Rifle Scopes A thought exercise of sorts
- Thread starter koshkin
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Nice article as always.
I keep looking at the TT5-25 but I can't justify the cost when all other similar scopes are considerably less. I would want to see one before investing that kind of money in a 5-25. I am planning a pilgrimage to EuroOptics this summer so who knows.
I keep looking at the TT5-25 but I can't justify the cost when all other similar scopes are considerably less. I would want to see one before investing that kind of money in a 5-25. I am planning a pilgrimage to EuroOptics this summer so who knows.
Nice thought provoking article ILya, I can relate on many levels to what you are saying. Might I suggest you give the Minox ZP5 5-25 a look, I think you'd be impressed with it. Towards the end when you were sharing what you think is the best scope for you, what kept coming to mind is the March, I really wish they would fix some of their issues (upgraded reticle, better turret feel, more forgiving parallax and High Master glass wouldn't hurt either). Also, you mention the ideal range would be a 4-24x50 which Sig makes in the Tango 6 but for me it's a heavy beast, has everything you want except for TT glass? Personally I think the Schmidt & Bender Ultra Short 3-20x50 is the best compromise out there, with the ZCO ZC420 probably coming in a close 2nd (in regard to magnification but possibly toppling the Schmidt in optical quality). I'd be all over the Kahles K318i if the ZC420 hadn't been introduced, but I suppose we'll have to wait to find out how both perform at their price points.
What it really sounds like your asking is for Tangent Theta to make a 4-24x50 that was short and light weight and while I'd love to see that I couldn't imagine what their price would be, far north of $5k I'd imagine. Hoping that the next AMG released is a 4.5-18x50 or better yet a 4-20x50 that is lighter and under 14" in length, but we have to wait close to a year to even find out. If the next AMG is a 4-16x50 that will be nice, but like you I'm hoping for something closer to the 20x mark.
What it really sounds like your asking is for Tangent Theta to make a 4-24x50 that was short and light weight and while I'd love to see that I couldn't imagine what their price would be, far north of $5k I'd imagine. Hoping that the next AMG released is a 4.5-18x50 or better yet a 4-20x50 that is lighter and under 14" in length, but we have to wait close to a year to even find out. If the next AMG is a 4-16x50 that will be nice, but like you I'm hoping for something closer to the 20x mark.
Very interesting discussion. I have yet to have a look through a TT, but if it's as good as everyone says it is, then I'll heavily consider getting one if they stick an MR4 reticle in it. Most expensive scope I own is an SWFA HD 5-20, so that would be an enormous step up price-wise. Even so, I really would consider it with everything it allegedly offers.
I am sorta in your neck of the woods right now, but I have a very compressed schedule, so I did not have time to come visit. Next time, I am here, I will bring one for you to look at.
Now, as a general disclaimer: I think what you have is more or less at the sweetspot of the "bang for the buck" category and going significantly above that gets you into serious diminishing returns.
However, sometimes, it is nice to ignore the price and dream a little...
As far as MR4 in a Tangent Theta goes, that is not happening any time soon. They have some sort of a reticle of their own coming up, but I have not seen the drawings of it yet.
ILya
I've spent some time with the ZP5 and it is an excellent design. The turrets are not as good as TT though. Optical quality is close. Minox is a better bang for the buck than the 34mm TT, but this is not a "bang for the buck" exercise. Overall, TT is still a better scope, though not by much. Either way, the TT315M is in the same price range as the ZP5 3-15x50 and I have compared them side-by-side. Both are excellent.
With reticles, while I think the MR4 is the best of Minox reticles, there are a couple of things about it that I do not like, just like there are a couple of things I do not like about Gen 2 XR.
I tested March 3-24x42 and 3-24x52 quite extensively and owned 3-24x42 for a while. They have a lot going for them, but the biggest issue for me is the shallow depth of field: not only is the parallax touchy, but you also have to mess with it a lot. I spend a lot of itme peering through scopes and the much larger depth of field of scopes like Tangent Theta and Minox ZP5 makes it much easier.
I am testing the Sig 4-24x50 and while a nice scope, it is heavy and not quite as good optically as I would like. It does have a compelling feature set and is holding up well mechanically so far. However, Delta Stryker seems to be visibly better side by side, despite both coming from what seems to be the same OEM. Tango6 is not bad at all, but it is not in the running to unseat the alpha brands any time soon. That having been said, I like the DevL reticle quite a bit and this Tango6 is likely to end up in my list of recommendations on the strength of good overall quality and a compelling feature set.
