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Rifle Scopes Bought a S&B and Im not wow'd

S

steelringer

Sergeant
Full Member
Minuteman
Nov 14, 2013
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I bought a S&B and I was expecting so much more out of the glass.

I have been running the Bushnell xrs on my comp gun for a while and decided to finally bite the bullet. But with both scopes on guns side by side the hdmr was right there with it. If the S&B was clearer it wasnt the extra money better. So I went and grabbed the wife, unknowingly telling her the "new" scope I told her to get behind the rifles adjust the parrallax and all things at the same power. She chose he hdmr.

Do I have a bad one, is that a norm for most people that have had both?

Its a 3-20x50 P4F
 
I have never looked through a S&B and not said WOW. I might be easy to impress?
 
Thats what I was expecting. If a scope is twice the cost of a good scope. Shouldnt it wow me?
 
As with all things, there are diminishing returns over a certain price.

Over say, roughly $2k, if you spent twice that, you are not getting twice the scope.
 
The HDMR has good glass, but there are areas where you should notice some differences such as with poor lighting or in the clarity of the image. You may just personally not see the difference between the two as people have different preferences. I personally prefer the S&B glass and see a perceived difference, albeit it's not as drastic of a difference as I do with something like a Vortex Viper PST next to the S&B.

That being said, I have absolutely NO experience with the 3-20 from S&B. My S&B experience only pertains to the 5-25 which I really like.
 
You know, I suspect you did a garage or living room test? Maybe even in the backyard? These are not real tests of a scopes optical quality. You need to try the scope out, side by side, in low light conditions. The best way to tell is using one of the scope test charts that are available via a sticky thread from above and then do this test in the failing light, outdoors, at targets 100 meters away. THEN you will see a difference.

Meanwhile, the Schmidt and Benders are more a gun sight as opposed to a optical device. You will be happy with the controls.

The only other thing I can think of is making sure that you adjust the ocular setting correctly. This is VERY important, as it is different from person to person. PM me if you want the instructions.
 
steelringer said:
Thats what I was expecting. If a scope is twice the cost of a good scope. Shouldnt it wow me?
Click to expand...

Perhaps, but there is so much more to the price than just the scope it self, but i guess you know that , I own a PMII 5-25 that is good, still my old 4-16x50 SUB beats it by far in lowlight, and I also have a 4-16x56 Hennie that is the crispest scope I have yet to play with,

if you are that unsatisfied with the scope, sell it off and use what you like.

I am still not to sell my scopes even though I believe that Bushnell makes a great product. /Chris
 
steelringer said:
I bought a S&B and I was expecting so much more out of the glass.

I have been running the Bushnell xrs on my comp gun for a while and decided to finally bite the bullet. But with both scopes on guns side by side the hdmr was right there with it. If the S&B was clearer it wasnt the extra money better. So I went and grabbed the wife, unknowingly telling her the "new" scope I told her to get behind the rifles adjust the parrallax and all things at the same power. She chose he hdmr.

Do I have a bad one, is that a norm for most people that have had both?

Its a 3-20x50 P4F
Click to expand...

I know exactly what you mean. Many would argue that your ocular adjustment isn't correct, or that time of day/weather would change things completely. Some might even say that the differences are so small that only a professional could tell them apart. I've heard them all, and in some cases, some of them could apply to the situation. That being said, I've owned a Vortex Viper PST 6-24x50 that offered higher resolution than scopes 3x its cost. I've also owned a Bushnell scope that could have matched performance to an S&B for the 'average' user. I sometimes think the ultra-premium brands depend on hype to convince us all of their marketing.
 
Considering my backyard is about 1400 yards it was far more than a 100 yard test. It was about a 85* day, so mirage was played with but barely noticeable in either scope. I have not played with either in low light. But I will pm you for more info and I will also look into the scope test charts.
 
I just ordered a bushnell. Now that i read this, I'll put it up against my Schmidt and try the wife test as well.
 
Is that the first S&B you've looked through? Image quality is so subjective, discussing it seldom leads to answers. If you can, try to look through another of the same model. Luckily it's worth virtually what you paid for it. If it isn't your cup of tea, sell it off.
 
