well...... I just spend an hour comparing a burris ff2 4-14x, and the leupold 2-10x, both set on 8x as the light faded. Honestly, I preferred the image of the burris every time I looked through it. liked the burris better than the 4-16x grand slam too. I don't know if that speaks to my eyes (which are not good) or if that's a yay burris or a boo leupold, but I'm not going to lie, it was not what I expected.
Not surprising at all. As I've written about my scope comparisons quite a few times here and there, I have/have had a bunch of scopes (well over 50) and have compared almost all of them carefully using an optical resolution target, and graded them on a chart that I made. These range from about $550 street price down to about $50. The group includes multiple models of Leupold, Sightron, Weaver, Burris, and Bushnell, and individual examples from Nitrex, Clearidge, Redfield, Japan Tasco, and perhaps some I'm forgetting. The average "street price" (what you could buy one for) was $373 according to my worksheet. Some cost more, some less.
Some findings from my years of testing:
1. If you have several scopes and you do this comparison, you will most likely be surprised at which of your scopes are actually better than some of the others.
2. If your test includes some of the Philippine-built Burris Fullfield scopes, they are likely to out perform some scopes that cost 2x - 3x as much as the Burris. The Timberline is also very good for a compact scope. (These are the only two Burris lines I've tested.)
3. Beyond the clarity and resolution thing, some scopes are just more pleasant to sight through than others, just seem to allow the eye to relax.
I set up like this:
Here's the type of optical resolution target that I use (photo is a bit blurry). I also study/compare the tree bark, colors, or other things, but the main clarity/resolution score is based upon the target.
Here's a clearer image of the target. What you do is determine the smallest set of 3 bars that you can clearly distinguish as being 3 bars. With the two scopes in the photo above set at the same magnification level, the Burris Timberline 4.5.14x32 allowed me to distinguish two sizes smaller bars than the Leupold 3-9x33 EFR.