Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Anyone want an SS hunting scope?

Good review. This morning I decided to remount the scope on my Mini using the picatinny rail Ruger provided instead of the Ruger ring mounts. It works much better and made it easier to get behind the scope.

Correct. That's the lightest handguard I know of. This way I can have a medium weight barrel and maintain the balance I like.

The barrel is a 16" SPR profile from AR15Performance (0.8" behind the gas block, 0.72" in front).

A Faxon ultralight barrel is a pound lighter, for reference.

ILya

I don't understand though why they didn't just use the MOA Quad retcile design that they already have.

I can see their thinking in going with a BDC instead of the MOA Quad, in that the purpose of this scope isn't really to dial, so having matching reticle and adjustments isn't of utmost importance. Another reason to go with a BDC over an MOA reticle is that an MOA reticle isn't intuitive for shooting at specific yardages, where bullet drop would match up to say 300 and 400 yards. A MIL reticle, on the other hand, will often fall into place quite nicely with intuitive yardages. For example, an average 168 grain 308 load or 75 grain 223 load can be easily sighted in to where one mil low = 300 yards, two mils low = 400, and so on, which makes for a really intuitive BDC reticle. A reticle with MOA graduations isn't going to fall in line so nicely.

Though the above paragraph is a moot point when it comes to this scope, as a person will have a hard time figuring out what hash mark to use when they're in fear of being whacked in the dome with the eyepiece every time the trigger is touched off. The short eye relief is a completely asinine design - making the scope useless for the vast majority of users, all to try and save an ounce.

^ What he said but I would prefer to keep the small ocular diameter & I think you could do that & have usable eye relief at the expense of a decrease in FOV.

Assuming the scope is reliable & has decent optics I would be a buyer w/either a PLEX or BDC reticle if it just had close to 3.5" of eye relief @ all power settings & it wouldn't bother me if the magnification topped out @ 8X or it weighed a couple of ounces more.

Excellent post. Agree on all counts, especially the 'short eye relief is a completely asinine design-making the scope useless for the vast majority of users, all to try and save an ounce " part.

I can't quite figure out if they are planning more reticles or not. That BDC reticle I posted a drawing of is definitely happening. I am going to do my best to get them to add to reticle options, but I make no promises.

Having played with it a little now, I think I am pretty clear with what the scope is intended for and I am good with that. I think that is a reasonable niche to pursue. Why the decided to not pursue a general big game hunting market with it, I do not know, but given how saturated that market is I am not surprised they are going for something a little more specialized. Whether that is a good idea or not, only time will tell. As I looked through all the different potentially comparable scope options out, I realized that there really isn't much out there in this weight range.

Leupold used to have a few offerings, but their number was really cur down when they consolidated a bunch of stuff into the VX Freedom line.

I think SWFA has found a pretty decent market niche with this scope.

Re-designing it for more eye relief effectively means making a new scope. It is not a simple matter and I do not see that happening any time soon unless they decide to add a second model.

ILya

I see a very limited niche with that eye relief

You know they have an app for that, actually several and they seem to work pretty well. Seems to me an MOA system will mirror pretty closely to what you can do with a MIL system, but the yards or meters per dot/hash might not be the same. All it boils down to is I don't want a BDC reticle calculated for some cartridge I might not be using, I'd rather just have a plain MIL or MOA reticle where I figure it out.

What was the market niche that couldn’t equally be filled if the scope had another inch of eye relief and ounce of weight? I don’t buy that the ultralight AR builders would flock to this scope over one with more eye relief. Besides, if that was the intended market, why didn’t SWFA market it as such? Could’ve called it the “Ultralight AR Special”.

If the scope had decent eye relief and they put a good BDC reticle in it or made it mil/mil, I’d certainly buy one to try....and if it proved to be reliable I’d buy at least another three more without hesitation. As it is, I have zero interest. Hopefully they’ll come out with something different to meet the needs of the “precision hunter” and “everyday hunter” niches, which are an awfully large contingent of folks, and I suspect they could find some market share with such a scope.

The "niche" is nothing more than an afterthought.....

Shame it's such a swing and a miss. I would change things about their other offerings but like them well enough to use multiples of each. I can't think of a reason to buy this scope.

Yep, I’ve used MOA reticles and they pretty much suck for this use, as the yardages turn out to be something like “1 MOA low = 243 yards, 2 MOA = 282 yards, 3 MOA = 319 yards, 4 MOA = 355 yards, 5 MOA = 389 yards,” which translates into a big confusing mess in the heat of the moment when an animal is about to step over the ridge, and you accidentally aim with the wrong hash mark. By the way, those are the drops for a 308/168/200 yard zero.

BDC reticles like the LR Duplex certainly aren’t perfect, but they’re simple and work pretty well for big game with most reasonable speed/reasonable BC cartridges. For example, a 2” high @ 100 sight in with the same load as above in my environmental conditions ends up with 1st dot = about 310, 2nd dot = 400, top of post = 500. Easy to remember and fast to get on target when you’re tired, cold, and have minimal time to make a shot on a big bull elk that hesitated for a second before topping the ridge before leaving the country.

Overall, Mil/Mil is where it’s at. Use as a BDC, or for the normal ranging/dialing/spotting purposes.

I strongly suspect you are correct.

Disregard-posted this in the wrong thread.

This^^^

Miniscule eye relief has killed this scope. RJ

Exactly.

The smaller diameter objective would allow the bolt on my 1955 22LR Marlin to clear. Not sure the 100 yd parallax would be optimal for a 22LR though. There is a niche for you......

I had it on my 10/22 for a bit when I was playing with the prototype and it worked well enough, but at 10x, the image is not at optimal sharpness at 50 yards. Once you dial it down a touch, it seems fine. For a plinker 22LR scope it should work fine. I spent some time shooting offhand at varying distances, most of it between 2.5x and 4x and it worked quite well.

I do agree that 100 yards parallax setting makes a better fit for larger/faster rimfires like the 22WMR et al.

ILya