Best scope for beyond 1500?

[Broz]

Don't get too hung up on magnification - 25x is sufficient for the vast majority of cases.

I heard they would work well early on in this thread about post#2.. ;-)

I have two of them now, one on a 338 EDGE with a 30" Hart tube, and one going on my LRKM in 338 Terminator +P. I have found several of the ATACR's to have 130+ MOA of elevation. Pretty nice when 120 is advertised. I can distinguish lichen color on rocks at over 2500 yards with the new glass. I have taken the EDGE to over 2300 yards now, and I feel the scope is very worthy of farther. I will see soon with the Terminator. I talked with Nightforce and requested they thin the floating cross hair of the MOAR down to .62 instead of the .140. If they do that I will be doing back flips over this scope. It is a very nice scope for ELR at this price.

Jeff

 

[PeterPHWS]

I have been shooting my new .375 CheyTac for a few months now out to 1500 with EASE.... I need a better scope to get farther, I need more Magnification.. I'm using a 15 power NF right now, I need something with more power... Any suggestions?

LOL ... there are enough advocates of SFP and FFP in this thread to really confuse the OP.

The best option is perhaps to go to a good quality shop with plenty of stock and try the different scopes outside. Take a camera bi-pod and tape a back bag to the top so you can lie the scopes in the ears and have a steady holding position without touching them to look through them.

At distances which in simple terms are unknown but are definitely ELR you will note the following (hopefully).

On a FFP scope the cross hair does not grow in proportion to the target when you zoom in or out. It covers the same area but you see a much smaller part of the target as magnification increases. This means that if the scope has hold over indents such as mil dots or mil hash marks you will loose the number of these visible to you as you climb in power.

For this reason guys in our sniping teams have had to back off the S&B PMII's to the lower 5x power when wanting to take shots at the longest ELR ranges because they needed to use all the elevation hash marks in the scope to get an aim point way out there. Not an ideal option but the limit in the internal movement of the scope makes this necessary.

The plus side to this however is that with a FFP scope the zero on the rifle will stay true at any magnification which is incredibly important if you want to have consistency between the power bands.

This is the primary advantage of a FFP scope.

The fact that the hash marks on the reticle remain the same on any power is another - but the visible amount of hash marks diminishes the more power you use.

On the SFP scopes the increase in the power band does not alter the size of the cross hair in your field of view but does proportionately mean that the hash marks cover smaller distances the more power you use on the scope and the target increases in size in the field of view.

As a result you tend to want to shoot on maximum power to use the ranging hash marks on the given ranging power ( this is 15x in your NF ) but if you half the power you double the distance shown between the hash marks - so you can increase the amount of distance you can shoot at by dropping down in power by a considerable margin ( so long as you can still see the target to aim at ).

For this reason on a 25x ATACR NF scope you would have if you needed to use the hash marks because you were going above 120 MOA internal adjustment an ability to drop the power down to 12.5x and double the distance of your hold over elevation options or you could use the hash marks on 25x for their given ranging value.

All told, you will be able to shoot further in theory if you need to use the scope reticle with a SFP scope because of this option.

However, their are problems with this. We have tested a lot of SFP scopes and found that zooming down the range to half power can alter your true zero. It varies scope to scope and on the power bands in each scope.

High power 12-42x56 scopes tend to vary more when coming down from 42x to 21x and those coming down from 22x to 11x a bit less.

You won't know the difference until you can test the scope on a rifle ( ideally in a tunnel range to give perfect conditions which is what we used ).

The next item is that on average we found that shooting at around 22x to 25x was the maximum power you could use to recover and see bullet splash at 1000 to 1200 yards.

On higher powers, particularly 42x your loss of sight picture from recoil meant that no splash could be seen.

Important therefore if you plan on shooting ELR on your own without a spotter and hoping to use the scope at higher magnification for precision.

Given the time of flight at ELR it may be feasible to come out of the rifle and check a spotting scope before impact ... that is a way round the issue.

