Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics NightForce SHV

big stick, false. I lapped the hell out of the rings in my scope fixture and which allowed me to set the scope only in the bottom half of the rings and I could get it to RTZ taking it in and out of the rings. this allowed me to do various things to the scope. Drop it from 2 feet onto a park table. use it as a club on a plastic trash can. wrap the palm of my hand with the objective bell. NOTHING I could do would get my optika 5 to move zero. in fact when impacting the scope on 9 o clock onto the palm of my hand, IE right against the leaf spring inside the erector. I could actually feel the spring compressing and the erector slap inside the scope! still no zero shift. if you think about this, its makes sense. unless something breaks inside the scope it should hold zero. The erector is held under spring tension against the turret adjusters. Its not a scope that I feel as a dialing scope, I honestly don't remember why I felt that way or what the scope did, I didn't buy it as a dialer. after what I did to it, I trust it as set and forget.

big stick might be subtly smart in ways you have to search to find. but some other people aint stupid either.

When 99% of people who use Optikas can get what they want out of them and 1% can't, it's certainly not the 1% that is the issue.

I had what I felt was the perfect scope for my Remington Ultimate Muzzleloader. It was the same SHV you are considering. It had the illuminated force plex.

I was twisting the turret to shoot it out to 300 yards with a 320 gr Fury bullet and then returning it to zero at 100 with plenty of shots in between at a steel plates in the desert. It was working quite well for several sessions. Then the scope's elevation turret suddenly died. It would not return to zero or place the POI where I wanted it at various distances. I called Nightforce and was flat out told it was my rifle certainly NOT THEIR PRODUCT!!!! As a control I placed a SWFA HD 5-20 x 50 on the rifle and it was back in business. It was too bad as I really thought the scope was perfect for my use on that rifle.

FYI I got my cow elk with that SWFA at 225 yd that year. You have better results with your rifle as it won't recoil anywhere near as much as that MZ does.

I've had Leupolds quit tracking, and seen numerous Vortex crap out, but never have seen a Nightforce do that.

For shooting hogs “in very dim light”, I’d be looking for something with an objective lens larger than 42mm.

I may be the Luddite in the crowd, but I would just find an older Leupold 6 x 42 with heavy duplex reticle. I can’t think of a better scope for low light and 100 yards or closer shooting.

Objective size never trumps lens and lens coating quality, nor ones knowledge and ability to properly adjust a scope for optimum performance in low light situations!

Your pupil can only dilate to 5mm, so anything over that can be wasted, i.e. a 7mm exit pupil.