Minox ZP5 5-25x56mm THLR Field Evaluation

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This is a field evaluation of the Minox ZP5 5-25x56mm with THLR reticle scope. This scope was purchased for an evaluation, to determine the merits of the THLR reticle in October of 2021. Being that the purpose was to determine the suitability and function of the reticle, the risk of the scope breaking from the drop eval was to great then. However because I had enough time to get it fixed or acquire another before needing it again if it did break, and because it needed to be done, I conducted the eval today. It is different than the standard evals as the scope was shot and used pretty heavily before the drop evals. It has been mounted on both the test 308 rifle to gain baseline information on normal function and use of the reticle, then was moved over to a 6XC that I and a couple others used for the fall hunting season.

So first, the normal eval which was conducted today. The rifle used was a Tikka 595 Master Sporter, with bottom metal permanently bonded into the stock, and the action with enough loctite that it’s all but permanent. Ammunition used is hand loaded 115gr that has shot multiple 10 round groups with the largest being .92 moa- this should result in 30 round groups being +/- 1.2-1.3 moa.


Rifle and bedding:







The scope and weight:

Because the scope was mounted before this eval, I do not have pictures of the weight. However, it is just over 35oz. It is a large scope.



Turrets:


Elevation turret is exposed, non revolution indicated, 15 mils per rev, zero stopped with a harder click going into the second revolution. Windage is exposed, non revolution indicated, and rotation limited right and left to 7.2 mils from center each way.


Elevation and windage/ parallax and illumination knob-





Reticle:

They’ll be a whole lot written about this, so I will just put the pictures here.

5x




15x




25x






25x with illumination on-








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, failures in actual use are almost unheard of.

This one was conducted on semi packed, semi crusted snow.



The left dot is a three round check after being beat on for four months. The drop eval is center dot. The right dot is the return to zero. The bottom and top are the “tracking test”.
On the tracking you’ll notice between the top and middle dot there is a bullet hole marked stupid. The is because I used the main reticle up through the “L” shaped milling bar and did not add the bottom 2 mils on it. I dialed and shot 5.5 instead. I then remeasured using the horizontal lines and came up with 7.5 or 7.4 mils. I used 7.4, however after shooting it and measuring with the correct part of the reticle it should have been 7.5 or 7.6 mils.


The short version is the scope functioned correctly, held zero through the drop eval, RTZ’d correctly, and adjusted to less then 1% at 7.5 mils.


Cont.

 

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Eyebox:

Simply put- fantastic. One of the easiest to get behind scopes I have ever used- maybe the easiest. There’s no other way to explain it- it is fantastically forgiving.


Eye Relief:

Specs have it at 3.9+ inches. That’s about right. It has plenty of ER and it’s constant from 5x to 25x.




Field Of View:

Is excellent from 5x to 25x and noticeable in use.




Image Quality:

The clarity, color, and contrast is excellent. Resolution is extremely high, image brightness is fantastic even after dark. Clarity across the FOV is even, with no aberrations noticed.


Depth of field:

That is once focused/parallax removed at a certain distance, how much closer and farther than that distance are objects still in focus and parallax free. The DOF is the best I have seen. There is basically two settings in use- 100 yards which is good from in the woods to about 300, and 600’ish which is good from about 300-infinity. During use hunting I set it to around 300-400 didn’t touch it again. Truthfully you can set it at 300 yards and never touch it.




It’s a $3,00 scope and it has as good of glass as any. I do not care about “glass” until the scope works and even then it’s not that big of a deal to me once “good” has been reached; however the clarity, contrast, and brightness combined with the huge eyebox and eye relief, the good FOV and the excellent DOF all combine to make it the only scope I have used that makes me notice it every time I use it.




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The reticle:



This is what separates this scope from everything else. At first glance it strikes some people as busy and confusing. However, in use it is anything but. To start, what are the major problems with reticles in general and FFP reticles specifically?
There are two main issues- inability to see the reticle at low power, and poor design at high power.




Low power visibility:

This is the single most overlooked/screwed up item by companies when it comes to FFP reticles for hunting in dialing optics. For the vast majority of FFP MIL or MOA scopes the reticle all but disappears at lower powers. What makes this interesting is that FFP scopes have historically dominated the market in other countries which allow night hunting without artificial light.

