Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics First Impressions of First Nightforce: 5.5-22x Varminter

I'm a Leupold guy, and with the exception of a few scopes all my hunting scopes are Leupolds.

For target and varmint work, however, I'd been looking to move to a Nightforce scope for a couple of reasons, none of which have to do with the usual Leupold bashing. First and foremost I wanted an unobstructed, simple range-finding reticle. Next I wanted 1/8" adjustments and an adjustable objective that would go down to 25 yards.

As luck would have it a used Nightforce became available and made its way, in the fullness of time, to my Remington 700 in 223. It's an older, discontinued model called the "Varminter," 5.5-22x56 with the AO adjustment on the front ring.

My first impression was: heavy! But that's alright as this gun is made for supported shooting anyway. Clicks are very positive, moreso than the Leupold's I have had with M1 turrets installed after purchase; very little backlash, even at the extremes of the adjustment range. The AO is smooth and doesn't bind and the power ring turns easily but is firm enough not to turn when moving the rifle. The lighted reticle's brightness adjustment lacks detents, but that's fine, as I don't intend to use it much. Sighting in and test firing at the range was completely uneventful, and the NPR-1 reticle was very easy to use, moreso than the Leupold cross-hair, despite being of similar thickness.

All in all I like it, and I can see why Nightforce scopes are so popular in benchrest and competition shooting. I wouldn't want to lug one around the hills on a hunting rifle, but for packing the gun in a drag-bag and shooting off a bipod or a bench the weight is no problem, and a decent trade-off given the quality of the optics.

As an aside, I mounted this scope in Burris' Signature rings with the plastic inserts. My first time with these rings and they are an excellent product. I'm not using the inserts for elevation as my rifle has an EGW 20MOA rail on it already, but if I shoot this rifle out to 1000 yards I might add more elevation using the inserts.

Here's a pic:



This pic gives you an idea of the scope's length: that's a 26" Remington factory varmint barrel.

damn

That looks like a Nightforce BR model which are still availble.
Good looking out fit.
The Nightforce BR model outclasses pretty much everything in its price range.
dave

The BR series is still available in the 8-32x and 12-42x, I believe this one, a 5.5-22x, is discontinued as I couldn't find a reference to it on Nightforce's website.

Ad I remember, earlier NF scopes were configured like this one and were not necessarily BR models. The NXS is offered in the 5.5x22 presently. If you like that older NF you would really like the NXS version.. Quite a number of noticeable inprovements.