Generally, if we are talking about "bang for the buck" in a precision scope, Delta Stryker 4.5-30x56 is probably it right now. I'll talk to them and see how they plan to get into the US market, but they really should. This is a seriously nice scope.
Ultrashort S&B 3-20x50 is indeed a very nice design, but there are a few things about it I decidedly dislike. It is the same overall size as the TT315M, but a few ounces heavier (~5, I think). I am not a fan of the illumination turret location. Importantly, the only Christmas tree-style reticle available in it are the various Horus designs that I am not a fan of. At all.
ZCO 4-20x50 promises to be in the same size and price range as the S&B, but with a reticle that is more to my liking. I am very curious how that is going to work out.
Lastly, I am not asking Tangent Theta or anyone else to come out with a new precision scope. I think this market is so saturated we will see models get dropped rather than added from some makers. With Tangent Theta, if I were to make a guess (and to be clear this is just a guess), if they decide to come up with a new configuration, they should go a little up in magnification. I think that is a better fit for their existing target market and where I think they can really do some damage. They already have the TT315M for people like me and a new reticle will re-enforce that, I think.
Since March is coming out with a 6-60x56 FFP scope, apparently I am not the only one who thinks there is some room in that market niche, although I think they should really consider a larger objective.
There is another niche in the precision shooting segment that is under-served and I've written about that before: lightweight precision scopes for accurate ARs and other compact lightweight guns. I think the first company that figures out how to make a FFP 3-15x36 in the < 20ozs range will make a killing.
Generally, Leupold still owns the utlralight market and I think someone should offer them some competition.
ILya
Sounds good, I'd love to see one in person, and I'm certainly in no rush. Although I haven't had my SWFA HD 5-20 very long, I've pretty much fallen in love with it and my wife would literally kill me if I spend $3k+ on a scope right now. So the good news for you guys if I bought one is that there would likely be an SWFA HD and TT 5-25 both for sale really soon on here for real cheap.
I have no doubt that you're correct. In most hobbies, it seems that you can spend a lot of money chasing that last 10% of performance.
Now we're talking!
For my bank account purposes, that's just fine. But I'll keep dreaming in the meantime. Even something like the EBR-2C would be fine if they moved the holdover number labels to the outside. I even like the Mil-C as a non-tree reticle. But I do like the center dot personally.
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Excellent article as always. I'm sure most of us has gone through that mental exercise of what our perfect scope would be. Your ideas are fairly close to mine. For me, if TT would put in a reticle that I actually like, it'd be a no-brainer. That or if S&B would just move that tumor they call an illumination knob to a less obtrusive location, I'd be quite happy.
Thank You, Alex.
I like to go through these mental exercises before I spend money or before I recommend products to other people who spend money based on my recommendations.
New TT reticle is coming. I'll harass them a little to see when they are willing to release any information on it.
With the controls, the only really innovative thing I have seen in recent years was Kahles' approach to center parallax underneath the vertical adjustment turret. Everyone else is doing more or less the same thing. I can think of other possible ways of doing it, which means that other people can too. We'll see if anything interesting comes out of it.
With S&B's "tumor" if they positioned it so that is pointing up for ambidextrous use, I would have no problem with it whatsoever. The way they are doing it is just weird to me.
ILya
Between the March 10x and Steiner release this is shaping up to a very interesting year!
Yes, I really like the way Kahles did their parallax. The idea of moving the illumination knob on the S&Bs to the top of the tube is a good one, though personally, I'd like to see them integrate it into their parallax location.
I see now what you're getting at ILya, not just any 4-24x50 but a premium alpha quality 4-24x50, that excels in every category, not just here or there. Schmidt is probably closest to making something like this, they got close with the 3-20x50, but I agree, a more appealing zoom range would be in the 4-24 as it still gives enough FOV on the low end while providing 24x at the top when necessary. One other request I would say is to keep the weight and length down. Something 14" or less and around the 30oz mark would be ideal (well less would be ideal but I know we sacrifice robustness for weight at times). I guess I keep coming back to the March 3-24x52, if they could put out a better reticle, add high master glass and maybe bump up the parallax to 25 - infinity in order to allow the parallax to be a bit more forgiving, I think I'd really be content with that scope.