Yep, had/have both.

The three Bushnell's had great glass and the S&B's have fantastic glass.

Look for things like distortion around the edges of FOV, image pop, brightness and color. They are subtle but noticeable. With both S&B's I have noticed myself not entirely focusing the scope all the way because the glass is so nice that it looks better than most scopes focused as sharp as they can be. When I take care to focus them as sharp as possible they bring a big smile.

I've had two $2500 scopes that were both different brands that had unimpressive glass. One of them has a reputation for excellent glass, the other one was apparently built with barska glass, just kidding but the glass did absolutely suck.

My S&B 3-20 has a tiny bit more pop than the 5-25.

I'd send it back. Maybe something is wrong with it.
 
What kind of conditions? If you're "looking" through them on a clear sunny day or across the room or yard, you're not going to see much. When you get in nasty conditions, poor lighting, etc. that's when you will see difference. What were you trying to resolve? I've managed to spot bullet holes on paper when the USO, NF, Leupold, Bushnell, etc could not. However, choosing a scope based on glass quality shouldn't be deciding factor.
 
Much like Steve, I've have/had an XRS and an S&B 3-20 as well.

The XRS wasn't bad at all but side by side with the 3-20 the S&B was noticeably brighter, resolved finer detail, and was much better at picking up details in lower light situations. Better clarity off-center as well.

Didn't care much for the XRS from about 24-30x, the brightness noticeably decreased and the resolution just wasn't there to go along with the magnification. Really noticed the lack of fine detail resolution in the XRS when playing the "ground squirrel or dirt clod?" game between 400-600Y; I do a lot of varminting and love to blast the little guys at longer ranges. They tend to blend in with their surroundings really well and at longer ranges it can be tough to distinguish between the terrain and a squirrel if they're just sitting there. With the S&B it was still relatively easy to tell the difference, with the XRS not so much; I often had to wait for them to move or stand up for a confirmation.

For larger targets that offered more contrast with their background (painted IPSC 50% silhouettes, etc) I wouldn't have had any issues with the XRS glass clarity.

Aside from glass quality both tracked well and got the job done, neither scope would be a limitation on making a hit in that department. The S&B had the better feeling turrets and zero stop arrangement. The ERS/XRS locking mechanism wasn't my favorite and there was a little play in the detents, not to mention the zero stop isn't as straightforward as the S&B. Mag ring on my S&B 3-20 is extremely stiff, even moreso when it's cold-- may send it in for that eventually. The 75Y minimum parallax of the XRS was an irritating limitation but not a dealbreaker given the intended use of the XRS whereas the S&B 3-20 has a much more versatile 25M minimum parallax.

As others have said though, the difference in glass quality between an XRS and the S&B is much less than say the difference between a 4-16 PST and the S&B. There is still a difference... just not as pronounced. Even though I own several S&B's I'd say they are past the point of diminishing returns on the dollars spent vs performance scale whereas the XRS at its usual street price is probably right at the sweet spot of dollars spent vs performance.
 
Thank you all that are attempting to help and relay information in which I should be looking for. I will start playing the dirt clod game with both scopes. I could notice a slight difference in the glass like I said before but not what I was expecting either. Hopefully this weekend I will get a few days and get to go play a little more and spend some time outside towards night when the lighting may be come an issue. Ill try to find an over cast day and go out with them both, the other day was very sunny and warm. My wife complained of picking up more mirage with the S&B than the XRS. Ive heard you can cut through the mirage by adjusting the parallax.
 
Agreed - as long as you understand the limitations. I run an HDMR on my SPR and it works really well for its intended purpose, though I wouldn't put it on my bolt gun. I really dislike the turrets, but with the H59 on a .223, I never intended to dial. The optical quality is sufficient, though in less than ideal conditions the difference between it and my PM2 is painfully obvious. On top of that, at full magnification the difference in resolution really stands out. But you get what you pay for. There are some who default to the high end scopes and try to justify spending so much money by lauding their performance while others maybe can't afford more than a Bushnell or similar economic scope, so they justify their position as "my Bushnell owns your S&B, bitches!" Psychology is fun.
 