Another issue with higher magnification scopes is the lack of internal elevation adjustment. If you want to go beyond 25x you limit the distance you can shoot because of this.

The only option to get round this is an adjustable gantry rail to give increased elevation options. I have never used one so cannot comment on their consistency.

There is the possibility of using a scope with external adjustment for elevation like the old US sniper scopes and US Optics does a scope with this feature in high magnification but it is expensive and also "huge". The advantage is that the distance limitation on the scope falls away and you can go as far out as you can shoot.

All told you are therefore probably best sticking with scopes with high internal movement and a maximum of 25x. As to whether you want FFP or SFP ... check the amount of internal elevation hash marks seen on 25x in a FFP and a SFP and work out on a balisitic calculator how far this gives you in distance for your load and whether this is the maximum for the load or whether this eclipses the maximum distance you are likely to have available to shoot.

If I had the money I would look at a NF Beast because it gives lots of internal adjustment in a FFP. If I wanted to get a scope now ... the ATACR is available and I would settle for shooting it as far out as 25x would allow. I would test it for variation when dropping down to 12.5x and see what the scope did but I doubt I would be shooting that far out that I needed to go beyond the hash mark options at 25x.

Hope this helps ...

I forgot to add that in hotter climates mirage will often dictate the magnification you can use. In these circumstances a FFP is likely to prove a better option as the zero will remain true at any power and so will the hash mark values. It also enables you to maximise what can be used as a power. SFP scopes would usually need to be halved in power to enable the hash marks to be used easily. i.e. Shooting on 15x would need a calculator and a pen and pad to work out what the hash marks meant if you were wanting to adjust the scope. You can however overcome this somewhat by simply aiming off using hash marks as reference points for hold over having seen the initial impact. Many of us use this option rather than mess about with calculations for windage/elevation correction if we are close enough.

You do however have to do the maths to get the elevation right if using the hash marks to get a point of aim to take the first shot.

 

[RTK]

However, their are problems with this. We have tested a lot of SFP scopes and found that zooming down the range to half power can alter your true zero. It varies scope to scope and on the power bands in each scope.

.

If that is a problem it is time to buy a better/different scope. None of my scopes have exhibited this

 

[PeterPHWS]

If that is a problem it is time to buy a better/different scope. None of my scopes have exhibited this

Not all scopes do have this issue, but some do. It is not a significant amount at 100 yards when testing and you need to be able to shoot well to see it. Scope manufacturers acknowledge that this can be an issue. NF indicate that if the movement is less than 1 MOA it is within their tolerances.

In F class shooting and Benchrest shooting that is likely to lose you a match if you change down in magnification during the shoot for score if shooting at a high level.

At ELR at 2000 yards this will be 20 inches. Obviously less noticeable allowing for the variables in a shot like that.

It is the sort of issue that is only "an issue" if you compete at a high level in particular disciplines.

 

[RobertB]

For ELR you need a scope with plenty adjustment. I don't think that we are using holdover very much. I don't. I use holdover when maxed out of getting close to being but I dial on all LR shots. I hold on 1000 yds or less alot but when I'm taking shots on the longer side I am more picky about position and usually have time to dial shots 99.9999999% all the time. So I don't see my self taking ELR shots on 6x. All that sounds good on paper but in reality we have great scopes that hold their zero's very well and have plenty of adjustment. 20-30 MOA bases help too. We are getting scopes with bigger tubes that can really crank out alot of MOA. Used to the Leupold fixed scopes were the ones that had all the adjustment but no high end mag. Now you can get em with both. And a FFP reticle covering the same amount of target is correct, but a SFP reticle can cover alot of target too, that where the different reticles come into play. The FFP reticles just tend to be thicker so that it is usefull in a wider range of magnification. A thin SFP reticle like a NP-R1 in a NXS 5.5-22 will give you a very fine aiming point where a Super Sniper with a Milquad reticle has roughly the same magnification but the reticle is much thicker when zoomed in. I like FFP scope for the 1000 yds and in reality type field shooting where things aren't as friendly like we wish for em to be. Where in ELR I want plenty of adjustment and a very fine graduated reticle with matching turrets.