The difference is that reticles such as the German #1 are common for that use-




Instead, we get reticles like this-




And this-



Now, ostensibly this is to be able to use lots of vertical holdover and lots of horizontal holds for wind. I mean you never know when you’ll need 12.5 mils of windage to make a shot (over 100 miles per hour of wind at 700 yards for a 6.5 CM)





And we also need that 10-15 mils of elevation below center for all the times that people hold over on animals while hunting using the reticle at the very bottom edge of the FOV at 1,200’ish yards. Or in competition because PRS has so many holdover stages…


The reality is that consumers push for, and companies make reticles designed by committee that look good on a flat range under good light, for how people think they might shoot, not for how they actually shoot.
The issue historically is that if you make a Mil or MOA reticle that is duplex like and visible on low power, it covers up too much of the target at higher powers. So…. The THLR solves the low power problem, by being a very bold German #1 style reticle.

5x at 10 yards-



You aim with the tip of the vertical post on a German #1 reticle. And in the THLR you do the same. Side by side for four months of hunting in the mountain west, the THLR reticle allowed for aiming and shooting in low light, broken terrain, and timber longer than any other reticle on hand. This includes Leupold standard and heavy duplexes. It crushes every other reticle at low power in poor conditions.

How it gets around becoming too thick and coving up the target at higher powers is due to the tip of the post being 1.5 mils below center (5.4” at 100 yards). At close ranges you aim at the heart as with the deer above. This works easily and intuitively in both practice and on animals- for me an elk that was about to go over a ledge at 60’ish yards and offered only a snap shot of the upper half of the chest.

Now you absolute can see the center dot and the box at 5x if you need to make a precise shot, however the post works well for close and quick shots in bad lighting (more on the post in low light and distance later).



At higher powers, the hashes and center dot start to become more noticeable. At 7x’ish the center dot and half mil marks are totally usable, and by 9-12x you can start using the .2 mil hashes easily. At 15x and above all the features of the reticle are very visible.


Let talk about the reticle break down-

DON’T get overwhelmed. This is just to make it easier to reference-




The ranging scale into .1 mils but for most can be ignored. The quick ranging bracket in the lower right is for military use and for animals can be ignored. The rest is where the meat of the reticle is.

What you actually see when shooting is something like this-



It’s very easy and intuitive to find center and your eye is drawn right to it. All the lines, ranging scales, and numbers are so fine that your brain doesn’t even notice them unless you deliberately look for it- it’s all out of the way and you look right through it.

The reticle itself is pure mil based. From center dot out to 2 mils on the horizontal it’s hashes every .2 mils. From 2 mils out to 6 mils it’s a hash every .5 mils. On the vertical it’s a hash mark every .2 mils for one mil above center and 1.5 mils below center. There’s also a dot with a semi circle at 1 mil above and below center. The full mil lines are much bolder than the .2 and .5 lines and get bolder as you move out from the center.



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On lower powers the reticle works very well, and on higher powers it does too due to the center where you actually look and aim being very open and clear. Due to the 6 o’clock post for aiming, the heavy windage bars can be pushed out farther opening the FOV up. The fact that it doesn’t have solid thin vertical and horizontal cross hairs connecting further clears and opens the center FOV. The whole thing has a feeling of looking “openness”. Like looking out of a panoramic window. Spitting shots/splashes is WAY easier without the reticle covering up the FOV. On animals from 60’ish to 644 yards I watched every single bullet impact the animal. I don’t mean I saw that it was a hit, or that the animal hunched up, or that hide rippled a bit- I mean that I watched the actual bullet impact the animal on every shot. I think the highest mag I used was 11 or 12x. Most were between 8-10x. I haven’t ever had so much visual information and feedback during shooting on animals as I did this year. The others that used it, all said the same thing.



In the field is looks something like this.

Rock is 818 yards and is 18”x30”.

5x




10x



15x




25x




Hand holding pics through a scope sucks, the difference is in real life by 8-9x the .2 mil hashes are usable and of course the whole thing is very clear. The 15x photo is a good representation of what you see as far as the extraneous stuff disappearing- what you really see and notice is the center dot, and half mil hashes.


797 yards on a deer, at I believe 12x-



Elk at 1,280 yards on 12x-




(In real life the reticle is totally clear and visible). At nearly 1,300 yards on 12x magnification I could have earholed an elk.




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Before getting into the unique features of the reticle, some pics of the usage this fall and winter so far. The scope was used to kill animals at 260, 402, 644, 287, 488, 557, 60, 558, and 970. I might be forgetting a few…

Wood stocks in the rain can’t be done…




















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The point isn’t to show pretty pictures of a shiny item, but to show that the scope was USED.