I have had many different optics from many different brands and I have still have not seen any optics as nice and clear as Schmidt bender!! But that is just my eyes
 
I've owned a DMR, an HDMR, and an XRS.
None of them had the resolution or the brightness of the PMII 5-25 or Steiner 5-25.
The XRS was only useable above 24x or so in the brightest of conditions, it just didn't have the glass to pull off the magnification.
Maybe you got the mac daddy of all XRSs and a substandard S&B, but your experience is definitely unique.
 
I bought an S&B 5-25 in tan a while back when I was in my optics searching for a winner phase, and I would have to say the same thing, it didn't impress me as much as I thought it should. The tunnelling was ridiculous, it looked like I was looking thru a piece of iron pipe with lenses in it. It didn't have that POP and vibrancy of color. It's resolution was decent but not 4k so. I returned it to EO for a refund. Get behind a Hensoldt, March or Premier Heritage and see how that treats you. There is a reason I run all Premier on all my high end guns. Resolution, contrast, color saturation and lack of aberrations are high on my list of expectations on a top tier optic whether is be a spotting scope or riflescope.
 
A few things that determine good glass from great glass is distortion, chromatic abbreviation, and edge clarity. None of these really effect looking down the center of the scope. The glass will be nearly identical in that regard. You paid twice the price for better build quality and a name. It's too bad you mounted it else you could have returned it. Put it up in here for sale and you won't lose but a couple hundred. For competition, you really don't need the extra build quality, and you are mainly looking down the center of the scope so the difference in glass is moot.
 
Issues of image quality seldom bother me till after I have been on a scope for awhile - as in several hours in a day or a few days. Sometimes it manifests as eye fatigue, sometimes it is nothing at all - till I go to a lesser or better scope, eye box notwithstanding.

When you are fresh and your eyes are relaxed, looking through most scopes is easy. The muscles in your eyes make many small adjustments without your voluntary input. It's when you put significant time behind the scope that you begin to notice the little things, not really when you initially get behind it.

My recommendation: spend an afternoon shooting one, then spend some time looking through (or shooting) the other, it doesn't really matter which you spend time behind. With a few hours on a scope, your eyes will decide which is better pretty quick. If they don't, sell the S&B and get another and never look through another German optic again. Ever.
 
I find S&B steps ahead in the last couple minutes of visible light. That is why all of my hunting scopes are S&B (or German made Zeiss). For range use in bright sunshine the differences are still there but not as jaw dropping (at least to my eyes).
 
Are there scopes with glass nearly as good as S&B for half the price? Yup. And probably just as good when looked thru with tired old eyes or not properly adjusted. However glass is only one piece of the puzzle and all the rest collectively may well be more important then the absolute "best" glass.

Never have to give much thought to getting behind a S&B, they just work.

OFG
 
The real test of glass is in low light conditions and haven't looked through any other scopes with the light gathering capability of German glass such as S&B, Zeiss and Swaro. On a night shoot last month with a bright full moon I was able to engage targets out to 300 yards with the reticle sightly illuminated with a S&B 5x25 PMII. For hunting light gathering capability is critical.
 
Poor optics really shows at low ambient light conditions. My two hunting buds and I take turns blasting woodchucks in fields up to total dark conditions. My MK4 Leupold which is not cutting edge is clear and visible up to the point of darkness. One of the "other" scopes is useless a good 30 minutes before total darkness. My Steiner binocs also perform very well.

Take an el cheapo scope and look at an incandescent light bulb at night. The color bars / prism coming off the light looks cool. Good optics you see the light and no color / prism show.
I would hope the high dollar scopes have a better lens erector assy. and repeatability for its core construction. Looking thru scopes is subjective for many as to what they want or like to see.
I still like IOR with the Schott glass but IOR takes a beating from many for construction and repeatability issues. I have a few MK4's and one IOR.
 
