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Rifle Scopes Burris XTR3!!!

I got to play with one on Sunday. I know a guy who is sponsored by Burris and he showed me the XTR3 on his rifle. I was really impressed with the glass. It was bright, clear, and far better than I expected from Burris. I didn't notice any CA. I couldn't see any tunneling going through there mag range. The clicks felt nice. I don't know how I feel about the windage being capped, but honestly, once windage is zeroed, how often do you dial? The windage knob was a bit tight. Might be because it's new, might be because the windage knob is smaller than the elevation knob. What really impressed me was the FOV. At 30x, the FOV was incredibly large.
I have not played with the one i recieved last week but it came with an extra windage knob (see pic). You have the option to leave the cap on or use the lager knob.
 

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I have not played with the one i recieved last week but it came with an extra windage knob (see pic). You have the option to leave the cap on or use the lager knob.

True. I forgot my friend told me it comes with the additional turret. He had his windage capped because he's like me in that he'll dial elevation and hold wind
 
True. I forgot my friend told me it comes with the additional turret. He had his windage capped because he's like me in that he'll dial elevation and hold wind

I've left mine capped as well. Though I did play with the larger cap for the windage turret, it feels completely different than the little guy underneath.
 
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More comparisons at a local match. Pictured are a 5-25 USO and 4-20 ZCO. Not pictured is a 27x Razor. The 4th one I've compared to I believe. The owner of it told me he thought the Burris was brighter.

So some good comparisons to see where the XTR3 stacks up. I think I have a pretty good feel for it at this point. And I'll tell you quite honestly, I couldn't be happier. I had some worries that after 16 pages of this XTR3 thread, that it would come out and not live up to the hype. But those fears are completely allayed. This is really a nice scope!

Myself and a friend were looking at two freshly painted bright white targets yesterday at 525 and 925 yards. The morning sun was on them and the backdrops were angled so as to be semi shaded and dark. At no magnification could I discern any chromatic aberration at all. Just nice, clear, bright glass. I'm impressed.

So from here I'm just going to go out and shoot with it, and everyone else can decide if they like it or not. If you are considering a scope in the $2200 or less price point, or if you are putting up a thread asking for advice on choosing a Razor, MK5, or NX8, you would be doing yourself a big favor by considering this scope.

 
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ELK 1.jpg


Did some plinking this past week at elk camp. Love it. My friend and I put 400 rounds down range and he is a NF lover/fanboi/hippi/etc/etc/lol and he was very impressed. He shoots the 35x NF on all his scopes and he mentioned not being able to tell any diff on high power. Tracking was epic as expected.

Other pics on 30x - 20x - 10x - 5x
there is a lot of grass in front of that target so it may look like a few grass is blurry, its due that target is at 60 yds and grass from 0-50 yds may be blurry. Had no problem running a stage of 10 shots in under 2 min with 5 diff positions at full 30x. super fun


Heading to Ireland for the GUardian match this weekend. More deets to come!!

Regards,
DT
 

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@D_TROS it's hard to discern clarity through a photo normally, but that seems pretty awesome and like the scope presents an image to the eye very well. Is the eye box extremely forgiving or what?
 
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@D_TROS it's hard to discern clarity through a photo normally, but that seems pretty awesome and like the scope presents an image to the eye very well. Is the eye box extremely forgiving or what?


I'm not Dorgan, but he's traveling right now and probably hasnt seen your question.

The eyebox is as good or better than any scope I have compared it to. And that's a fairly long list of high quality scopes.

To compare to the XTRII, which is the scope they took all their feedback from to build this one, the XTR3 on 30x has a bigger eyebox than the XTR2 on 20x. And it looks good with the glass going edge to edge with a very thin black scope tube ring.
 
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I'm not Dorgan, but he's traveling right now and probably hasnt seen your question.

The eyebox is as good or better than any scope I have compared it to. And that's a fairly long list of high quality scopes.

To compare to the XTRII, which is the scope they took all their feedback from to build this one, the XTR3 on 30x has a bigger eyebox than the XTR2 on 20x. And it looks good with the glass going edge to edge with a very thin black scope tube ring.

I thought it might be, thanks I appreciate it!
 
