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Rifle Scopes New Schmidt & Bender PM2 6-36x56

I do like that low profile turret. Never understood why elevation turrets needed to stick up three inches.
Because there’s no reason on a tactical/comp scope to have a 1/4 inch of turret sticking up instead of something like currently is popular. Also so it can clear a top ring level visibly.
 
Does anyone know if the 6-36 shares the same occular and objective housing diameters with any of the other PMII's? I need new caps for mine and I want something other than Tenebraex.
The occular is larger than the previous generation PMII 5-25. I tried a throw lever and it would not fit. Not sure about other PMII’s or the objective end.
 
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I bought the 6-36, didn't even get to take it to the range before I decided something was up. Parallax couldn't give a razor sharp image at long range, had a significant amount of reticle jump/erector slop, and the image a high magnification was very dark. Something is definitely up with it because a couple of my cheap scopes had a nicer image. I was very disappointed with my 6-36 but we will see how it is when they send it back. Worst part is, Jerry left like a week after I sent it in🙃
Update on this, ive had my 6-36 back for a while now and its everything it should be. Incredible IQ with a very forgiving eyebox, even on 36x. I dont know what they did, but man is this thing nice now.
 
This is a cross-post of mine from the Kahle K328i thread, but makes (even more) sense here too.


I have a few optics laying around, and a brand new grey S&B 6-36x56 TRID EU version plus a black P5FL, and yesterday we went down to my lake and sat in the sun to just enjoy some time off and look through them properly.

I wanted to be 100% neutral in this, and all ended up with my friend typing this up in Swedish, and I ran it through ChatGPT for a translate. To my surprise it did a full "review" all by itself, and I checked for accuracy and it did it properly.

The main point here for the Kahles K328i is that I have one, and I absolutely love the zoom range and the image clarity is just silly. It's a love affair and I'm not selling, it's pretty perfect on my LWRCI REPR Mk II Elite (although I'm now running a Pulsar XL60 on it against the pigs).

However, and to my surprise, the Schmidt & Bender 6-36x56 (EU version) was even better. I laughed out loud, and I tried it a few times over. I know 3.5-28x and 6-36x don't really correlate, but as the main range is around 12-15x it's still compareable.

Here's my friend's conclusion. He left with my S&B 6-36x and compared it to some other scopes as well.
Background is he runs ZCO420 and ZCO527, but looking for alternatives.

Scopes tested:

  • S&B: 10–60 / 6–36 (two versions with different reticles, P5FL, TRID) / 1–8x CC Shortdot / 3–27x56 PM II
  • Kahles: 540 / 328
  • Element: Theos 6–36
  • ZCO: 840 / 420 / 527

Schmidt & Bender (S&B):

  • Natural colors, almost slightly washed out. Very realistic rendering.
  • Very good field of view. Better than ZCO up to around 15x magnification. From 15x and above, the difference wasn’t as noticeable.
  • Very good depth perception in the image. In other words, objects at different distances were clearly distinguishable. This is an important detail in competition, for example during a troop line with targets placed at varying ranges.
  • Details remain sharp even at low magnifications. It almost gives the illusion that targets are closer than they actually are.
  • Very little to no scope shadow (scope ring). Edge-to-edge clarity is fantastic.
  • Good parallax. I could set it to infinity and no matter what distance I looked at, the image remained sharp.
  • Other: Built like a tank. Tactile turret clicks with no play.

Kahles:

  • Colors and contrast “pop”. Everything feels enhanced through the glass.
  • Amazing field of view – the best of all the scopes tested.
  • I had some issues with the parallax. It felt like I had to fine-tune it for each specific target. This could be a problem in a competition scenario where time is tight, and you're switching targets at different distances.
  • The Kahles 328 is my favorite of their two new models. Compact, with a fantastic zoom range and consistent clarity throughout all magnifications. Excellent edge-to-edge clarity. I’d love to spend more time with this one.
  • The Kahles 540 gave me a “flat” image. I didn’t get a sense of depth from the image. I found myself constantly fine-tuning the parallax. The edge-to-edge clarity didn’t compare to the 328. I’m not an expert, and this is just a sample of one, but the 540 was my least favorite of all the scopes.
  • Other: I don’t like that the parallax adjustment is located underneath the elevation turret, but that’s a matter of taste and probably just a habit I can unlearn.

ZCO:

  • The 840 clearly shows its Kahles heritage. Colors and contrast pop across the entire magnification range.
  • The 420 / 527 / 840 all had a narrower field of view and a tighter eyebox compared to S&B and Kahles.
  • Fantastic glass and image sharpness.
  • Generous parallax adjustment – it felt like it wasn’t too sensitive to different distances.
Element Theos 6–36:

  • Amazing sharpness and clarity in the glass. For the price, it’s a home run.
  • Forgiving parallax.
  • Had the most scope shadow (scope ring) of all the scopes I tested.
  • When we looked at a radio mast at 2 km, the detail clarity was good, but it felt far away, like the image was at the end of a long tube.
  • ZCO and S&B felt like the image was much closer, and there wasn’t much visual difference between the magnification levels.
  • Kahles was not included in this specific test.


Optixx.JPG
 
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