Introducing The 5-30x56 Match Pro ED

[Bmghunter]

I just took mine out for the first time this weekend. Wasn't overly impressed. It's not terrible, but it didn't feel to me that it justified the price difference with an arken ep5. Up to 20x, it was nice and sharp but then so is an arken. Above 20x, things start getting noticeably worse. I had a target at 100 yards, this one NRA Official Smallbore Rifle Targets A-23/5 50-Yard Paper. There are numbers next to each of the tragets, and above 20x, I had a hard time reading what the numbers were, trying to differentiate between a hole and numbers sometimes were confusing to me also.
The turrets were ok, not as crisp as the arken, and had a slight play.
The reticle I thought was a bit too busy, blocking my view of the targets clearly. Might just be a personal preference for this.
I definitely preferred to keep the magnification under 20x for clarity.
On the plus side, the parallax numbers seem mostly accurate.

 

[Rob01]

I just took mine out for the first time this weekend. Wasn't overly impressed. It's not terrible, but it didn't feel to me that it justified the price difference with an arken ep5. Up to 20x, it was nice and sharp but then so is an arken. Above 20x, things start getting noticeably worse. I had a target at 100 yards, this one NRA Official Smallbore Rifle Targets A-23/5 50-Yard Paper. There are numbers next to each of the tragets, and above 20x, I had a hard time reading what the numbers were, trying to differentiate between a hole and numbers sometimes were confusing to me also.
The turrets were ok, not as crisp as the arken, and had a slight play.
The reticle I thought was a bit too busy, blocking my view of the targets clearly. Might just be a personal preference for this.
I definitely preferred to keep the magnification under 20x for clarity.
On the plus side, the parallax numbers seem mostly accurate.

You might want to get with Bushnell as that sounds nothing like mine. If you couldn't see those big numbers next to those targets then there is a problem. I was shooting at 3/8" dots and had no problem seeing them.

 

[Lastsaint21]

You might want to get with Bushnell as that sounds nothing like mine. If you couldn't see those big numbers next to those targets then there is a problem. I was shooting at 3/8" dots and had no problem seeing them.

I thought the same thing when I read his review. It didn’t seem anything like mine

 

[Bmghunter]

I think I will print out a resolution chart and see what I can and cannot read. Maybe size some text similar to the target size scaled to the distance I can test from.

 

[Bmghunter]

So I just did a resolution test and up to 30x it seems to resolve pretty good at 25 yards. Was able to read small text that would be smaller than that target number when distance is scaled. So I'm not sure why I had such a bad time with the resolution on my range trip. Mirage didn't seem to be an issue. Moving to 20x at the range definitely sharpened things up on that trip. Maybe my parallax and by extension the focus was slightly off?

 

[AN22]

So I just did a resolution test and up to 30x it seems to resolve pretty good at 25 yards. Was able to read small text that would be smaller than that target number when distance is scaled. So I'm not sure why I had such a bad time with the resolution on my range trip. Mirage didn't seem to be an issue. Moving to 20x at the range definitely sharpened things up on that trip. Maybe my parallax and by extension the focus was slightly off?

On my copy, you have to fine tune the paralax every time you adjust the magnification, even if it's just a little bit. It's still usable if you don't, but not at optimal sharpness. Maybe this was the issue? It's definitely more sensitive than my other scopes.

 

[021411]

In case anyone wants to see how much play is in the ED elevation turret. Other than that I’m impressed so far with the clarity. I tend to hover in 12-15x and on the ED it’s pretty good. For reference my main match optic is a ZCO 4-20.

 

[sjbryan65]

Any vendors that have good deals on these? Also anyone compared this head to head with the strike eagles 5-25 and 3-18?

 

[Team RCBS & Bushnell]

Any vendors that have good deals on these? Also anyone compared this head to head with the strike eagles 5-25 and 3-18?

It's a MAP price of $699.99 on them.

 

[Rob01]

Any vendors that have good deals on these? Also anyone compared this head to head with the strike eagles 5-25 and 3-18?

If you are LE/Mil/FR you can go to Bushnell and get lower pricing. That said the scope is a solid value at $699. I owned the SE 5-25 and have a SE 3-18 now and the Bushnell is just as good glass wise. Just need to look at features and reticle and see what you like.

 

[sjbryan65]

If you are LE/Mil/FR you can go to Bushnell and get lower pricing. That said the scope is a solid value at $699. I owned the SE 5-25 and have a SE 3-18 now and the Bushnell is just as good glass wise. Just need to look at features and reticle and see what you like.

Thanks Rob. I can get the 3-18 quite a bit cheaper than the bushnell with leo discount so if the glass is comparable I will probably go that route.

 

[Rob01]

Thanks Rob. I can get the 3-18 quite a bit cheaper than the bushnell with leo discount so if the glass is comparable I will probably go that route.

What’s it going on?

 

[sjbryan65]

What’s it going on?

CZ 457.

 

[MikeMiller]

Bar was set very high on reliability, tracking and other things on the original Match Pro. We had to go above it. We tried a lot of places, and the one that raised the bar was a facility in China. We just couldn't get the level of performance out of it this price otherwise.

Pretty impressive

 

[Rob01]

CZ 457.

How far you plan to shoot? And do you think you will use the higher power? With the small difference in price between the SE 5-25 and 3-18x you might be better going with the 5-25 unless you need the 45mils of elevation in the 3-18x. The 5-25 has 31 mils which is still a good amount on a 40 MOA base/mount you will have about 26-27 mils so you could dial past 400 yards.

Also the SE is about $100 less than the Match Pro ED with LE/Mil just so you can compare apples to apples.

 

[sjbryan65]

How far you plan to shoot? And do you think you will use the higher power? With the small difference in price between the SE 5-25 and 3-18x you might be better going with the 5-25 unless you need the 45mils of elevation in the 3-18x. The 5-25 has 31 mils which is still a good amount on a 40 MOA base/mount you will have about 26-27 mils so you could dial past 400 yards.

Also the SE is about $100 less than the Match Pro ED with LE/Mil just so you can compare apples to apples.

I doubt I will shoot past 300.

 

[Team RCBS & Bushnell]

I doubt I will shoot past 300.

300 shouldn't be too tough. I've got the MPED on a 419 30 MOA base on my 457 and I've been going to 500 on a 2/3 IPSC regularly without issue, I am using about 5 MRAD of reticle to get there though.

 

[Rob01]

I doubt I will shoot past 300.

Yeah 300 isn't too bad and any can make that. It's usually only about 12-14 mils depending on rifle and ammo. If you wanted to drive down to Woody's in New Hill we could find a time to meet and you can look through the Bushnell and SE 3-18.

 

[sjbryan65]

Yeah 300 isn't too bad and any can make that. It's usually only about 12-14 mils depending on rifle and ammo. If you wanted to drive down to Woody's in New Hill we could find a time to meet and you can look through the Bushnell and SE 3-18.

Awesome, yeah that is not too far from me. I will keep that in mind and thanks for the offer. A friend of mine has an MPED and I was pretty impressed with it. IF I can find a good deal on a used MPED I think I would go that way just trying to sell a few things before I make the purchase. But buying new as an LEO the price is hard to beat on the strike eagle if it is comparable to the MPED.