My new NF finally arrived today. The thing is built like a tank! The first thing I noticed, turrets were not exposed. That might be a Midway USA web site mess up. The glass was sharper than my Leupold V-II I had on hand for comparison. My older eyes could not tell if it was $1200.00 better. Maybe if I used it for a while it might seem so! I really did like the IHR reticle when I still had pretty good light outside. It is a very FINE cross hair. With probably 30 minutes or so of legal hunting light left the reticle was lost in the brushy background I was looking into. The illuminated reticle was a disappointment to me by far. The verticle was light up nicely but the horizontal section was non existent at any light setting. Since a lot of my hunting is in brush and during the early and late time of day, it was apparent this scope was not going to work for my use. If all my shooting was in good light this scope would be very nice. I was disappointed about the covered turrets though. I am in "no way" trying to bash Nightforce scopes as they have more than proven themselves it just won't work for my needs. If the IHR reticle would have been better lit I may have kept it even with the non exposed turrets that I wanted. I did just purchase a Vortex PST 2.5-10X44 with the EBR-1 MOA reticle which was highly recommended by several folks here. This is just my take on this particular scope. I understand some of these issues have been dealt with on the 2.5-10X42 model it's just out of my price range to find out. 
