I’ve been looking so much forward to this review.
As an evil commie European, I don’t have access to all the good stuff (at least with warranty), only through grey marked.
But, the TigIR is German made, and is perfectly doable here in Denmark
, so now I will get to know if I can get some of the best in the world, or if I have to lurk in here with envy.
I reeeeeaaaaally hope that this is not as good as the UTC, because then I don’t have to buy burn all my savings on the TigIR !
Then you will be very sad to hear that the TigIR-6M is, in my "
Way to early to render a verdict" verdict, a very real UTC-X/Xii competitor -- for
most.
I woke up at about 0300 and have been wide awake ever since. My body is still on Kenya time. I tried to go back to bed, but got up at 0400 (a normal morning, for some here) and decided to do some direct comparisons. I mounted them, one after the other, back and forth, on an SR-25 with a brand new SB PMII Ultra Short 5-20 with Tremor3 reticle, almost the perfect scope for this comparison (a 3-20 would be a little better, as both the UTC and TigIR become usable at right about 3x -- anything less, and there's severe tunneling).
It's currently 40*F, no humidity, perfectly clear night (morning). I can easily see the cows at 400+ yards from my porch through both units.
Both the UTC and Tig can see the cow's detailed outline at ~400-500 yards, *including* the ears.
I feel both are usable up to ~20x.
The Tig has a noticeably finer display dot pitch -- likely due to it's ~50% higher number of display pixels (UTC= 640x480, Tig= 800x600).
Up to 12x magnification, the Tig, in my extremely preliminary comparison, seems to have an ever-so-slight advantage in clarity. Above 12x, I would call it a draw, but with a caveat -- the pixels on the UTC are "blocky" and product a very sharp "LEGO" image. The pixels on the Tig are more rounded and "softer" and produce a smoother image, but it looks slightly "fuzzy", for lack of a better word. It's a different image and will likely come down to personal preference. I would surmise that, if you are accustomed to the UTC, you'll prefer the UTC. If you were accustomed to the Tig, you'd prefer the Tig. If you don't have experience with either, you'll love which ever one you get!
That said, the Tig has yet another party piece the UTC lacks -- a digital zoom! This may *sound* trivial, but I assure you, it's not! At 2x,
the digital zoom appears to lose little to no resolution, meaning when you're locked in at 20x on your optic, and hit the zoom button, BAM!, you're at 40x and it looks DAMN good! I was watching a cow head at >400 yards FILL the entire view through the scope and saw ears twitching! That blew me away! 4x digital zoom is definitely usable, but at 20x optical magnification, it becomes a moot point. This means, amazingly, the TigIR-6M becomes MUCH more useful on a LPVO or Elcan or ACOG than the UTC-X/Xii ever could be. I'd have zero problem using this in front of a 1/4x or 1.5/6x Elcan (the optic Andres Industries recommends for the Tig) and using the digital zoom to effectively give me 12x or even 24x (in a pinch) and taking a shot. I'm going to pop it in from my my Gen3 1-10x Razor and Elcan 1.5/6x tonight to test it out.
The Tig is WAY more compact, front-to-back, and will fit on rails with limited space or full-length scopes where the UTC will not, but it's more "boxy" than the UTC -- not larger, just different.
The objective flip-cover is very clever. The internal NUC/Shutter is the best I've ever seen and is a spectacular feature.
The buttons and menu system are more complex and less intuitive than the UTC, but it has a lot more features and a bonkers array of color pallets.
Both the UTC and Tig come standard with the same ~1.35" height, which I'm not a big fan of, but the Tig comes with three different "risers" that can be used individually or together to easily accommodate any optic centerline height from 1.35" - 1.95".
The
FOUR BIGGEST drawbacks -- yet discovered -- on the TigIR-6M are:
1)
NO TracIR support! If you have wood for TracIR, the Tig will never have it.
2) NO external battery support! That said, Andres actually recommends quality 2x 16650 rechargables, and it takes FOUR (4) CR123A's/16340's.
3) NO video-out or ANY input/output possibilities. (I don't care, but some of you may). DERP! TigIR ***DOES*** have video-out and external power support!!! (see image below) 4)
NO objective manual focus! It's a fixed lens. I'm not a fan, but will say that everything beyond ~50 yards is in clear focus and everything past ~100 yards is sharp. I was looking at some of my turkeys at about 20-25 yards and they were soft. I could clearly tell they were Turkeys, and wouldn't have a problem taking a close-in shot at that range, but with the UTC I can focus the objective and clearly see the detail in their individual feathers. That's a no-can-do with the Tig.
I haven't put a round through the Tig yet, so POI shift is currently unknown, but I hope to get that done later today or before sunset this evening.