anybody with experience with this scope? i'm looking for a 500+ yard prairie dog scope. i have a swarovski 4-12 with tds (600 yard) reticle. i can see the dogs fine but with 100 yard hash marks i need finer adjustments. i'm leaning toward the conquest with the varmint reticle (600 yard with 50 yard hash marks and target turrets) i have a rimfire 3-9 conquest and i'm pleased with the quality of the glass.

Great glass, and mine tracks well with the turrets (though there's certainly better)... erector excursion is limited on this scope and I found Burris rings with eccentric inserts to be very useful in maximizing it.

In other words, it sux and money would better be spent elsewhere.

JeffO once mounted a toilet paper tube on a rifle and proclaimed it über.

But only after he spent 45 minutes trying to figure out how to get the toilet paper off the roll...

Money is best spent elsewhere...

bellydeep: thanx for your reply. By erector excursion I take it you mean that the zeiss has 45 inches of elevation travel? that should still get me past 500 yards. I assume there's no zero stop so you could get lost turning the turrets? At 20 power at 500 yards, can you adjust the parallax and get a clear sight picture on something as small as a prairie dog?

There's plenty of erector excursion to get a "normal" center fire rifle with high-BC bullets out to, I dunno, 850-900 yards. I was doing just that with mine and still am. It's a very good scope. Optically brilliant, and mine RTZ's very well. Mine does have a tracking glitch where it tracks to the left a little at around 12 MOA "up" from my 100-yard zero, then comes back in line. I put about 1000 rounds of centerfire through mine, 300 WM and 7 WSM, and it always tracked well and returned to zero well.

I think they are a great bargain IF you don't need huge erector travel.

I made zero stops for all my Conquests and could easily make you one.

You can spend more money and get better tracking, and I've done just that. If you are to the point that 1/4 to 1/2 MOA tracking errors matter then that'd be the way to go. You'll spend a lot more. It doesn't mean this isn't a very good scope; it is. Considering they can be had for $700....

Bellydeep is a bit of a tool. But if he wants to follow me around being an idiot, no skin off my nose.

Good luck. If you want advice on how to do better than this scope, say the word. But it's a good scope.

No problem at ALL seeing a prairie dog at 500. Really, an optically awesome rifle scope. Put it this way. I replaced mine on my main long range rig with a $2000 scope... it's not any better optically than the 6-20 Conquest...

Funny reading you tout erector travel, by your own admission you don't even know how much travel you have left on both your Nightforces.

To the op...45 moa is crap. Don't waste your money. The Sightron 6-24 SIII is in the same price range, and leaves the factory with real turrets and 100 moa of internal adjustment.

i've got a nightforce nxs 2-10x32 zero stop on a 223 wylde upper if i want to get out far on bigger critters. 10 power on this little nightforce ain't enough for me to see a prairie dog good at 500 yards. i suppose a used nightforce shv 4-14 with moar reticle could be another option. Jeff O: what would you get on an $800 budget? And i meant to thank you for the reply. i'm using a 204 upper for my prairie dog rifle.

The optics won't disappoint you with the Zeiss. It's brilliant. Erector excursion may or may not matter; it sounds like you were planning on using the reticle anyway? And even still it'll get you quite a ways out there.

Tracking, I can only speak to my sample of one. Here's a pic of a test I shot when it was mounted on a 300 WM Sendero. I was dialing between every shot. You can see where it jogs left a bit.



I killed my buck at 602 yards last year using this scope. It tracks adequately well for "most" uses.

Since you mention Nightforce, I upgraded to the NF NXS 5.5-22x50. I like it very much. It's a step up, mechanically, for sure!

I also have a 3-10 SHV; as far as I can tell so far it has excellent tracking. I've heard good things about the larger SHV's in that regard too. I've looked through the 5-20 SHV at a store and it certainly seemed nice optically!

$800 is an interesting price point. Just a bit more and you do crack into some really nice scopes... tough one. Red Hawk Rifles has had some demo 6-20 Conquests; might be worth a look. As a general statement I'd rate the SHV over the Conquest.