March FX 4.5-28x52mm FFP Field Evaluation

[Formidilosus]

This is a field evaluation of the March FX 4.5-28x52mm FFP scope. This scope was sent to Ryan Avery for an evaluation. It was personally purchased. The ammunition used was my personal purchased 175gr SMK. The baseline 20 round group with the lot of ammunition was 1.3” at 100 yards.


The scope:







Turrets:

Elevation turret is exposed, revolution indicated, 10 mils per rev, and has a zero stop/set. Windage is capped, and revolution indicated.








Reticle:


Front Focal Plane FML-TR1 reticle

4.5x




28x





The reticle is one of many relatively common tree types with a center dot and graduated in .2 mil increments. It starts tapering thicker starting at 6 mils.




Con’t…..

 

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Drop Evaluation RTZ and “Tracking”:


For an explanation see- Scope Field Eval Explanation and Standards


The “test” consists of three 18” drops on a mat- one left/right/top with a shot to check zero after each drop. Then the exact same thing repeated from 36”. Then three drops on all three sides for nine drops on the last part- 15 drops total. This is not “abuse”. The 18” drops are a joke really. The 36” start showing something. And when a scope make/model consistently goes through the whole thing without losing zero, and makes it through the high round count portion, failures in actual use are almost unheard of.

This one was conducted on soft, wet soil.

The owner sent ARC rings with the scope to be used.


Zeroing was “interesting”. Boresighted, fired one round, adjusted and fired 10 rounds at the left dot. The first 4 rounds landed in the dot, then the 5th jumped up to the hiighest impact. The remaining 5 created a second group .2-.3 mils higher than the first 4 rounds. To be sure I shot 1 or 2 more rounds which all landed in the top group. I adjusted down .2mils, and shot three rounds which hit just off the dot low. Adjusted up .2 mils which hit the dot.




Before any drops I shot a confirmer one the drop target (#1). It just nicked the top of the dot. The rest of the shots are as shown. No real shift, just the weird vertical inconsistency making the POI high from
The start.



RTZ:

After the drop portion I adjusted down .2 mils and slipped the turret. The RTZ went fine and the group was now round as it should be.





Adjustment (tracking):

Used the reticle to measure between dots at 7.8 mils. No issues with adjustments.




Shot a few more rounds with it, then took it off and mounted it on another rifle.

No issues at all when zeroing this one. One shot after BS, then 7 or 8 rounds-



Came down .1 mil and slipped turret.

 

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Zero checks on the 6th, and 9th with a couple hundred miles riding in the truck.

6th


9th



I shot some more and the zero was averaging .1 mil or so low. Now, whether that is because I didn’t need to drop .1 the first group”, or because it shifted I can’t say definitively. My supposition is that I should have shot more rounds to finish the group the first day. In any case, I thought I would do another series of drops on this rifle to see what happened. Now this action isn’t bonded in the chassis, so if it shifted it really couldn’t be held against the scope on it own.

These were all from 36” amd show the same slightly low POI that it had prior to the drops.



I adjusted up .1 mil for zero.

The scope and rifle took a pretty decent impact/jolt- although padded, after the last group.

 

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This rifle/scope along with three others were in the truck during an accident.

Zero check today-

 

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Zero check today. First two rounds were fine, 3rd jumped high noticeably.




The random elevation shifts seems to be a thing still.

 

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Some observations so far in use.

The reticule is fine- it’s the same as all the other .2 mil tree reticles, maybe a touch better. That is, too fine to use without illumination in broken terrain and lower light.


The real issue is in the “glass”. There is a noticeable ring around the FOV starting around the outer 1/3rd or so that is noticeably milky- like looking through a curved lens. It is obvious even at 4.5x, but starts to be distracting around 12-15x. No amount of diopter or parallax adjustment removes it- although, if both aren’t set perfectly it is very bad.
The over all resolution/clarity is also less than expected. It is nothing special and in direct comparison at 15/20/25x it’s about on par with lower mid level Japanese LOW glass even in the clearest portion. The Trijicon Tenmile and Credos I have here at 15x, Zeiss LRP S3 at all mags, every NF ATACR and NX8 4-32’s are all noticeably better in resolution overall. Even the NXS 3-15x’s I have here, are better with clarity/resolution. Though the March is better on color than the NXS’s.

That’s not quite everything. If you get the March absolutely perfect- I’m talking 5 minutes of back and forth adjusting the parallax and diopter, then the very center (20’ish %) is quite good. But it takes work to get it, and it is dependent on magnification- what seems best at 12x isn’t best setting at 20x, etc. That ignores the outside 60’ish % of the FOV that is noticeably not clear. And it is not something that anyone could do in the field. If you focus the diopter correctly for your eye, and then look at a target and the parallax until it is as clear as possible- it is not clear.

If this were my scope it would be going back to March for warranty.

 

[Formidilosus]

Negative 6°F.







Magnification was quite stiff, everything else functioned fine on the scope. Still the same glass issues.

 

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Zero check. The vertical shift has appeared again. If it continues it will go into different rings.

 

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Zero check-

 

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A couple of zero checks.



Feb 22-




March 11-

 

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Zero check-




Switched ammo to FGMM 168hr SMK? No change in zero-

 

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First loss of zero-





The rings will get switched out.

 

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Haven’t swapped the rings yet, but checked today-