Good luck

 

[Jeffvn]

I have and use both at distances beyond 1,900 yards. I can see my 18"x24" silhouette as well as an 11.5"x17" Larue just fine with the 25X ffp (meaning the reticle does not obliterate the target).

To me the more important question when considering a scope for ELR use is the amount of useful elevation that you have inside the scope. My USO EREK gives me 65 MOA of up elevation beyond my current 100 yard zero. My 32X nightforce does not have that much elevation left after zero; but I use it on a far flatter shooting cartridge so it does not matter as much on this rifle. I am currently looking hard at the nightforce ATACR, as I can make use of every scrap of elevation in the scope.

Jeffvn

 

[jwoolf]

It may not be what everyone does but, On my 375CT I put a U.S. Optics SN9 10-42x80mm

It's FFP 42x and has an 80mm objective. You can really see well with that pig and, it's got over 120moa elevation on it. With the 34moa rail on it, I'll never have to hold over anything.

To get all of that, you have to give up something.... in this case... it's HEAVY... 4.5lbs.

 

[PeterPHWS]

I went down the route of checking out the USO line .... mine is a custom scope done by the old man before he passed away ... I got it in SFP with a 9-34 power mil dot reticle ... the idea being at 9x it showed true mils for moving targets and estimating range ... at 34x the spaces between the dots were 1 MOA for estimating click changes. Clicks are .25 MOA.

Problems I found were the size and weight and also eye relief. In heavy recoil rifles the eye relief is a bit close. You definitely need an adjustable but on the stock to get the LOP right or you could get a snipers eye cut.

Good internal adjustment for the magnification though. In my case 100 MOA.

Here is a comparison pic to a March and NXS ...



Personally I like the idea of higher magnification with the come up ability but I might try a moveable gantry rail and a lighter scope before going for something as big as the SN9. It looks like you cannot fit a sunshade on that SN9 without it being right over the recoil brake and getting splattered with powder flash?

 

[jwoolf]

There is actually a sunshade on it in the picture. The angle is bad in that picture, the scope probably isn't as long as it may seem in the picture. It's long though... I think it's 27" long and it's heavy but, I figured that the rifle it's on isn't going to be a rifle you drag around in the woods anyway. It's built for long range shooting only. It doesn't have to be light weight.

 

[Hairball]

Unfortunately, US Optics no longer makes these and their available scopes are limited to just "what sells the most" so if you are looking at USO, the only real option you have is the ER-25 5-25x which starts at 2,845.00 unless you can find an older used model for sale.

 

[ELR Shooting Range]

I have been running a Leupold Mark 4 ER/T 6.5-20x50 with 30mm Tube with the H-37 Reticle (Product Number 110087). We had some shooters this past weekend on our range. We took my scope and mounted it on their .338 Lapua they had built and got a hit at 2,701 yards. The shooter had to drop down to 6.5 power but he was successful. I like the idea of the 3.5-25 power Leupold Mark 8 coming out and Schmidt and Bender have some nice options as well. None are cheap. I wish I had gone with some type of 3.5-25 myself but it was available at the time and didn't break the bank too bad! I have shot to a mile with my Mark 4 in a .280 Ackley Improved using a 180gr Berger Hybrid. Good luck!

 

[PeterPHWS]

There is actually a sunshade on it in the picture. The angle is bad in that picture, the scope probably isn't as long as it may seem in the picture. It's long though... I think it's 27" long and it's heavy but, I figured that the rifle it's on isn't going to be a rifle you drag around in the woods anyway. It's built for long range shooting only. It doesn't have to be light weight.

