Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Long Range Hunting Need Long range s/a Varmint thumper help

Look back at the post. I took the pictures just to show the method used. If you look at the picture of the Nightforce in the rings, you'll see the top of the rings are not even mounted on the scope. That's because I forgot to take pictures before I performed the test on that particular scope. I then performed the test on the VX3 and took pics during the whole thing. After I took the VX3 out of the rings, I simply laid the Nightforce in the rings and took some pics without being too critical about its alignment.

Why you make it a point to say "29.6 yards" as if this discounts anything, I have no idea, unless you are completely unaware that the distance is meaningless. A MIL or MOA at 5 yards is a MIL or an MOA at 1000 yards. They just happen to subtend a different distance at each.

The pics are not the story. The scope evaluation sheet is.

As you can see, I rated each reticle objectively. The FFP Nightforce reticle was rated great, only being off by the width of the crosshair starting at the 4 MIL mark. That's not enough to make you miss when holding off or over, so I rated it as a negligible difference...

But...The Leupold's TMR reticle was perfect. In case you don't know, SFP ballistic reticles are set to be true at the highest power. The Leupold's TMR was perfect at the highest power as advertised, so what can I tell you...

Since you gleaned nothing from the objective report, I'll also remind you that the GLARING difference between the two scopes was about $1600.00 in cost. You can buy 2 and 1/2 VX3's for the cost of a FFP Nightforce and have equal or better performance.

A good question would be, why can't Nightforce manufacture a scope at that price, which is supposed to be their best product and ONLY FFP scope, that is head and shoulders above what Leupold can manufacture at about 1/3 the price? I expect a $2600.00 scope to be PERFECT.






Glad you asked!


The Mark 4 LR/ERT's with the M1 and M5 knobs are great and have served me well on hunting rifles and competition rifles. I've won a few things and matched some high scores with them. All of this with a scope that is at least $1000.00 to $2,000.00 cheaper than many of the other scopes I could have chosen. S&B, Nightforce, US Optics, etc...


First of all, it's a 10MIL per revolution reticle, not MOA.

What drew me to the M5A2 were the locking elevation turret and the COVERED windage turret. There has been times that when packing the rifle, I've somehow moved the windage knob and it's cost me a target. I've seen my fellow competitiors do it as well with the scopes they use. A buddy of mine who shoots for Leupold is using the Mark 8 right now. I liked the locking turret feature, but not the Horus reticle. The Mark 4 has the TMR, which I prefer as well.











Not only does it have a zero stop, but a rev indicator so you can't get confused. Plus with the 10 MIL per rev adjustment range, it's not often you even need to use the next rev.

The reason I'm glad you asked was that we haven't even started comparing all of the manufacturer's offerings THAT ARE IN THE SAME PRICE RANGE.

The Mark 4 LR/ERT FFP M5A2 happens to be in the same price range as the tested Nightforce. It also happens to be better than the Nightforce in every category on the Scope Evaluation Sheet.

When I stated that my gunsmith told me that it was the best scope he's ever evaluated, it's no BULL$HIT.

The Reticle is PERFECT
The Click Values are PERFECT all the way to the end of adjustment
Vertical Tracking is PERFECT all the way to the end of adjustment

The evaluation goes like this:
The scope is dialed while viewing through the eyepiece and set up on the board until it reaches a particular line that is marked. The operator then looks up at the knob and notes what it says it was supposed to have moved the reticle.

Dial to the 10 mil mark and look up.... 10 mils
Dial to the 15 mil mark and look up.... 15 mils

This continued till the elevation travel stopped and it was PERFECT at 23 mils. He has never seen this with any scope in the 25 years he's been doing it. Although his Vortex Razor, tested well after mine was, hung right there with the M5A2.

You'll see that the Nightforce can't hold a candle to it, being off about .2 MIL starting at 12 MILs and out. Still I rated the Click Value of the Nightforce to be great as well, just not PERFECT like the Leupold.

Like you, I just use $hit that works.
But UNLIKE You, I KNOW what works.