Lightweight scope that dials with zero stop, does it exist?

[eoperator]

My search ended with a march 2.5-25x42 sfp capped turrets 21.5 oz 100moa adjustment.

 

[Tod osier]

Alright, everyone ready for nightmares?

What if your final shot at the range before a hunt is what kills your scope?

It happens.

As many know, I had this exact thing happen this year. My son gut shot and lost his first buck with a scope that had always worked, was verified at the range before the hunt, treated with kid gloves, kept in a case in a safe and in the truck, kept with a neoprene sleeve on the scope until getting on the stand. From the group at the range the poi moved 6 MOA to when he shot.

Total shit sandwich, the kid put in a ton of effort practicing and the scope failed. That learned me quite the lesson.

 

[ChrisAU]

As many know, I had this exact thing happen this year. My son gut shot and lost his first buck with a scope that had always worked, was verified at the range before the hunt, treated with kid gloves, kept in a case in a safe and in the truck, kept with a neoprene sleeve on the scope until getting on the stand. From the group at the range the poi moved 6 MOA to when he shot.

Total shit sandwich, the kid put in a ton of effort practicing and the scope failed. That learned me quite the lesson.

I had rings come loose after the last shot at a long range session that was supposed to be my last before my fall elk hunt. I only noticed it because I actually felt a very light click when putting the rifle in the safe later that day. I could visibly move the scope after having got home happy with less than 1 MOA groups at 400 yards. Now one side of my base screws are pinker than my wife's fingernails and I look at them often in the field. It will be years before I'm not a mental head case again haha. Less than 2 weeks later I dialed my 3-9 SS for a 310 yard equivalent horizontal range shot on the bull in my avatar. The picture shows the results. Dialed it back down and when I got to the range after the hunt you couldn't have printed the shot checking my zero anymore in the center of the bullseye. I have seen the 3-9 SS light.

 

[Sportsman247]

I searched as you are but always end up back with my Nighforce scopes. Rather battle with a lil more weight and have a great piece of glass

 

[Brendan]

Any feedback (good or bad) on the Swaro X5?

 

[BeaverHunter]

Nope. The fastest way to HIT at any distance past PB is to dial elevation, hold windage.

I see a hundred plus Nightforces and 40-50 SWFA’s heavily used and measured each year. I have for almost a decade. The failure rate through 5,000 rounds on each is less than 1% for Nightforce, and around 2-3% for SWFA fixed powers. Haven’t seen a 3-9x SS failure despite having put more than 20,000 rounds in each of more than a dozen- several with more than 60k rounds, and two with over 120k documented rounds.



SWFA has a Black Friday sale. Buy the 3-9x42mm SS. Use it, abuse it, trash it. If it breaks, or you don’t like it after giving it a fair shot- I’ll buy it from you for what you paid.

Yes I was saying that more sarcastically than anything. I think I'm going to go with the SWFA SS 3-15x42 based on your recommendation of them. Seems like a lot of scope for the money. And it's 24 ounces so not too bad. Kind of crazy to me that SWFA is more reliable based on what you've seen than scopes that cost 2-3 times as much. I guess it's like you said, reliability isn't what a lot of manufacturers prioritize.

 

[jolemons]

Leupold custom shop can add zero stop and turrets to the vx 3 if you want

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[Ndbowhunter]

Leupold custom shop can add zero stop and turrets to the vx 3 if you want

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You can put rims and a spoiler on Yaris. Doesn’t make it a sports car.

 

[jarheadhunter]

You can put rims and a spoiler on Yaris. Doesn’t make it a sports car.

Yeah, but it will still kill a deer and you wont feel as bad about it being wrecked.

 

[SJ-AK]

Anyone tried the new SWFA SS 2.5-10x32 Ultralight Rifle Scope? If it works and holds up it look like the ticket at 9.5 ounces.

 

[BeaverHunter]

Anyone tried the new SWFA SS 2.5-10x32 Ultralight Rifle Scope? If it works and holds up it look like the ticket at 9.5 ounces.

No but looks pretty cool. Not sure about no parallax adjustment though, I haven't shot a scope without that in a long time. I wonder if @Formidilosus has seen any of these yet and can weigh in. I would take less magnification at that weight. Is the no parallax adjustment a big deal?

 

[Formidilosus]

I have shot the UL’s a bit. Not heavily as a SFP duplex or BDC reticle isn’t very useful to me. Haven’t seen any issues in the little use I have (thousand’ish rounds total on a couple), but that doesn’t mean much.

Alaska Lanche has used them more and reports good performance. He knows what’s up, so I have little concern that he is wrong.


They are coming out with a mil/mil version- that I will use.

 

[SDHNTR]

Rokslide is a very small subset of a population. I think it’s well known that rokslide is the forum of backcountry hunters that worry about weight so coming here and thinking that we represent the hunting community as a whole would be flawed data.

I work in a store that sells scopes. Granted the town I live in is cheap as **** but to convince someone that it’s worth an extra 1000 to save 3 ounces would be very very difficult. Are there people that I could? Yes but they are far and few in between.


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It’s not just Rokslide. These same threads pop up on 24hrcampfire and others all the time. And it’s not an extra $1000 to save just 3 oz either. When you figure a VX3 weighs only 12-13 oz, the weight savings could be much more significant.