I agree that getting the high magnification with high internal adjustment is a very useful option for ELR shooting. It is a pity that the "genius" with USO passed away with the founder. He could pull a scope together for you in whatever you wanted. For a while they did do the SN9 power level with an external movement cage. Sort of a huge Unertyl scope from the old Marine Sniper Rifles. Those were unlimited in adjustment and "Very" well made. Very robust.

I was tempted to pick one up when a guy over here was selling a .408 Chey Tac with one on it. I was just interested in the scope. He ordered it with that "grid" like reticle though. Made up of loads of reference squares which I assume were for fast aim off second shots. The reticle was a bit too busy for me though. It did nothing for a good field of view and seeing the splash would not be easy. I think they were put together for a .50 BMG where the weight of the bullet enables a better splash "tell".

Even then the higher magnification was hard to use to see bullet splash by the shooter. Not an Engineer or Optomorist (Eye Doctor - spelling might be off?) but it does seem to be pretty universal that around 25x the recovery to see splash max's out. My USO which can go to 34x works much better at 25x for this use. At longer flight times and greater distance the 34x can work but it is a bit difficult to do.

How is the eye relief on your SN9 ? Does it seem to require closer more precise positioning of the head at the higher powers?

Over all I prefer the longer eye relief on a Nightforce and look forward to comparing the ATACR and BEAST when they finally make it over here.

March do some interesting offers but the light gathering ability on higher powers is really poor for image quality. They go quite "dark".

At least USO got that right with their larger "objectives". Great image quality if you avoid the busy reticles. Good night/dusk light gathering too, but they lacked an illuminated reticle when I got mine.

The good news is that these old versions are likely to keep their value well. No one will be making scopes the way USO could do at the height of their Engineering ability.

How much of the scope movement do you lose with a 34mm incline rail?

To make full use of my internal adjustment I think I would need around 40 MOA to 45 MOA on the incline.

 

[PeterPHWS]

Unfortunately, US Optics no longer makes these and their available scopes are limited to just "what sells the most" so if you are looking at USO, the only real option you have is the ER-25 5-25x which starts at 2,845.00 unless you can find an older used model for sale.

Thanks for the heads up on that. Shame they have lost their "custom" options.

Premier Reticle also seem to have gone that way with the passing of the founder. They used to do a great "boost" on the MKIV to a fixed 24x and still keep the 140 MOA of internal adjustment.

Probably the best ELR scope I have come across for internal adjustment.

 

[7magsavage]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Broker</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I have to bite on this one... I disagree with your example and excuse. You're trying to use "<span style="font-style: italic">first round cold bore kill</span>" as your excuse, but then you follow it up with examples at 1500yds? And even though the reticle gets enlarged, so does the target along with it. The only way the target would get obstructed by the cross hairs is if it was smaller than the reticle on the lowest setting. So your example of a prairie dog at 500, even if I went to 15x on a FFP it would make no difference than at 5x since the crosshairs would be the same size in relation to the prairie dog on both settings. The same would apply to the coyote at 1500 which no offense, but if you could get a first round cold bore kill shot even 50% of your attempts at ranges of 1000+ then every shooting team around the world would be begging you to join them. Last, back to you need an "exact distance" but then you reference coyotes at 1500? I'll admit there are some impressive LRF out there like the Terrapin, but a coyote at 1500+? </div></div>

