I recently purchased a Nightforce 5.5-22x56mm in MIL/MLR. When taking it out to the range the first day I was surprised by how large the image appeared to be in my eyepiece. Knowing it is 22x, compared even to my spotting scope, the same relative image size would need to be at 32x or so before they were equal, of course there is much less field of view in the rifle scope. And yes, I have the 22x mag NF, not the 32x one. Being as my spotting scope was 36x max, I didn't even bring with me on a couple future trips because the NF scope could see almost as much as the spotter.
Later that afternoon I transitioned to my other rifle with the Leupold MK4 6.5-20x50mm LR/T. At max magnification, it couldn't even compare. The relative image size when viewed thru the eyepiece seemed several times smaller than the NF. We looked back and forth a couple times, dialed the NF back to 20x and in an A/B comparison my friends all agreed with me as well.
Overall though, the contrast, and clarity at higher powers (18x+) are not quite as good as my Leupold.
I don't believe there is anything wrong with my scope, just wasn't expecting such a large difference between these two.
Anybody else also notice between their NF and non-NF scopes?
Later that afternoon I transitioned to my other rifle with the Leupold MK4 6.5-20x50mm LR/T. At max magnification, it couldn't even compare. The relative image size when viewed thru the eyepiece seemed several times smaller than the NF. We looked back and forth a couple times, dialed the NF back to 20x and in an A/B comparison my friends all agreed with me as well.
Overall though, the contrast, and clarity at higher powers (18x+) are not quite as good as my Leupold.
I don't believe there is anything wrong with my scope, just wasn't expecting such a large difference between these two.
Anybody else also notice between their NF and non-NF scopes?