 

[deadwolf]

One thing I know for sure, between Form and Luke M, I have been steered in the right direction on scopes more than once and their advice has been spot on. I shoot a fair amount, but not enough to waste time figuring out which scopes are gonna be good or bad. Thanks to those two I have bypassed all that nonsense!


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[tdot]

Can someone school me on SWFA? Are they not just a house brand scope? Who is actually making the scope for them?

I assume that whoever's making the scope for them also makes scopes for others. So how does SWFA have such a lower failure rate?

I've tried to obtain them a couple times, but I'd have to Import them into Canada and the fees would be more then the scope. So forget that. But now I'm really curious.

 

[Hill Difficulty]

I posted this on Longrangehunting.com also and am looking for ideas. I know they exist but doesn't seem to be many out there. When I say lightweight I'm thinking under 20 ounces and would prefer a pound or less. I don't need tons of magnification, something in the 12-15 on the top end would plenty. About the only one I see out there is the Leupold VX-5 3-15 that weighs in at just over 19 ounces. For those of you that have a vx-5, does it dial correctly every time? I was also looking at the Vxi-3 4-14 cds that only weighs 13 ounces but I'm nervous about that with no capped turrets or zero stop. Anything else out there that you all would trust for a hunting rifle? I'm thinking my budget is $1000ish. I'm not necessarily brand loyal, just has to be very reliable. Any ideas are appreciated. Thanks

Your criteria appears to be this: 20oz or less, turrets, reliable, $1000 or less, 15x max, zero stop.

>The only scope that comes close is this: SWFA 3-15x
>If you're willing to consider less max magnification, a better choice is this: SWFA 3-9x
>If you're willing to stretch price with less max magnification, there's this: NF 2.5-10x42
>If you're willing to compromise reliable, there are many

Be willing to consider that a 3-9X is plenty and a 3-15x is too much.

Hope this is helpful!

 

[Formidilosus]

Can someone school me on SWFA? Are they not just a house brand scope? Who is actually making the scope for them?

Ehhh... kind of not really.


The super condensed version is that Tasco went to a Japanese optics manufacturer to make a scope to compete for a Navy sniper optic contract. That resulted in the Tasco Super Sniper. It won the contract. It kind of was and is a unique scope. Fast forward and Tasco is going out of business. Chris Farris of SWFA purchases the right to the “Super Sniper”, renames it the SS and improves a couple of specifications, with SWFA owning the rights.

There are at least two different manufacturers that make the SS line of scopes, depending on model. As for why someone can’t get the manufacturer to copy/make them for someone else... we’ll they could match them. But no major company believes that simple, ruggedly reliable scopes will sell. Not to mention that the design was essentially paid for with Tasco.

 

[BeaverHunter]

Ehhh... kind of not really.


The super condensed version is that Tasco went to a Japanese optics manufacturer to make a scope to compete for a Navy sniper optic contract. That resulted in the Tasco Super Sniper. It won the contract. It kind of was and is a unique scope. Fast forward and Tasco is going out of business. Chris Farris of SWFA purchases the right to the “Super Sniper”, renames it the SS and improves a couple of specifications, with SWFA owning the rights.

There are at least two different manufacturers that make the SS line of scopes, depending on model. As for why someone can’t get the manufacturer to copy/make them for someone else... we’ll they could match them. But no major company believes that simple, ruggedly reliable scopes will sell. Not to mention that the design was essentially paid for with Tasco.

Thanks for the explanation, I was wondering the same thing.

 

[CorbLand]

It’s not just Rokslide. These same threads pop up on 24hrcampfire and others all the time. And it’s not an extra $1000 to save just 3 oz either. When you figure a VX3 weighs only 12-13 oz, the weight savings could be much more significant.

I am not an expert when it comes to metals but titanium is not lighter than aluminum and roughly a third lighter than steel. Titanium is stronger for its weight so in order to save weight over aluminum you would have to make it nearly half as thin. How thin can you make a scope and maintain durability? So depending on what a scope is made of the weight savings would still be minimal when you add in that most of the scope weight is going to be in the glass. Add in the cost of titanium and your going to be paying a premium for minimal weight savings.

Not trying to argue or say there isn't a market there for it but to mass produce scopes and sell them would be very difficult. Add in the R&D and all the tools and machining changes, the cost is going to increase dramatically and the market would be significantly smaller than it would be for an average weight scope.

 

[SDHNTR]

I am not an expert when it comes to metals but titanium is not lighter than aluminum and roughly a third lighter than steel. Titanium is stronger for its weight so in order to save weight over aluminum you would have to make it nearly half as thin. How thin can you make a scope and maintain durability? So depending on what a scope is made of the weight savings would still be minimal when you add in that most of the scope weight is going to be in the glass. Add in the cost of titanium and your going to be paying a premium for minimal weight savings.

Not trying to argue or say there isn't a market there for it but to mass produce scopes and sell them would be very difficult. Add in the R&D and all the tools and machining changes, the cost is going to increase dramatically and the market would be significantly smaller than it would be for an average weight scope.

You may ultimately be right, I just hope that manufactures haven’t quit trying. Determination put us on the moon.