The Leupold Mark 4's (among many others) are famous for having aberrations, which is what you are referring to CAL50 by the "prismatic" color display while viewing an incandescent light at night. This is more noticeable on lower end optics with a small objective and higher magnifications such as a 4-16x40. 90% of the perceived image is formed by the objective, the shape, lens material and coatings are critical to an "orthoscopic" design. Orthoscopic in simple terms is just saying "optically correct" and the way to achieve this is either using 3 or even 4 elements of crown glass or 2 elements of low dispersion or fluorite crystal. Dispersion is the amount of deviation the color wavelengths undergo as they pass thru each lens or how well they are focused and aligned. A quality objective system to nail all 4 WL that the human eye can see (yellow, red, green and blue) is very difficult to design and produce.
 
It's not always about the glass. Do some serious tracking with you Leupold vs the SB. Take that thing in the shit... The SB will take it all. Great scope man... Congrats

Sent from my XT1080 using Tapatalk
 
Flat-out, the S-B PMII 3-20x is a great scope - but that doesn't necessarily mean that scopes with lesser optical performance are any less capable. The biggest "problem" here is not really a problem at all; it's that the Bushnell DMR/XRS scopes are really quite good, and thus it's pretty damn difficult to find something that is substantially better.

If you can't justify the additional cost of the S-B scope, then this is actually great news - you will save yourself a lot of money in the long run by purchasing less-expensive scopes that still are capable of satisfying your needs.
 
I have received a lot PM's regarding proper ocular adjustment, so I believe it is faster to post here, prior to my leave for the Cup this week. Here is a link to the thread I found, find it in post #3: http://www.snipershide.com/shooting...s/67251-help-schmidt-bender-pmll-5-25x56.html

And here is copy and paste of that post:

Procedure for adjusting Ocular eyepiece

Adjustable Parallax models should always be set to "Infinity" prior to adjusting the eyepiece (the "Infinity" setting looks like an elongated, horizontal "figure eight"). Variable magnification models should be set to highest magnification.

Below is the correct procedure for Diopter (Ocular/Eyepiece) adjustment for both fixed and variable power scopes. The procedure is the same regardless of scope manufacturer, or whether the objective/parallax focus is on the objective ring or is a side focus type.

NOTE: If the scope is a fixed power unit skip steps 1 and 2 as they do not apply.

(1) Turn the magnification ring to maximum (highest power).

(2) Turn the Parallax focus to "Infinity" (the symbol for Infinity looks like a figure eight). NOTE: Most non-side focus scopes use a ring on the objective bell to adjust parallax, and the distances are usually numbered. Side focus parallax adjustment knobs may or may not have distances marked.

(3) Turn the ocular bell/eyepiece all the way in.

(4) Aim the scope at a cloudless section of the sky (you don't want anything except sky in the view, or else your eye will naturally attempt to focus on the object in the view beyond the reticle.

(5) Look at something nearby, but not too close, then look through the scope at the reticle. If the reticle is out-of-focus turn it a bit to begin to focusing the reticle, but look away from the scope. Never look at the reticle for more than a couple of seconds when adjusting the eyepiece (if you look at the reticle for more than a second or two your eye will naturally begin to adjust to bring the reticle into focus - and you don't want this to happen. You want to be able to look through the scope and see a sharply focused reticle immediately with your eye relaxed. This cannot be achieved by continuously looking through the scope and turning the eyepiece into focus in one continous motion because your eye will have already begun to adjust.

Remember, look away every few seconds and make small adjustments to dial-in the Ocular/Eyepiece focus. Once you have achieved this, you should not adjust the eyepiece at all, except to maintain sharp reticle focus as your vision changes over time (it always does). You may want to put a pen mark on the eyepiece indexed to the index dot on the scope tube - if the tube doesn't have an index mark use a pencil. That way, if someone else shoots your rifle and adjusts the Ocular you know where to return the adjustment to.

However, if you still cannot achieve simultaneous reticle and image focus after following the above directions for Eyepiece/Ocular Focus, it is possible that there is a problem with the scope.

Enjoy folks!! NZ
 
Thanks NZ!!!

I was one of those asking for your input and I clearly missed some steps. While I was pretty happy with what I had this should help improve things.

Gracious of you to do this and its appreciated.