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Any updates on when more SCR2 5.5-30's will hit dealers shelves? What about the 3.3-18's in SCR2, are they close? Where is Geoff when you need him, I'm bummed he's no longer a hide resource. I put in my order with Tyler Kemp of MKM (@Tyler Kemp) for a 3.3-18 with SCR2, but am worried it will be a while and my new ZP5 will show up before the XTR III.
 
That almost seems like cheating :p

If you ain't cheatin', you ain't tryin'

I had a chat with Burris management early this week. My understanding is that CS Tactical and Sport Optics are your best bet to run down a 30x in the near future.

Production is full steam on all models and they expect to be caught up on all preorders and have all inventory at projected levels by the end of October.

That bodes well for them moving to illuminated models.
 
Ireland has been amazing. Dont have alot of time but some quick points.



-Shooting a 223 in rainy conditions up to 1200 yds was brutal for any scope. and seeing impacts was tough. I am happy how this bad boy performed and found myself at 30 power multiple times...

-I was 6 pts from a top 10 and took top tac home. was an awesome match. if anyone hasnt shot a Guardian match i highly recommend it.

-I honestly have no bad things to say. I was unable to get any CA and FOV was phenominal. One stage had 3 targets to be shot from 3 sep positions. my holdovers were 0.0 (dialed 1.4 mils), +0.8, +3.6 and it was the only stage i cleaned. this new retc is very fast, clean and effective.

-Ireland is wet. who knew. lol

-
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-Tree is a number not an obstacle. lolol

Guardian puts on a great match format. Esp if ur a one day match type.


Regards
DT
 
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I got a PM earlier today from a Hider looking for the 18x (the above poster as it turns out). So I contacted a high mucky muck at Burris who told me a bunch of them shipped with the SCR2.
 
I have a strong suspicion that Steiner will do quite well with that 2.9-20x50 scope. I really hope they will offer some non-Horus tree retickle in it, but I'll take MSR2 if not.
Most of my complaints with the 4-28x56 M7Xi center around its CA above 20x and I suspect the smaller 50mm scope will have CA under control.

Ilya
 
I have a strong suspicion that Steiner will do quite well with that 2.9-20x50 scope. I really hope they will offer some non-Horus tree retickle in it, but I'll take MSR2 if not.
Most of my complaints with the 4-28x56 M7Xi center around its CA above 20x and I suspect the smaller 50mm scope will have CA under control.

Ilya
Can you provide much more in the way of details or are we going to have to wait until Shot 2020 for more?
 
So the xtr 3 is built on the same 7x erector that the m7xi is from my reading, however they are only using 5x of it. This new 2.9-20 looks to be a version of the same 3.3-18x50 but utilizes all 7x. Hopefully it executed it better than the new nx8. I love the physical functionality of my 4-32x50 however optically I feel it doesn't deliver as I was hoping, anything much above 24x is dark and the eyebox becomes quite sensitive and parallax needs constant attention, DOF is poor. I really hope the xtr3 3.3-18 I ordered yesterday makes up for these and I can sell the NF. I do like the milC reticle a lot for a hunting rifle as that's what all my rifles do mainly. The scope will be atop an 8# 300 norma improved, so it will definitely get a recoil test, hopefully it holds zero with no shift under recoil. A lot of high end scopes fail at this. Khales, NF, Swaro X5, March have been tested by my smith to have no reticle movement under this rifles recoil, several other manufactures high ends have failed his test. Hoping for the best here........

I do not know if the erector design between XTR3 and M7Xi is the same, but I would not be surprised if they are related.

Based on what I have seen so far, scopes based on this erector and eye-piece do not suffer from the distortion and finicky eye relief issues NX8 seems to have.

ILya
 
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Really cant decide if I want to wait for illum or not, anyone have some pics through the scope in low light in the AM and PM?
 
I don't have any photos. But I can offer some feedback.

Its turning out to be one of the better low light scopes I have looked through. Another poster said that in a side by side on 20x, the XTR3 had better low light resolution than his ATACR.

I've seen some glass that has better color than the XTR3, but the brightness of this scope is very good.
 