That illumination tumor drives me nuts, I've been hoping for a PM III for a couple years now that would resolve that, but I can live with the tumor if they put out a good reticle. I am waiting for the MSR2 to make its way to this scope as I really like this reticle (and someday if the LRR-Mil ever makes it that might be of interest as well). I would have preferred a 3.5-23x50 instead of the 3-20 since they already had a 5-20 but what can we do, they make what they make. The 3-20 is definitely usable and the only reason I haven't invested in one is the reticle and the price as I wish they were nearer to the $3k mark.
In comparison to the TT315M, you're right, they are close, but at 5x more on the top end I think the Schmidt has a distinct advantage. Yes the Schmidt is 4oz heavier but I think it's worth it for 20x vs. 15x and the Schmidt is slightly shorter than the TT. One of my favorite scopes was the Premier LT which is the TT315M's older sister, but I do wish TT would have put in 10 mil turrets with a bit more travel as some will find 12 mil limiting.
I agree, the ZC420 definitely has my interest but I do wish they could have kept the weight down as it's near 35oz. But if the optics and mechanics prove true to their claims and this scope exceeds the S&B US 3-20 US then it's going to be hard to pass up.
They'll probably offer a couple reticles to rejuvenate their existing scopes, but they have not introduced a "new" scope from what the Optronika group created for Premier years ago. Now that they don't have access to the Optronika group I wonder if they don't have the engineering prowess to create a new design that can match the quality of what they already have or rather what they inherited.
If it was a 6-60x65 I wonder how many would have purchased it as a spotting scope
I'm not sure how much of a market there is for that scope, March has me scratching my head as they just don't seem to understand the Competition/Hunting market. I'm assuming they are going after ELR with the 6-60 but again, it has very limited appeal, so "Genesis"? Okay, so you made a 10x FFP, big whoop, make your existing FFP scopes better; I'd be more interested in their 5-40x56 with High Master glass and better reticle which they probably could have done for much less cost that creating the 6-60. Or how about a 4-32x56 that's about 30oz, but with all the above issues fixed.I agree, I think lighter scopes are where it's at, we've seen just about everything else, Ultra Short, Ultra Bright, now... Ultra Light.
Leupold and March, but the AMG is getting close, if Vortex could do a 4.5-18x50 AMG that is 25oz or less, I think they could put some serious pressure on the other ultra shorts with weight alone, of course, I'd much rather see an AMG 4-20x50 but I'm not sure if Vortex will go above the 4x mark.
This year has probably the most new releases of scopes we've seen in a very long time, it will be interesting to see what new scopes arrive next year...
A couple of comments:
-even with hunting scopes, I would like to see more short and light scopes and I suspect there are a few on their way to the market
-If I were Vortex and working on an intermediate AMG model, I would aim for a 4.5-18x40. I bet that scope can be squeezed into a 22-24ox range and have really nice optics. Basically, a modernixzed versio nof S&B PMII 4-16x42 which is one of the best optimized scopes I have ever seen.
-Tangent Theta has access to some absolutely world class optical and mechanical designers. They do not need Optronika for anything at this stage (interestingly, a year or two ago, one of the former Optronika guys candidly agrees that TT has some of the best minds in this segment working on their stuff).
-We really do not know what is new about March 6-60x56 aside from the magnification range. Let's give it a couple of days and see what it is all about. From a magnification only standpoint, to me, a 3-30x45 would be more interesting if they keep DOF manageable and have parallax down to 50 yards or so. In principle, now that I think about it, it is perfectly viable to make a riflescope where you parallax adjustment range varies with magnification. For example, I can see a way to make a 3-30x scope so that from 3x to 10x your focus range is 10-300 meters, while from 11x to 30x, it is from 50m to infinity. It might be difficult to control in production, but a boutique maker like March can pull it off. That would not work for airgunners, but it would work for people like me.
ILya
-even with hunting scopes, I would like to see more short and light scopes and I suspect there are a few on their way to the market
-If I were Vortex and working on an intermediate AMG model, I would aim for a 4.5-18x40. I bet that scope can be squeezed into a 22-24ox range and have really nice optics. Basically, a modernixzed versio nof S&B PMII 4-16x42 which is one of the best optimized scopes I have ever seen.
-Tangent Theta has access to some absolutely world class optical and mechanical designers. They do not need Optronika for anything at this stage (interestingly, a year or two ago, one of the former Optronika guys candidly agrees that TT has some of the best minds in this segment working on their stuff).
