Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Opinions on the Sightron SII 4-16x42

I'm curious about these. How good are they? I've been considering getting one with the hunter holdover reticle. I've heard they track well and the glass is pretty damn good. What do you guys think? Thanks, bsa.

BSA - Sightron makes really good glass and solid, repeatable mechanicals. But SII is their "old" good line. They were superseded by the SII Big Sky line, which is a really excellent line of scopes imho, equivalent to leupold VX3 or better, while the SII is probably equivalent to Leupold VXIII (Leupold's old line). If it were me, I would go for an SII Big Sky rather than an SII. I have have no hesitation buying Sightrons.

Thanks for the help. I'm also looking at the 4-12 vortex viper, think brettoomac just bought one of those. Maybe I'll pm him later.

I've got 3 of the Viper scopes and all are great and especially for the money. 2 of mine are on target rifles and they work very well, the other is a 2-7 on a 375H&H and it works very well on that as well. Personally I have had much better luck with Vortex than Sightron but that's just me. I know Sightron is going to be coming out with some changes in their lines for the next year so it might be worth seeing what they come up with.

I have a 4.5x14 SII and love it. Also have owned a 3x9 Big Sky and it was a nice scope too. Never been too impressed with the Vortex...

That is your opinion but I disagree, only had one of the old SII's but it was not even close to as good as a VXIII

bsa1917hunter,

I had a SII 3-15X. When I purchased it I narrowed my choices down to it a 4-12X Swarovski and a 3 1/2-14 LPS. I took them outside the store after sunset. Thinking the Swarovski was going to b the best I started with it and found a twig a couple blocks away. It was next to a transformer so it was quite easy to go back to.

Next I looked through the Leupold LPS. It was two twigs very close together. No way, I thought. I again looked through the Swarovski: One twig. Then I looked though the Sightron. Without any effort I distinguished the two twigs.

The price on the Sightron was about half what the others were. I bought it.

Fair enough - I should have added in my eyes.

I am curious - do you also feel that the VX3 is much better than the SII Big Sky? Most people I know see it going the other way, or at parity. In general, I like the SIIBS slightly better than the VX3, depending upon the model and copy - for my eyes:-)

I've owned VX3's, and I thought the Big Sky was sharper and brighter, but it was also heavier...

Have Viper's, have SII Big Sky's and had the VX-3's. It's all about what you want. All three are very very close in performance! It's all in what you want!!

I bought that exact scope(4X16). I bought it for a 223 medium weight varmint rifle. The scope did very well. I also had it mounted on a CZ in LH 204 ruger. Scope perfromed well, and tracked well enough for what I used it for. The scope was a little long and heavy, but not a bad buy for the money.

Don't know anything about low light performance, but it has decent clarity in varminting hours.

Sightron has a good reputation. I ended up selling the scope and got most of my money back. Tom.