Meopta Optika6 3-18x50mm FFP Field Evaluation

[Formidilosus]

This scope has been a big deal online and with certain segments of the market since it was announced. A European company that historically makes very good optics, releasing 6x zoom range SFP and FFP scopes with locking turrets, illumination, decent reticles, etc. for $500-$700? That’s a first.

They started shipping a couple months ago, yet no one has really shot them. The big question isn’t “how’s the glass”, or “how the turrets feel”, or any other secondary nonsense. The important question is do they work. Do they hold zero even with rough handling, do they “track”, do they return to zero, etc. You know.... things a scope is supposed to do. Yet no one has measured or talked about these things.


So...



This one is the 3-18x50mm RD FFP with MRAD 1 reticle.



It weighs 30.9 ounces




The reticle is a a .2 mil hash reticle, except for the center. The center has a horseshoe ostensibly to make it usable/visible at low powers. Meopta and the gentleman that designed the reticle want it to be a crossover hunting and long range shooting reticle.

High power-





Low power-






Mounted it to a Tikka T3 that has been bonded to a KRG Chassis (top rifle)-




Bottom rifle is a T3x Lite SS, 6.5 Creedmoor also in a KRG chassis. It has mounted a SWFA SS 3-9x with way more than 100,000 rounds on it. If the Meopta works correctly, it’ll go on the 6.5 and go antelope hunting.



TBC.....

 

[zeroforhire]

Awesome. I've been eyeing these since they were announced.

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

 

[Dvidos]

Looks Great!

 

[rodney482]

Watching

 

[Formidilosus]

The first trip was super short (200’ish rounds). Bore sighted, fired two rounds. Adjusted down .5, and right .3, and fired 7 more rounds. A final up .2 and done.



Next was checking adjustment value. Normally this would be done with the scope mounted on a vice and the “tracking” checked on a tracking board. I didn’t have that this time, so live shooting would be it. Two dots placed as far apart as I could get with the target I was using. Went to scope, measured with the reticle 10.4 mils between centers on the dots. Fired a round at the bottom dot, dialed 10.4 mils, aimed at the bottom dot and fired. Dialed down 10.4 mils, fired up 10.4 mils, etc, etc.
Shooting is NOT a very accurate way to measure increment value. It takes a really, really, good gun with consistent sub MOA 10 round groups, and big adjustment range (10+ mil/30+ MOA) to see anything worthwhile. This gun is a very consistent 1.2-1.3 MOA gun for ten rounds with the lot of ammo being used. After 20 rounds the scope adjusted within 1% at 10.4 mils.


With that completed, a quick check for return to zero (RTZ). Shoot a round, dial up and down 300-500 mils, shoot a round, etc. I got bored and the last time I dialed up and down a couple thousand mils.

No issues-





Next was checking to see how it does with zero retention from side and top impacts. The way we do it is, gun zeroed, drop once on left side from 12” onto padded mat, shoot, dropnince on right side, shoot, once top side, shoot. If all is good, the repeat from 36”. If it holds zero, then three drops on each side, and check.

After dropping on left/right/top from 12”, and two drops from 36”-




The next hundred’ish rounds were spent shooting from alternate positions and getting a feel for the reticle, eyebox, etc. Once that was done, it was taken off and remounted on the 6.5 Creed. Zeroed without issue.

I did fire a 3 round group for those that think 3 rounds means anything-



Checked drop at 700 or so on the 6.5, and shot some more positional stuff. Amazingly, despite being told countless times that when shooting long range you’ll be on the highest power, with the lower light and not being prone, this is where I ended up when I looked at it-




TBC.....

 

[sdupontjr]

Finally someone has one. I too am looking at the 3-18x50 but in the #4 for hunting. How is the glass in low light?

 

[Formidilosus]

The next morning the chick and I got up early for her to confirm zero on her rifle. I put the 6.5 with the Meopta on top of the targets and gear for the quite crappy ride up the mountain. The Optika6 was good after going down, and back up the FS road which the ride alone will have most scopes loose zero...

Everything still worked after shooting a bit, so in the truck it goes-



..... Is that a Leupold...!

It rode in the drawer like that with a 1/4” to 1/2 “ mat for padding. All the other rifles were stacked on top with no padding. The rifle was strapped to the side of the pack for a few days and took a hit every time I dropped the bag.


A few days later at 576 yards-


Exit from the 130gr Berger OTM-



Again, the scope was nowhere near the highest power on the goat. Of the 6 animals shot, only two were killed with the scope on the highest power.... from a fixed 6x

After the trip, I’ve decided that the X-RAY butt is great for a dedicated LR gun, however the Bravo rear end is better for all around hunting use. The forend and butt of the KRG chassis come off with just a couple of screws and about 60 seconds you can swapaloo.



Lost a bit of weight on the 6.5 Lite, and improved handling. Shot it a bit after the swap, still zeroed, still working correctly.


TBC.....

 

[Formidilosus]

Just using this as an example-

Finally someone has one. I too am looking at the 3-18x50 but in the #4 for hunting. How is the glass in low light?

You’re asking the wrong question....