-We really do not know what is new about March 6-60x56 aside from the magnification range. Let's give it a couple of days and see what it is all about. From a magnification only standpoint, to me, a 3-30x45 would be more interesting if they keep DOF manageable and have parallax down to 50 yards or so. In principle, now that I think about it, it is perfectly viable to make a riflescope where you parallax adjustment range varies with magnification. For example, I can see a way to make a 3-30x scope so that from 3x to 10x your focus range is 10-300 meters, while from 11x to 30x, it is from 50m to infinity. It might be difficult to control in production, but a boutique maker like March can pull it off. That would not work for airgunners, but it would work for people like me.
ILya
Since I have hunting in my blood (though I'm a pathetic hunter, but I do love getting out and pretending I can actually find an elk) I tend to lean toward a larger objective for better low light performance, but I hear what you're saying on the "optimized" scope, there is definitely a market for that (it's just not my market which is why the ATACR F1 4-16x42 has had little appeal for me). Regarding TT, I guess I'm just not too hip on them, I understand they have what probably is the best scope on the market but the fact that when they launched they charged $1000 over what Premier was charging for the scope kind of jaded me toward them, I understand they fixed some deficiencies with the Premier but they also didn't have to cover all the R&D that Premier had either, I just don't think their price is justified for the P Series. Their inability to deliver a new reticle in 4 years doesn't give me much hope they'll come up with a compelling new scope design anytime soon, and if they do then I'd imagine it would be in the $4k + category which really isolates them from even the upper end market. If ZCO can match them optically and mechanically then I find them much more appealing. You're right about March, tomorrow morning we find out what more than just a 10x FFP this Genesis is supposed to be. I like your thoughts on the dual parallax, I also think for such a high magnification it would be nice to have something to assist at low mags when that FFP reticle is practically unusable, maybe that's part of their "Genesis", it will be interesting to find out what the engineers at Deon came up with.
One last question, you talk about Depth of Field (DOF) and how the March struggles in this area (or at least the 3-24 design) and I think I understand what you're referring too when I look through the scope compared to say Schmidt. I also understand DOF as it relates to photography and the ability to stop down your aperture to get a greater DOF, we don't have apertures on scopes so basically we're always looking through them at maximum aperture if you will, but there are also lenses that appear more flat while other lenses seem to have more depth, I'm assuming this is what you're referring to? Do you think this is more a factor of the high magnification erector or is it high magnification with only a 30mm tube and smaller internals, or? Help me understand what contributing factors there are for scopes that have greater DOF than others. As always, thank you for your input and willingness to share your knowledge for the benefit of the community.
One last question, you talk about Depth of Field (DOF) and how the March struggles in this area (or at least the 3-24 design) and I think I understand what you're referring too when I look through the scope compared to say Schmidt. I also understand DOF as it relates to photography and the ability to stop down your aperture to get a greater DOF, we don't have apertures on scopes so basically we're always looking through them at maximum aperture if you will, but there are also lenses that appear more flat while other lenses seem to have more depth, I'm assuming this is what you're referring to? Do you think this is more a factor of the high magnification erector or is it high magnification with only a 30mm tube and smaller internals, or? Help me understand what contributing factors there are for scopes that have greater DOF than others. As always, thank you for your input and willingness to share your knowledge for the benefit of the community.
If you think that TT is a spiffed up Premier, you are incorrect. The mechanical system is completely re-designed and the optics were also somewhat tweaked. It is not a case of "fixed some deficiencies". It was a thorough and dedicated effort to entirely re-work the optomechanical system, tooling and fixturing were re-designed. Turrets are entirely new. Even the tube is different on the inside.
Whether the price is justified is really determined by the market. If the price is not justified, they will have to lower it.
On depth of field: look at a target at some known distance. Let's use 100 yards for example. Get the side focus optimized for image sharpness at that distance. Now, without touching the side focus, examine the area in front of the target and behind it. What is the range of distances where the objects you are looking at are still sharp? That is the depth of field. Depth of field depends on how the optic is designed (system design). It is also inversely proportional to magnification. All other things being equal, shorter scopes have shallower depth of field. However, all other things are almost never equal, so do not assume that is a hard rule.
With photographic lenses, depth of field is inversely proportional to the F/#, so the same thing sorta holds for riflescopes, but since there are three optical systems in a riflescope to contend with, it is not quite that simple. Besides, you don't really have any information on the F/# of the objective system of a riflescope which is usually (not always) the limiting factor.
If the scope has shallow depth of field, you will be using the parallax turret a lot. Now, for ultimate precision, you should be using the parallax turret a lot. However, for a lot of the shooting that I do, with a scope that has large DOF, I barely have to touch the side-focus for a good range of distances. With March 3-24x, at the same magnification, I have to be on the parallax turret a lot more than with TT315M.