Thanks man......
 
seams like a lot of people with the 3-20 have came to this realization. There was a huge craze to buy the new scope then shortly after everyone was wanting there 5-25's back. The older 5-25's are amazing scopes IMO however im not inpressed with the new 3-20's
 
Yes but it isn't a big deal. You rarely use that end of the mag range.


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tylerw02 said:
Yes but it isn't a big deal. You rarely use that end of the mag range.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

As expensive as they are now they should be as close to optical perfection as it gets. The quality control should be second to none, the batch to batch and unit to unit consistency should be flawless. The mechanicals are great yes as you rarely hear of one not holding zero but I would expect that out of a $300 scope. Mechanicals are only 1/2 the equation. Schmidt rides on their name as do many of the older contenders like Leupold but they have really gone off the deep end with their pricing.
 
I don't think S&B is riding on their name since they still make arguably the best scope out there.

Prices aren't rising because they decided to make more. Compare prices of other things since the days of $2200 S&Bs. Inflation and a weak dollar suck.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Steelringer,

I think you have reached the same conclusion that many have observed, but few will express. When someone spends a large sum to get "the best", they are reluctant to admit that it is anything less than perfect. This applies to scopes, custom rifles, cars, electronics, etc. I suspect that most of us have been out past the edge of diminishing returns at some point in our lives, but hate to admit it in public.
 
And the PM2 5-25x is relatively old technology, close to 10+ years old. The only major changes over the years has been an evolution in turret design and available reticles. I'm keen to see how the 3-27x compares optically.
 
I guess that I might just be embarrassed to admit that I am not impressed, but that does not explain why I have purchased over 20 of them in the last 12 years.
 
I would also like the opportunity to examine the 3-27 "high power" but not for what they are asking. If anyone out there has one some input would be appreciated. I don't know if I would go as far to say Schmidt are the best but they are in the top 5. They do the job they were designed for quite well. I would also greatly like to examine the new Hensoldt ZF. The older Hensoldt are awesome but the lack of ZS and uber-fat mildot on the FF models kills it for any fine targeting at distance. There is the NH1 reticle but don't think it was available in the 6-24's
 
I've had the same experience I bought a S&B 5-25 a few years ago I was absolutely not impressed I tried it in various different conditions low light, night, mid day, short range, long range, extreme long range. To my eyes it was absolutely the same as one of my 1k scopes. FWIW out of all the scopes I have been behind S&B, Premier, Nightforce, Bushnell, Vortex the only one I could immediately see a difference(wowed) was the Premier. Just my experience and eyes.
 
Last edited:
I tried S&B; two of them (5-25 and 3-20) and I know the glass is better overall than NF but I have been able to afford the twelve NF scopes I own where I could not own that many S&B scopes. Boils down to having the same thing on every rifle and the NF won out. I give up FFP for the NF 5.5-22 but that can be overcome with practice. My two latest NF are a ATACR and a 15=55 Competition and glass is some what improved with them. I would like to at least try the NF BEAST.
 
tylerw02 said:
What four do you feel are better than S&B? Why?


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Click to expand...
Hensoldt, March, Premier. The NF ATACR wasn't too bad.. good contrast and color saturation but did have some CA in the blue wavelength. I haven't seen the BEAST and I can only comment on the scopes I have seen. Premier's glass is just gorgeous, awesome resolution, contrast, saturation some very slight CA in the green wavelength when viewing off the center of the exit pupil. I can't wait to see the new Tangent Theta and Minox products. TT has used the same OP as Premier but they opened up the exit pupil which gives a better what everyone calls an "eyebox". The larger the exit pupil the more forgiving the eyebox will be especially on higher mag.
 
What a yawn fest...

As if, most of the Hensoldts out there have a ton of CA, lots of purple fringing, and other than the new 3-26x (@ $7k) they don't have zero stops.

Won't get into the Premier debate that has been hashed out at length, but if you are comparing scopes you aught to consider the mechanics of it.

The March are decent, very unforgiving eye box in most of them because of the big magnification range and smallish scopes / objectives. The new March is actually very good with the larger objective it corrects a lot of the forgiving properties of the line. Still...

But again, more talk as if ... there isn't a manufacturer out there that doesn't hold the S&B 5-25x as the standard to which they strive to reach.
 
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