Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Meopta Optika6 3-18x50mm FFP Evaluation

Here’s where it sits at two weeks, 400’ish rounds, 1,200 miles of vibration in the truck bed, and 8 days being treated unmercifully on the pack. Keep in mind this is a sample of one, with extremely limited use so far.


In order of importance-

Zero retention: No issues noted yet. 400 rounds is a laughably small number. It’s about equivalent to 4,000 miles on a new car. All it tells us is that there’s not something grossly wrong with the scope. The scope will be given no quarter in abuse, and zero will be confirmed often using the original lot number of ammo. Any shift will be immediately apparent. That it stayed zeroed with the drop “test” and truck rides are very good signs however. Both of those totally crush most scopes.


Return to zero: Has been correct. Again 400 rounds is just a warm up, but with spinning the turrets hundreds of times- no issues.


Adjustment value: It’ll go on the tracking board probably in December, but unless it fails before then I don’t expect any surprises. It’s been shot on two well known rifles from 200 yards to 900’ish yards and all data is identical. As well, the 10.4 mil target test went fine.


Tracking: This is vertical movement of reticle when dialing elevation checking for lateral deviation. No issues.


Eyebox/ease of use: Actually pretty good. Higher zoom ratio scope tend to suffer critical eyeboxes and this one really doesn’t. It’s easy enough that you don’t have to think about it at all.


TBC....

Yes sir.

Interested in seeing one of the DichroTech reticles, up close and personal.

That'll stir up the set-n-forgetters.

Form, you considering replacing your Bushy LRTS/LRHS Scopes with this model?

Reticle: hmmm. This one is my biggest question mark with this scope, and this will be long.



The reticle generally does what they wanted it to do- be useful at low and high powers. But they did it in a way that is... “eh”. First, I dislike “donuts”. It’s a lazy way to make a reticle visable on low power, it obscures the target and surroundings in the most critical location in the scope where you need to see impacts/splash the most, and generally screws up the intuitiveness of the reticle holds. This one does all of those.
Overall the reticle is broken down in .2 mil increments. That’s great. Tick marks should be in linear and consistent fashion, I.E.- 1 mil, .5, or .2 mils. The problem with this MRAD1 reticle is that because of the donut, the tick marks inside the center go- dot, .2 to the near side of “cross line”, .4 to far side of line, then nothing usable until 1 mil (or .9, not really sure). You actually have to look at it and think about what means what, until you get to 1.4 mils (where the horizontal reticle starts. A lot of winds holds in actual field shooting tend to be in the .5 to 1.5 mil range... right where this reticle sucks. Or I should say is compromised. It’s usable for sure, but I shoot a lot of scopes and reticles, and I had to play with it to figure out what the subtentions are from center to 1.5 mils. Multiple shooters that are extremely capable and experienced had to do the same thing when they picked it up.


Next is the spacing between horizontal bold posts. Or, how much windage can be held. Holy Pete, who in the flip needs and can use over 6 mils of windage in the reticle!?

At sea level with a 308 and crappy BC bullet that is 52 miles per hour at 500 yards. Fifty-two miles per hour of wind. With a 300WM and 215gr Berger at 500 yards it’s EIGHTY-ONE mile per hour wind to drift 6 mils. At 1,000 yards for both it’s- 21mph and 36mph respectively. That’s just silly, and the only reason companies keep doing that is lack of critical thinking and public perception.

Reduce the windage to 2.5 or 3 mils to bold posts, and now you can see and center the reticle on animals on low power even in low light, while still having way more than enough windage available for shooting. Or, keep the windage 3-4 mils out, but bring the bottom 6 o’clock post in to 1.5 mils or so, then it looks like a German #4 on low powers with all the great attributes of that reticle, keeps the center clear for spotting impacts/splash, while still offering quick elevation holds out to 450-500 yards.






Explanation-

Reticles are a weak point for manufactures. This is brought on by two main things it seems- One, is that consumers are ignorant. I do not mean this maliciously, but people have no idea how stuff works, nor a broad enough base of experience in actual shooting and performance to know what they should want. Two, manufacturers and designers are generally NOT skilled or experienced shooters with a broad base of experience to know what works better and worse, and they are being inundated by the public’s ignorance to build compromised stuff quite frankly. Both don’t know, what they don’t know.

These lead to things like donuts, inconsistent spacing in reticles, huge windage spacing, BDC’s, SFP, extremely high zoom ranges; especially coupled with short length, small tube size, and lightweight. I/we’re constantly shooting with people that are rabid about these things. They will argue endlessly, yet it is all their feelings or beliefs, not actual performance. Take them off the square range, put realistic sized (that’d be much smaller than most use) targets at varying ranges with real wind, or shoot from unconventional positions (sitting off of a pack, kneeling over a downed tree, MPAJ, etc), put time constraints on them, and maybe a bit of heavy breathing, and NO ONE walks away wanting any of that stuff. I’ve shot with several good dudes from this forum alone, some were all about those things and just knew they were going to learn me something. :coffee:
Then they actually shot as above while being measured, fail miserably, and then watch the chick crush what they just did with a 223 and SWFA.... dudes are swiping cards for new gear within an hour.