Well, all I can say is it sounds to me like you have never attempted to shoot a prairie dog at 500 yds. on 5X. (your example, but surely not the best suited method for this task of a fine point of aim) Also, I will guess you have not sighted on a coyote at 1500 yards or you would have understood why I prefer a thinner reticle (my personal choice) the same as most small varmint shooters for the same reason, and as do bench rest target shooters for the same reasons. I never claimed to be any sort of championship shooter. But I will say my success rate at shots of 1000 plus is decent. There are those here on the hide that I have had the pleasure to shoot beside that will attest to what I claim to do. I have taken elk, deer, antelope , and coyotes past 1000 yards on many occasions. I do insist on good conditions for this type of shot (on game) and my success rate of cold bore kills past 1000 yards is 100% on all game animals. All were one shot, first round kills. But yes I have missed several yotes past 1500. If you have shot very many coyotes you know that one shot is all you typically get unless you want to just send lead at a running dog. I did not state what I do, or prefer, to offend anyone. But it seems I pizzed in a few bowls of FFP Cheerios. I was simply offering a point of view from a shooter that does shoot 2000 yards plus. For the record my longest coyote kill is only 1236 yards. I did it prone out the slider from my bedroom. (I can and do shoot to well past 2500 from my front yard.) The yote was in wheat field stubble, I ranged him with my PLRF10 rested on sand bags, and killed him cold bore with a 300 Berger from my 338 LM. There are more than a few coyote bones in that field that are past 1000 yards from my bed room sliding door.

As for ranging a yote at 1500 plus, yes it can be done pretty easily if you rest a quality small beamed RF solidly on bags. I was ranging one at 1750 plus a few days ago but he would not stop moving and I never took the shot. I could not range them at these distances until I purchased the PLRF10. The 5 Swaros, 4 Leicas, the G7-Br2, the Zeiss nor the Newcon 3000 would do it with accuracy and consistency. If you have a yote in a golden, flat field of wheat stubble you can easily tell if you are indeed ranging the target.

I do not wish to argue. But rather would invite you to join us if you are ever in the area. Just for some friendly shooting where I will be glad to explain why I prefer what I do by letting you look through a scope so you can see what I see. I prefer not to cover my target point of aim with thick sub-tension lines. I never shoot at something, I choose to pick a small aim point on it. Again, this is why I prefer the SFP where the target does indeed grow in size as the power is increased and the reticle remains thin and does cover less target surface. This does allow me a larger appearing target and a finer point of aim.

Jeff

Broz, I remember reading your post on LRH about the coyote story. I think you mentioned you scared your wife pretty good if memory serves.
I can remember being jealous of you having a place to shoot that far just outside your own back door.
I would kill to have just a hundred yards out my back door to shoot!!

Take care

Steve

 

[Broz]

Broz, I remember reading your post on LRH about the coyote story. I think you mentioned you scared your wife pretty good if memory serves.
I can remember being jealous of you having a place to shoot that far just outside your own back door.
I would kill to have just a hundred yards out my back door to shoot!!

Take care

Steve

Yeah Steve, she was in the other room and was not quite ready for the report.

The coyotes have been swinging wide by the house these days. The live ones left are well trained. So I have some new medicine for them. I am just getting the LRKM in 338 Terminator +P running. Sent some 300 Bergers across the Magneto speed yesterday at 3200 fps with an ES of 7 fps. Those ballistics with my new SFP ATACR will allow center reticle holds to 3000 yards. The ATACR is the shits for TRUE ELR work.

Jeff

 

[Armored Transport]

I have a 300Lapua coming my way that is extremely accurate and set up for ELR fun. It has a 34" Lilja tube on it sporting one of the old 60min Nightforce rails. The glass in an old Nightforce BR 8-32x56 NP-R1 which as you know has very little adjustment. The rings are a quality Lupy that have been shimmed to be able to get on at 100yds. I don't really care if this system can zero at 100, 300 would be fine by me. But un-shimmed with this glass it is around 600. I will be shooting the 230 Hybreds...Broz can you tell me about at what minimum yardage I would end up being able to zero with the ATACR mounted in standard rings. I am seriously looking into one of these scopes. The 230's in this set-up hopefully will run 3200 without burning things up...but time will tell on that one. Thank's for your input...I am a noob to ELR and just trying to get it right.

 

[Broz]

Broz can you tell me about at what minimum yardage I would end up being able to zero with the ATACR mounted in standard rings. I am seriously looking into one of these scopes. The 230's in this set-up hopefully will run 3200 without burning things up...but time will tell on that one. Thank's for your input...I am a noob to ELR and just trying to get it right.

