I ordered one of those and was disappointed. The center of the reticle is impossible to see below 6X. From 6-8X it needs a perfectly contrasting background. On a cloudy day out, and a few minutes before sunset the reticle was disappearing on darker backgrounds even at 10X. The eye box is fussy. The glass is no clearer or sharper than the glass on the Burris Droptine that I bought from Doug. I don't know if it's my bad luck, and I got a bad specemin or if it's simply not a good scope.
Burris' tech rep had this to say about my experience.
"-Power rings on new scopes are routinely stiff, and tend to smoothen out with use as the grease initially installed on the guide tube migrates around- heat tends to help with this as well.
-The small size of the reticle features is unavoidable, no matter who makes the scope. FFP placement means that those lines are going to magnify at the same rate as the image, meaning that if the lines were thicker, they would cover up more of the target at high magnification. This is an accepted fact of scopes with reticles in the first/front focal plane.
-A non-illuminated reticle in low light is not typically visible against dark targets- this is where illuminated reticles are of massive benefit, and why hunters especially tend to prefer illumination. As a competition/ long-range target scope, these original XTR III's favored a non-illuminated reticle for weight reduction and reduced width at the turrets.
-The XTR III’s eye box is one of the most forgiving in its class, adjusting the locking diopter and/or the scope’s position on the rifle may improve the experience.
-Comparing optical performance to a Droptine at sundown with cloud cover (poor conditions) is a bit odd, the Droptine is a hunting scope that emphasizes brightness in low light, while the XTR III was never built as a low-light hunting scope, and therefore does not emphasize low-light optical performance as much as resolution, light management in bright conditions, and a wide FOV."
This was my response to his comments.
"Power rings on new scopes are routinely stiff, and tend to smoothen out with use as the grease initially installed on the guide tube migrates around- heat tends to help with this as well."
He had no way of knowing if this was my first scope or my 100th. It's closer to the latter. I have several more Burris scopes and have owned several more yet. NONE have a power ring this stiff. I exercised it back and forth well over 50 times, before I made the comment. I have since exercised it more. How much more do I need to do this before the grease is distributed? With the scope mounted on a rifle and me prone or at a bench it is too stiff to manipulate with two fingers. I do not have a throw lever installed. It's nice to be able to make power adjustments to a scope from shooting positions without wrestling with it. But the Burris rep accepts this as normal.
-The small size of the reticle features is unavoidable, no matter who makes the scope. FFP placement means that those lines are going to magnify at the same rate as the image, meaning that if the lines were thicker, they would cover up more of the target at high magnification. This is an accepted fact of scopes with reticles in the first/front focal plane.
The rep assumes I don't know how FFP scopes work. The scope is a 3-18. The center of the reticle is useless below about 6X with my eyes. Other users say that number is closer to 8X. Regardless, why even bother with making a scope that can't be used in the lower 25% of its magnification range. Maybe there's a reason.
-A non-illuminated reticle in low light is not typically visible against dark targets-
That's just wrong. Perhaps this reticle on their FFP scope is not, but that is not the case with the other scopes I have. In fact, most of them wouldn't give up usefulness several minutes before sunset on a cloudy day, they'd take me almost all the way to last legal shooting light. But it's nice to know that they acknowledge and accept that as normal for this scope.
-The XTR III’s eye box is one of the most forgiving in its class, adjusting the locking diopter and/or the scope’s position on the rifle may improve the experience.
Another user error assumption.
-Comparing optical performance to a Droptine at sundown with cloud cover (poor conditions) is a bit odd, the Droptine is a hunting scope that emphasizes brightness in low light, while the XTR III was never built as a low-light hunting scope, and therefore does not emphasize low-light optical performance as much as resolution, light management in bright conditions, and a wide FOV.
I discussed this in my previous post. What is odd from a consumer's perspective is that they readily admit that their Flagship XTR model with a 50mm objective shouldn't be expected to "manage" light as well as their entry level 42mm scope that cost 1/8th as much. Their flagship is made for bright conditions. That doesn't sound very "extreme" or "tactical" to me.
I bought the scope as a target scope with hopes that I might be able to press it into occasional hunting service. It'll do that in ideal conditions.
I bought a $1000 scope in hopes that the "glass" would be better than the "glass" on scopes that cost $150. It is not. I'll allow that I may have to piddle with it more to find a sweet spot if in fact it has one.
I bought a 3-18 hoping that I could use it all the way down to 3. While I didn't anticipate doing that often, it would have been nice to have been able to use the full range of the scope. I can't, I'll live with it.
I certainly didn't expect the magnification ring to be so stiff, that I couldn't stay mounted and use the ring at the same time. This is apparently normal and is expected to self correct with an unspecified number of turns until the grease is evenly distributed. You'd think that a manufacturer could find a way to distribute grease on a scope that has an MSRP of over $1500. Oh, I haven't tried heat yet. I don't know if the rep expects me to apply artificial heat or if it takes ambient heat of over 70 degrees to get it to free up.