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Well that Steiner 2.9-20x50 shakes things up a bit. Oddly enough the SCR reticle was released first with the Steiner T5Xi then was migrated into the Burris XTR II line, I would not be surprised if the SCR2 which was released with the XTR III migrates to the Steiner M7Xi line at some point. I would be very curious to see how the 2.9-20x50 M7Xi compares to the S&B US 3-20, assuming that price will be under $3k street. Hopefully they will control CA better with the 50mm model than they do with the 56mm.

This is only an assumption as I have seen neither scope, but I would venture to say the Burris XTR III has better FOV for it's given magnification along with better eyebox, depth and parallax forgiveness, but similar to the NX8 the 7x magnification will draw a lot of buyers in hoping Steiner somehow cracked the code for a high magnification/short scope design.

Looks like I really need to try to make it to SHOT this year, hopefully it will work out with my schedule.
 
I think there is a really high likelihood that the illuminated XTR3 will be at SHOT. I know now that the 30x and 18x production is in full swing and they plan on being caught up on all pre orders and back orders within the next month, that the illuminated models are next on the agenda.

I cant really speak to price, I havent heard a number in any conversation. But I know when they offered the non-illuminated XTR2s, they shaved $150 off the price. That's probably something in the ballpark. Putting these scopes in the $1800 to $1900 price range for the 18x and 30x respectively.
 
I was just at Liberty Firearms Institute in Greeley,CO yesterday and was able to finally lay hands on one of these. I gotta tell ya, I think I'll be buying the 3-18x before too long.

The other thing that was kind of shocking to me is how big and heavy scopes in general have gotten. The big Razors are heavy as bricks...literally. Even the big Nightforces are real pigs.

The XTR3 3-18x is about as big a scope I would ever want on a rifle. JMHO
 
I was just at Liberty Firearms Institute in Greeley,CO yesterday and was able to finally lay hands on one of these. I gotta tell ya, I think I'll be buying the 3-18x before too long.

The other thing that was kind of shocking to me is how big and heavy scopes in general have gotten. The big Razors are heavy as bricks...literally. Even the big Nightforces are real pigs.

The XTR3 3-18x is about as big a scope I would ever want on a rifle. JMHO
The xtr3 in the 5-30 is only 32oz.. that's actually pretty light considering the vortex b razor gen2 is 48.5 oz. And the razor amg is 28.8oz.
 
The xtr3 in the 5-30 is only 32oz.. that's actually pretty light considering the vortex b razor gen2 is 48.5 oz. And the razor amg is 28.8oz.
I looked at the bigger XTR3 as well. I wouldn't want it, but I realize I am not the market they are playing to. Scopes have just gotten fat.

I am wondering how far this current trend will go before things start to reverse. My first "big" scope was a Leupy Mark 4 LR/T 6.5-20x50. It seems downright svelt compared to current scopes. It has also held up without issue as I burned out 3 barrels on a 13 pound 300 winmag.

Not championing Leupold, I know they have problems. I got a couple of good ones though (early 2000's vintage), that track and have held up and I'll probably never trade or sell them.

I have 3 XTR2 3-15x50's that I really like. They track better than 99% and the supposed inferior glass hasn't hindered me yet. I'll probably keep them as well.

I will eventually get one of those pigs to replace one of those XTR2's on my ELR rig, but it only gets carried from the tailgate to the firing point.
 
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Day 2 Competition Dynamics Team Safari done. Both the production 3-18 and 5-30 ran great. nvr
 

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Thinking of ordering a 5-30 with the SCR2 reticle. Silly question -- will XTR2 accessories work on this scope? I am guessing no for a front cap since the objective seems to be larger. But what about a throw lever for the magnification ring?

Speaking of cat tails / throw levers, which have you found to be the best?

Thanks
 
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Thinking of ordering a 5-30 with the SCR2 reticle. Silly question -- will XTR2 accessories work on this scope? I am guessing no for a front cap since the objective seems to be larger. But what about a throw lever for the magnification ring?

Speaking of cat tails / throw levers, which have you found to be the best?

Thanks


I really like MGM throw levers. They come in all sizes and have a folding handle option i really like. That being said the xtr2 throw lever JUST barely fits on the xtr3. not much thread and there is a gap but it didnt strip out over the weekend of shooting.

other than that the tube is 34mm so any levels or other attachments will swap over.