My ATACR is mounted 2.7" above barrel C/L on a custom 65 MOA rail. I am zeroed at 100 yards and still have 8 to 10 moa below zero. I like to keep a few moa away from bottoming out on both ends of my internal elevation. With this rifle sending the 300 Bergers with a G7 BC of close to .4, at 3200 fps at 4100' ASL here where I live. I can dial for a center reticle hold for shots to over 3000 yards. Then if needed I have another 20 MOA of reticle holdover on 25X and 40 moa on 11.5 X. This scope is the nutz for true ELR.

Jeff

 

[Armored Transport]

Thank's for your input. That tells me all I need to know.

 

[hognuts]

I am interested in the SN-9 as well, I had a chance to buy one on here, but had to sell something to make it happen and the scope sold before I could jump on it...such is the way of the world I reckon! I ended up going with a set of the Ivey Rings with 150 MOA of adjustment built in to them. I will report back once I get them back, the first test was a fail, I put them on a 223 and tried to do a box test, I could not zero my windage knob with the rings on there, I had it maxed out in one direction and still was just barely on paper. I sent them back and he (Steven Ivey) has been really good about it, he said he will either fix them or just send me out a new set. I will be running a NF 8x32x56.

Here is my Two cents on my personal observations on the scopes that I currently run:

Night Force 8x32x56 : Great magnification, the reticle sometimes seems to "fade in and out" when trying to focus on ELR targets for long periods of time. Ranging works as long as you have your shit together and make sure you are on the appropriate magnification. It does not have great internal elevation, but I have chosen to cure that with the Ivey Rings...once I get that sorted out.

USO - 5x25x58 with RDP MOA reticle: Great magnification, Great clarity at full magnification, has a finer center cross hair, the first 2 MOA in the center of cross hair is .05 MOA thick where the rest of the cross hair is .08 MOA thick. The only thing that I would prefer is that the MOA hash lines on the rest of the reticle had finer subtensions. (there is a hash line at 2 MOA both wind and elevation, and then the windage hash lines are in 5MOA increments) The elevation has 2 MOA increments throughout the reticle. Another downfall of the reticle is the lack of "hold-under" hash lines, not a huge deal, but it has come up in a few matches where it would have been handy! I may have sounded like I was bitching, I am not, this is by far my favorite scope and the best I have ever owned! Just a few things would make it perfect and gives me an excuse if I blow a wind call..."well if I only had finer subtensions on my windage I totally would have nailed that shit!"

USO 3.2x17x44 MOA scale reticle - I like the fact that it has close subtensions (even though they are in IPHY rather than true MOA) very clear scope works well at the distances I use it for. Weak points are it is a heavy reticle throughout. It is .08 MOA all the way through, I really think this scope would have benefited from the .05 MOA center cross hair for the first 2 MOA up and down. It gets very busy at lower magnifications, and when you want to shoot dots with it, I sometimes find my self getting on target, obscuring the dot, then coming off target to ensure that I was actually on target....if that makes sense! Leaves you wanting a little more magnification on the longer shots! Still an awesome scope and probably number two on my list here, I still like the NF and will say nothing bad about them, it takes the beating on my 50 BMG and holds zero and is repeatable.

I think, like others have stated, you need to get behind as many as you can, read what others think, but bottom line, at some point you need to bite the bullet and take the plunge and depending on your style of shooting, you are going to find that there are pros and cons with every scope/reticle combo. I/E if you get fine subtensions with a FFP it works great at high magnification, but when you dial down it gets very busy. I find it works well for me as I very seldom use mine on lower magnification unless I am shooting un-supported during a match....etc., etc., etc.

 

[hognuts]

Yeah, I know what you mean about "crowded" I have the MOA scale reticle on the 3.2x17x44, it definitely is that on the lower magnifications, but I rarely turn mine down unless shooting positional and then it isn't usually surgical work, it is just hoping like hell I can pull off a few hits on steel!