose it would be a tie between the March and the Schmitt & Bender

Thanks guys, I will stop worrying about it.

FWIW, I had an older Z6 (that’s since gone down the road). It’s tracking was better than my Z3s/Z5, but saying something tracks better than those (which were leupold like) is not high praise. It was not nearly as precise as my LRHS, SS, or Zeiss DLs.

You like Swaro glass and want to dial, so the X5 checks the boxes.