Who cares about “glass”, if the scope doesn’t work?

 

[Formidilosus]

Here’s where it sits at two weeks, 400’ish rounds, 1,200 miles of vibration in the truck bed, and 8 days being treated unmercifully on the pack. Keep in mind this is a sample of one, with extremely limited use so far.


In order of importance-

Zero retention: No issues noted yet. 400 rounds is a laughably small number. It’s about equivalent to 4,000 miles on a new car. All it tells us is that there’s not something grossly wrong with the scope. The scope will be given no quarter in abuse, and zero will be confirmed often using the original lot number of ammo. Any shift will be immediately apparent. That it stayed zeroed with the drop “test” and truck rides are very good signs however. Both of those totally crush most scopes.


Return to zero: Has been correct. Again 400 rounds is just a warm up, but with spinning the turrets hundreds of times- no issues.


Adjustment value: It’ll go on the tracking board probably in December, but unless it fails before then I don’t expect any surprises. It’s been shot on two well known rifles from 200 yards to 900’ish yards and all data is identical. As well, the 10.4 mil target test went fine.


Tracking: This is vertical movement of reticle when dialing elevation checking for lateral deviation. No issues.


Eyebox/ease of use: Actually pretty good. Higher zoom ratio scope tend to suffer critical eyeboxes and this one really doesn’t. It’s easy enough that you don’t have to think about it at all.


TBC....

 

[Wacko]

Thanks for showing your process...again.

Question on mounting the scopes. I see you are using the sportsmatch rings mostly now. I can assume a rail still works, you just add a little weight and add some scope height over bore? But, also gain some ring spacing latitude?

 

[Formidilosus]

Reticle: hmmm. This one is my biggest question mark with this scope, and this will be long.



The reticle generally does what they wanted it to do- be useful at low and high powers. But they did it in a way that is... “eh”. First, I dislike “donuts”. It’s a lazy way to make a reticle visable on low power, it obscures the target and surroundings in the most critical location in the scope where you need to see impacts/splash the most, and generally screws up the intuitiveness of the reticle holds. This one does all of those.
Overall the reticle is broken down in .2 mil increments. That’s great. Tick marks should be in linear and consistent fashion, I.E.- 1 mil, .5, or .2 mils. The problem with this MRAD1 reticle is that because of the donut, the tick marks inside the center go- dot, .2 to the near side of “cross line”, .4 to far side of line, then nothing usable until 1 mil (or .9, not really sure). You actually have to look at it and think about what means what, until you get to 1.4 mils (where the horizontal reticle starts. A lot of winds holds in actual field shooting tend to be in the .5 to 1.5 mil range... right where this reticle sucks. Or I should say is compromised. It’s usable for sure, but I shoot a lot of scopes and reticles, and I had to play with it to figure out what the subtentions are from center to 1.5 mils. Multiple shooters that are extremely capable and experienced had to do the same thing when they picked it up.


Next is the spacing between horizontal bold posts. Or, how much windage can be held. Holy Pete, who in the flip needs and can use over 6 mils of windage in the reticle!?

At sea level with a 308 and crappy BC bullet that is 52 miles per hour at 500 yards. Fifty-two miles per hour of wind. With a 300WM and 215gr Berger at 500 yards it’s EIGHTY-ONE mile per hour wind to drift 6 mils. At 1,000 yards for both it’s- 21mph and 36mph respectively. That’s just silly, and the only reason companies keep doing that is lack of critical thinking and public perception.

Reduce the windage to 2.5 or 3 mils to bold posts, and now you can see and center the reticle on animals on low power even in low light, while still having way more than enough windage available for shooting. Or, keep the windage 3-4 mils out, but bring the bottom 6 o’clock post in to 1.5 mils or so, then it looks like a German #4 on low powers with all the great attributes of that reticle, keeps the center clear for spotting impacts/splash, while still offering quick elevation holds out to 450-500 yards.


Both ways are better and more usable than a donut.



Explanation-

Reticles are a weak point for manufactures. This is brought on by two main things it seems- One, is that consumers are ignorant. I do not mean this maliciously, but people have no idea how stuff works, nor a broad enough base of experience in actual shooting and performance to know what they should want. Two, manufacturers and designers are generally NOT skilled or experienced shooters with a broad base of experience to know what works better and worse, and they are being inundated by the public’s ignorance to build compromised stuff quite frankly. Both don’t know, what they don’t know.

These lead to things like donuts, inconsistent spacing in reticles, huge windage spacing, BDC’s, SFP, extremely high zoom ranges; especially coupled with short length, small tube size, and lightweight. I/we’re constantly shooting with people that are rabid about these things. They will argue endlessly, yet it is all their feelings or beliefs, not actual performance. Take them off the square range, put realistic sized (that’d be much smaller than most use) targets at varying ranges with real wind, or shoot from unconventional positions (sitting off of a pack, kneeling over a downed tree, MPAJ, etc), put time constraints on them, and maybe a bit of heavy breathing, and NO ONE walks away wanting any of that stuff. I’ve shot with several good dudes from this forum alone, some were all about those things and just knew they were going to learn me something.
Then they actually shot as above while being measured, fail miserably, and then watch the chick crush what they just did with a 223 and SWFA.... dudes are swiping cards for new gear within an hour.