 

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Reticle wind brackets:

I have written about “wind brackets” before. What THLR has done in this reticle is a bit different, while still using the same base process. Again, the THLR is a pure mil based reticle. However, he has added “brackets” inside the reticle for a simple and relatively quick and intuitive method to hold for wind on 12-15 inch targets out to 500-600 yards.


Three brackets- light wind, medium wind, heavy wind. The reticle has these marked out inside of it.

First the reticle-




The Light wind brackets is between the center and .4 mil mark-




The medium bracket is the “bar” between .4 and .8 mils-





The heavy wind bracket is between .8 and 1.4mils-




So how do you use this? Well one way is to watch THLR’s video on it-

However, as an example of how it works using a mid .5 BC G1 at 2700fps and 500 yards (however inside of 500 you will still hit the target using the same)

Light wind for the reticle is 2-4 mph

Medium wind is 5-9 mph

Heavy wind is- 9-15 mph.


Thomas explains it in the video and it should make sense about how to judge the wind value (light/medium/heavy) without assigning a MPH value to it first. While anyone shooting distance should be competent at wind reading and correcting with an angular hold, the THLR “wind bracket” is very quick to learn and apply.

 

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Aim Short and Aim Long:

Again the reticle-




1 mil above and below the center dot, there is a dot and a half circle. They represent both the 1 mil marks, and offer at least two other things.

Here are a couple of videos with Thomas explaining some of how it works-

How I use it , when I do is as a rough BDC. With standard chamberings and bullets .4-.6’ish G1 BC at between 2,600-2,900’ish FOS MV, between 300 and 600’ish yards every hundred yards is one mil. That is using the example from the last post (.5 BC, 2,700 MV) from 300 yards to 400 years is 1 mil, and from 400 to 500 is another mil, etc.

Of course when zeroed at 100 yards, the 1 mil mark is +/- 300 yards, and 1.5 mils is 350 yards. But it’s designed to be used as an “optimized zero setting”.

An example from this year hunting. Posted up at the head of a valley with 3-4 draws fanning out away from the valley. The draws and hillside are mostly timbered. We were overlooking a meadow at the base where all the draws meet. The far end of the meadow is just past 450 yards, close side is a creek at around 200-225 yards. There was a small tree at about 375’ish yards. Instead of ranging and then dialing if an elk came out, or holding over and guessing, the guy using the scope dialed 1.5 mils for a 350 yard “zero”. If the elk came out anywhere near the small tree he would hold center. Closer than the tree and towards the creek he would “Aim Short” (which amounted to a 200 yard hold), anything on the far side of the meadow, he would “Aim Long” which amounted to a 450’ish yard hold.
How I used it and generally will use it again is for quick second shots if the animal moves after the first. For example, a buddy and I lined up on a herd of bedded elk across a small draw. The initial animal was at 488 yards. I dialed for that. I also ranged the closest spot I could see as about 350’ish, and the top of the ridge at about 580. I had two tags and I knew that if a second one was towards the bottom of the hill I would aim short, at the top I could aim long. After the first shot my elk ran to left and out of sight behind some trees. The rest looped around and a gaggle of them trotted towards the top. I picked one out that looked like it might stop and as soon as it paused I held with the “Aim Long” and dropped it. The range was 557 yards. Yes I really just held a mil high on the second shot and with a normal mil reticle I could have done the same. However, there is just something intuitive about “AIM LONG” staring you in the face.
Like the “wind brackets” in the reticle, there is nothing here that you can’t do with a normal mil reticle. But, like the wind holds, the Aim Short and Aim Long are just intuitive and easy under stress.


Both the “wind brackets” and the “Aim Short and Long” are silly easy to teach others and have them be able to immediately apply it.


The half circles around the Aim Short/Long dots are for a purpose as well, and I would suggest watching the videos I linked to above for an explanation. The short of of it is, if your target is larger than the Aim Short circle- that is your wobble zone of the circles stays inside the target- your position is sufficient to make the shot. However, if the target is smaller than the Aim Short circle, or the circle is not staying inside the target due your wobble zone- it’s telling you to build a better position.




I will get into some of the ranging features in the next post….

 

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A year with a lot of use and abuse, still zeroed.

 

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Hasn’t had an update in a while, but the scope has been shot with and used quite a bit.

A zero check the other day by me and two other people.

Mine-


2nd person-



3rd person-




Zero check today-

 

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Still working as expected-

 

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Zero check after removing and reinstalling suppressor.