I say all this to say- reticles and “features” should not be designed or implemented in a vacuum. We would all like to think, and most do, that manufactures have a full staff of professional level shooters telling the designers and engineers what to build, and the engineers know enough about field use to build it correctly and robustly, then the company gives the product back to the pro shooters to ensure it actually works before it’s sold to you. Except for one company- nothing could be further from the truth. The reality is with most companies that some marketing dude brings an idea he thinks will sell, then they take it to another company that actually makes the optics and they tell those engineers how to build it to a certain price point. I’m not saying Meopta did that here... I’m not saying they didn’t either.


Whew...


That out of the way, the reticle while being compromised, is usable, and does work. It IS better than most in that regard, and I would not let the issues of it hinder a purchase.



TBC....

Any comments on the general quality of the glass: Similar to the Meopro line? Better? Worse? How does the glass compare to some of the well know standards?

Me too. Reading about it makes me want to get my hands on one for a hunting season.

From my Couch, bushnells G3 reticle is my favorite. But, I only shoot on average 200 rounds a week, so I don't know much about actually using stuff. And, I hate donuts as well.

Of that I have no doubt. But, what they don’t realize is that 400 rounds of “experience” is about the same “experience” as they had at 14yo a week after they figured out what their hotdog does. All it shows is that it’s not a total waste.







Ha. We’re so far from these scopes proving they’re actually good it’s not funny. I won’t be remotely ready to say “yay, or nay” until I see and use 6-8 Optika6’s of multiple models, shot, evaluated, and used for 6,000-8,000 rounds a piece. If they get there without issues, then they probably have something that is unlikely to fail on a hunt.

Bushnell LRHS and tactical line, while still generally good, are not what they were. I would only suggest them with a caveat now.






Sure, sure. 😗

The G3 is fine, but it is a little to fine, and it suffers the same needlessly wide horizontal spacing as all of them. Illumination works of course, but a scope should not require it to be used in normal lowlight situations.

Nice work form. Best reading on the internet.

The two 3-12 LRTS I have mounted seem to work fine so far. But, I don't have any kind of round count through them yet.

On a different note, I finally got to "drop test" the SWFA 6x mounted on my Ruger Ranch 7.62 Commie. Dropped about 3.5 Feet/waist high from the hood of the "purple dragon".....IE mid 90's Geo Tracker 4x4. Sounded pretty robust. Elevation was exactly .5 Mil High after the fall. Came down 5 clicks and "bobs your uncle", went back to busting Rocks at 559 yds. I was impressed for how hard it it on the top turret.

I like hunting and want my scope to be trustworthy, but 60,000 rounds thru 8 scopes to verify it just isn't going to happen.
I apologize for my lack of commitment.
Hat is off to those who would.

Nah. No one said that you should do it. But, until someone does it, we really don’t know what that scope will do. To put it into perspective- 60,000 rounds, is about like 60,000 miles on a truck.

screaminweasil,

A 3.5 foot drop shouldn’t have moved the scope .5 mil. Not that it can’t happen, however more likely something in the mounting system, or action moved in the stock. From what I’ve seen sporter weight rifles need more than that to shift that much at that hight with a FF.

Action/bases/rings moving when impacted are the reason that rifles with bonded actions to chassis, and permanently mounted bases are used for the drop “tests” now.

can't disagree with really any of that, other than I would add this, most people just aren't shooting their guns all that much, nor do they have access to all the different ways and shooting you mention, like all the different positions etc.

Seems to me where the impact occurs will make a big difference in the potential effect of a drop. If it's on either end of the scope instead of one of the turrets or the tube close to the rings, the effect would be more severe, I think, even with a robust tube and mount. Dropped stuff rarely lands how you want.

Had a Sako .223 slide off the fender of my SS 396 Rally Sport Camaro, causing me to miss an easy shot at a big fat crow a few minutes later. It landed on the objective end of the Lyman 8x. POI shift was about a foot at 100. Don't think the tube was bent, as none was apparent, and it soldiered on for some years afterward.

What year and where is the Camaro now?

Dreamt this up awhile back. Too fat maybe but donut free?

I don't doubt that. Rifle is bone stock. It's got only around 800 rounds through it so far with that same SWFA 6x with never a bobble. I used blue loctite on the factory rail torqued to 25 inch/lbs. Action screws torqued in the stock at 65 inch lbs. It's mounted in the SWFA rings that came in blackfriday special as well. In any event, a Leupy would have been off 1.5 feet after a fall like that.....bugger hit hard.

Speaking of Leupy, sent an old VarixII 3-9 with M1 turret back to beaverton this morning. 11 MOA of elevation moves it 14.5" at 100 yds. I bought that scope from somebody here, don't remember who for $75. So, no loss for me. I knew it wasn't tracking correctly when my dope on a Ruger 10/22 target was causing sever high points of impact a few months ago. I put it on the Ruger Ranch in question yesterday to confirm on paper that it "tracks as shi*tty as the rest of the "gold rings".

It sure is nice to have equipment that works.
Also nice to have somebody with your trigger time and rough testing to show what puts up and what shuts up.

Thanks for the report. I hope Meopta Optika6 makes out in the long run. Sure will blow away the used scope market if they are reliable.