I say all this to say- reticles and “features” should not be designed or implemented in a vacuum. We would all like to think, and most do, that manufactures have a full staff of professional level shooters telling the designers and engineers what to build, and the engineers know enough about field use to build it correctly and robustly, then the company gives the product back to the pro shooters to ensure it actually works before it’s sold to you. Except for one company- nothing could be further from the truth. The reality is with most companies that some marketing dude brings an idea he thinks will sell, then they take it to another company that actually makes the optics and they tell those engineers how to build it to a certain price point. I’m not saying Meopta did that here... I’m not saying they didn’t either.


Whew...


That out of the way, the reticle while being compromised, is usable, and does work. It IS better than most in that regard, and I would not let the issues of it hinder a purchase.



TBC....

 

[Formidilosus]

Thanks for showing your process...again.
Question on mounting the scopes. I see you are using the sportsmatch rings mostly now. I can assume a rail still works, you just add a little weight and add some scope height over bore? But, also gain some ring spacing latitude?

No problem.


Good rails and rings, are good. However Tikka’s have an integral rail already built in, and it’s kind of silly to add another rail on top of a rail, unless you need something specific. The benefits of a pic rail are generally strength, rings spacing, inclination, and commonality. The downsides of picatinney rail/rings at least with a Tikka with Sportsmatch rings is extra screws, potentially less robust zero retention, extra height, weight, and cost.


The Sportsmatch rings have so far been the most bombproof setup on T3’s that I’ve seen, if you don’t require inclination.

 

[bmanb940]

While doing some freelance work with Meopta, I have been shooting the Optika6 for 6 months now and have close to 1000 rounds under it with 4 different rifles. It now sits on my deer hunting rifle, a .300 Win that shoots lights out and the 3-18x56 wrings out all the accuracy possible. Tracking has been excellent and light transmission is the best of all the scopes I own. We watched deer in a full moon last weekend at over 100 yards away. I agree this scope is built tough and has the lifetime warranty to back it up. Check out some of Rokslide Sponsor's if you are intertested and maybe they can save you some $. I have the MRAD version on the way, it should be a lot of fun to air out.

 

[sdupontjr]

Can the objective lever be removed and replaced with a set screw like the others? Seems like it would get caught on things.

 

[Formidilosus]

Can the objective lever be removed and replaced with a set screw like the others? Seems like it would get caught on things.

Provided you mean the cat tail on the power ring, yes.

 

[sdupontjr]

Provided you mean the cat tail on the power ring, yes.

Yes sir, thanks.

 

[bmanb940]

Yes, and if you can see the screws, the throw lever can be moved to best fit your shooting.

 

[Formidilosus]

After the reticle, it’s features.


Turrets: This model has a 10 mil per revolution, pop up, locking elevation turret with zero stop, and a capped windage turret.



Elevation locked (down)-




Elevation unlocked (up)-



Cap unscrews without tools to remove elevationt turret (the cap vibrated loose while driving and fell off) -



Pull the turret off and you have the zero stop with mechanical limiter-




Windage-





Parallax and illumination knob-



Power ring with small built in rubber cat tail-




On the turrets, not that it really matters but they feel good. It needs a revolution indicator on the elevation, but being that when adjusting the turret doesn’t move up or down....? I do not set zero stops to stop dead nuts on zero. But instead 2.9 mils lower, in any case, without a rev indicator multiple times a day I popped the ele turret up, spun down to bottom, and back up to be positive that it was not a rev off. The windage needs a half rev limiter as well, as there also is no rev indicator either. They also need to mark the windage knob starting at “0” 5 mils each direction. Instead it is marked in a continuous fashion from “0” to “9”.

Setting the zero stop is not really intuitive, and Meopta does not include very good instructions.

One can say that they’ll never touch the windage dial after zeroing as it’s capped, or that the elevation has a zero stop so there’s no need there.... both of those are good ways to end up a full rev off of where you thought you were. Checking elevation and windage zero and revolution is a part of picking the rifle up first thing in the morning, periodically throughout the day, and anytime it has been out of your immediate control. Checking elevation is simple enough, if not as easy as it could be, but windage is a no go unless you dial all the way one direction and count back.


The power ring is good. Has a built in small cat tail, and multiple slots for an extended one if desired.

Parallax: Knob is easy and smooth, and the numbers are decently close with where the diopter is currently set. Not super finicky on parallax.



TBC....

 

[Formidilosus]

Illumination: It’s designed to only illuminate the center dot and cross. It does that, however there is quite a bit of bleed and the illumination is not even. I don’t care, as the illumination does what it is supposed to -make you be able to see the reticle in low light, and I’m glad they didn’t spend more money or effort on this, rather than function. The knob is adjacent to the parallax knob. Between every setting there is on off click.


3x





18x





TBC....

 

[Bones]

Thanks a bunch for this Form. Appreciate your process and thoughts on this.