Regards
DT
 
Thinking of ordering a 5-30 with the SCR2 reticle. Silly question -- will XTR2 accessories work on this scope? I am guessing no for a front cap since the objective seems to be larger. But what about a throw lever for the magnification ring?

Speaking of cat tails / throw levers, which have you found to be the best?

Thanks
I do not believe the turrets and mag ring are the same or even close to the same between XTR II and XTR III. I like MK Machining and Aadmount gear
 
Thinking of ordering a 5-30 with the SCR2 reticle. Silly question -- will XTR2 accessories work on this scope? I am guessing no for a front cap since the objective seems to be larger. But what about a throw lever for the magnification ring?

Speaking of cat tails / throw levers, which have you found to be the best?

Thanks
This is a good question! I just ordered that exact model and have a throw lever laying around from my XTR 2. I'll let you know if it fits when my new scope comes in this week!
 
Thinking of ordering a 5-30 with the SCR2 reticle. Silly question -- will XTR2 accessories work on this scope? I am guessing no for a front cap since the objective seems to be larger. But what about a throw lever for the magnification ring?

Speaking of cat tails / throw levers, which have you found to be the best?

Thanks

I think the front cap will work on the 18x XTR3. But as you pointed out, not the 30x.

The magnification ring is the same diameter. 1.75" if I recall. If it fits the XTR2 it will fit the XTR3. I've mixed and matched a couple of them. But as Dorgan pointed out, there is a slight difference. I believe its caused by the more aggressive knurling done on the mag ring of the XTR3. But it works fine.

I use the MGM Switchviews personally. It's a great cattail. And with MGM being local, I grab them off prize tables all the time.
 
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First impressions of the 3.3-18 are good! Very clear optically. Clicks aren't quite nightforce, but still solid. Very easy to use eyebox, parallax isnt very sensitive. I just mounted it onto my hunting rifle. The scr2 reticle is great above 6x power. This is my long range rifle, have other optics on the timber gun. So far so good, as long it holds up to recoil on my norma mag improved.
I've heard read that people compare the turrets to s&b's, and some people say they don't feel great.

My 5.5-30 shows up today, and my friend just picked up a atacr. I'll update yall on how it compares to my old xtr 2 and the atacr!
 
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I've heard read that people compare the turrets to s&b's, and some people say they don't feel great.

My 5.5-30 shows up today, and my friend just picked up a atacr. I'll update yall on how it compares to my old xtr 2 and the atacr!

Turrets are just like reticles.... subjective..

Some will love and some will hate the exact same turret. But one thing's for sure, they are very tactile with great feedback. I'm to the point that if I am just making small corrections I dont even look at the turret. I keep my cheek weld looking through the scope. It's easy to feel and hear the clicks on the XTR3.

Post #798 on page 16 has a good video I made on the XTR3 turrets.
 
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Turrets are just like reticles.... subjective..

Some will love and some will hate the exact same turret.

I have found this to be the case as well - turret feel is very much personal preference. It's like trying to argue which is the best flavor of ice cream, I might say chocolate and you might say vanilla, does that make one of us right or wrong, no, just means we like different flavors. The same goes for turrets and reticles. I consider myself a reticle snob, what I mean by that is I am very particular about reticles, there are ones I like and there are many I don't like. But just because I prefer a particular reticle doesn't mean it won't work for someone else. I do not consider myself a turret snob; however, I do like a turret that has distinct clicks with little play and lands on the appropriate tick mark. My favorite turrets to date (and I've played with a bunch) are the Leupold Mark 5HD turrets; however, I cannot stand Leupold's reticles so I sold my Mark 5 for reticle and some optical issues that bugged me. I've had the Burris XTR II and actually thought they had pretty good turrets, so if the XTR III are an improvement I think I will be pleasantly surprised.
 
I just placed my order for the 3.3-18x50 with the SCR2. Pretty excited to see the production run version of this scope. If it's anything like the 30x, I'm going to like it.

This scope will make it's way onto my CZ457 NRL22 rifle pretty soon. I'm thinking that adding the Race Dial and marking all my yardages for the day will be the cat's meow on this scope.

Finger's crossed that I dont have to wait too long for it.