When I saw the ATACR 4-20 first announced there was a side of me that was really hoping this would be a "lighter" version, but knowing the ATACR line the practical side of me knew it wouldn't be lighter... but heavier than the ZCO, wasn't expecting that... narrow bottom end FOV, wasn't expecting that. Why more manufacturers haven't pursued lighter weight FFP options has me scratching my head a bit.
Most marketing people who work for scope manufacturers are not adventurous by nature and all too many are not really shooters. There are a few out there who carefully look for niches that they can exploit, but most simply jump on the bandwagon that already exists.
There are some exceptions, of course, and talking to a few companies, I think they realize how saturated the market is and we will see some new things.
Right now, the market is so active that they are selling everything they make, but as the demand goes down a little (and it inevitably will, at some point) we will see some stuff come out that is targeted at smaller niches that are not currently served well.
Lightweight FFP scopes is one of those niches that is really not addressed by most companies. Interestingly, Tangent stumbled on it a while back as legacy of Premier Light Hunter and made the TT315M model. I have one of the first ones they made and, on balance, it is still my favourite overall scope of all I own. Now, it is not the best bang for the buck and I would probably appreciate a slightly thicker reticle (mine is the Gen2 XR), but the complaints are minor. Optomechanical quality of this scope is astounding and it has weathered some abuse from me over the years without any issues.
However, Tangent sells far more 5-25x56 scopes that the rest of their models combined. That is just where their customer base is. Their scopes are expensive and long range guys are the ones who are willing to spend that kind of money. They want a little more magnification than 3-15x50. I am probably the exception to the rule in that sense, since I mostly shoot in the 10x to 15x range. I do own a 5-25x56 with Gen3 XR and I think it is spectacular. It is big and heavy, so it definitely goes after a different market and Gen3 XR is really nicely sized for this mag range.
March is one of the few manufacturers that has always looked into making scopes lighter, which is how we got the original 3-24x design (I still own the 3-24x52 and like it a lot). On balance, it might be the best of the crossover scope. I think the new 4.5-28x52 is a better scope overall, but it is a few ounces heavier, so depending on the application I might go with one or the other. I think March is well positioned to do more with lightweight scopes, but while their scopes are not quite as expensive as Tangent, they are still up there.
I really like Nightforce's 4-16x42 ATACR, but it is on the heavy side for the size. The new 4-20x50 is also heavy and tunnels on the low end, so chances are it is aimed at NRL22 or other forms of competition, where weight is not a detriment and going below 7x or so is not happening any time soon. And these are also not cheap. NX8 looks compelling on paper, but I do not like the execution.
What I really want to see is something in the $1500 or under range that addresses this niche and I think we will see some activity there.
Leupold's Mark 5 3.6-18x44 is closer to the right price range, but illuminated models are still expensive (over $2k). Also, for some odd reason they refuse to put a good quality illuminated tree reticle into this scope. They even designed a nice tree reticle (PR2), but they are not putting it into the 3.6-18x44 and not illuminating it in the other models. I do not know why. However, if you do not need a tree reticle, the 3.6-18x44 Mark 5 with illuminated PR1-MIL (nice simple mil-scale reticle) is really compelling.
Will we see something in the $1000-$1500 range? I think so. This price range is increasingly competitive and is within the price range of a lot of people. I am really curious to see what will pop up within the next few months.
ILya