ILya
Very nice explanation of DOF as a lot of people don't truly know what that is when they are discussing it.
The scope you would like would be very difficult to create, if you want a scope as short as the ultra short you have to compensate for the reduced length by adding lenses and complicating the erector system. This adds weight as well as complexity to the optical system as a whole. At some point the benefit will out weigh the gain due to R&D costs. It is always good to do these exercises though but keep in mind many optic companies are already pushing the optical limit as to what can be done with current technology so it may be some time before technology catches up with our mind exercises.
I was not aware that TT went to that much effort in the redesign, I knew they had their own turrets and fixed an issue with some internals. They certainly don't have the best marketing and probably could have done a better job informing the community the extent to which they made changes to the original Premier design. I suppose within any industry you always have your extreme upper end and that is what TT represents, not everyone can afford a Bentley. Good point about price justification, and unless we're unaware of financial struggles within TT it would appear they are doing fine even without introducing anything new. They are clearly a boutique scope manufacturer and just like Bentley doesn't expect to outsell Mercedes in regard to numbers, neither does TT expect to outsell Schmidt, or Vortex, or... Understanding that better, I have more respect for TT and what they've done, whereas before I felt more like TT was price gouging the community.
Out of curiosity, are you familiar with the changes that Minox made to Premier's design with the ZP5? Were they similar to what TT did, new turrets, new tube, updated internals?
Now I understand better, thank you for taking the time to explain. This is what I've often referred to as finicky parallax - where you have to fiddle a lot with that dial to get not just the focus but the parallax itself just right. It also makes me wonder about the March and their 10y close focus ability, reminds me somewhat of a macro lens that can focus at 1:1 but the great challenge at focusing so closely to an object is your DOF is extremely limited; however, the further the object in focus gets from the focal plane the DOF begins to expand. So if a manufacturer (like March) designs for close focus (10y vs. 25 or 50) then the down side could be the finicky nature of focus/parallax at greater distances? I do enjoy learning more about the technical aspects of this stuff.
So one of the limitations of these ultra short designs may be limited DOF, I suppose there are design challenges to any optical system that can sometimes be overcome through clever engineering, but there's probably always a give and take.
With a camera lens the F/stop is typically related to the front objective size in relation to the magnification or length of the lens. Thus a 300mm f/4 lens should have a main objective about 75mm (300 / 4 = 75) but since the riflescope is three optical systems as you mention I suppose you can't just say a 5-25x56 has an F/number, nor would it even really matter because the F affects the exposure for the camera and tells the camera what kind of shutter to use at a given ISO in order to properly expose the image; however, with a riflescope our eye is the sensor and because our eye is much more sensitive to different light levels it compensates incredibly fast until the light gets so low that the size of the exit pupil becomes the limiting factor. Did I get that right or am I mixing up the two systems too much?
Help me out here. What you've written almost sounds like a scope that has greater DOF does not necessarily have a more forgiving parallax, it just means you won't have to fiddle so much with the parallax knob to get the image in perfect focus; however, focus and parallax are kind of two different things, in a perfect world the perfect focus would always mean the correct parallax but we don't live in a perfect world and this is not always the case. Using your analogy with the March 3-24 I had a similar experience compared to the Kahles K624i and Schmidt 3-20, it wasn't just the focus but it was the parallax that wasn't as finicky with the Kahles and Schmidt, was that just my mind playing tricks on me or is there a correlation between some scopes having not just more DOF but also more forgiving parallax?
Sorta. In practical terms, more forgiving DOF also seems to mean more forgiving parallax. I think I understand why, but it is not something I can easily explain without sketching things out for you. Next time, I do a video I'll give it a shot. However, it is also your mind playing tricks on you because the image looks sharper. Either way, for a lot of shooting that I do, I can accept some amount of parallax error as long as I can see what I am shooting at. As the distances open up, a couple of inches of parallax error is within the margin of error of my shooting. And a lot of this is mitigated by a stable shooting position.
Dis you see the various comments I embedded into your quoted post?
I had not, thank you for pointing that out.
ILya, do you have any field experience with the TT315P or TT525P? I'm aware you have a 315M, and I'm curious if you have time spent with the other two.
I have spent some time with TT525P, but not so much with TT315P.
I plan to also revisit TT525P when the new reticle comes out since it has been a few years.
For years my primary precision scope was Premier 5-25x56, but TT525P seemed like a solid step forward from that last time I looked at it.
ILya
