MK Machining Needs your Help! Good/Better/Best optics

[Tony R-MkMachining]

Hey guys, Tony from MK Machining here. I'm not on here often, but I try to check in from time to time. Today, I need help and I think this community is the best to seek this sort of information from.

I have been tasked at work to come up with a "Good, Better, Best" list of optics that revolve around the Hunting genre. I was also asked to come up with a list of optics for general long range shooting (tactical/PRS ect..) which I knocked out pretty quick, but hunting optics are so highly debated. I'm curious to hear everyone's three choices. I have a few picked out, but I will refrain mentioning those as I don't want to skew the conversation.

The driving factor is price point. For perspective, my tactical list started out at $700 for the "good", better is roughly $2,500 and best essentially doesn't have a price range, but $3,500-5,500. Every feature is a consideration (weight/size/reticle/holds zero), but again to try and not push the conversation a certain direction, I'm going to leave all of those up to you guys. I also can not come up with a more tailored use case "western spot stalk" or "white tail inside of 200", but rather the overall best picks for each category. They initially asked me to come up with the top 3 scopes of all time for every use, to which I replied, "I can't do that as optics are made with wildly varying end uses", but I can't break this down any further.


When we make public opinions known to our audience, we really try to consider every factor. We really try to remain unbiased as we sell multiple brands. Trying not to step on any toes, but will do so if the answer is really clear.

 

[alexnelon]

Good - SWFA 3-9, 3-15, NF SHV f1

Better - NF NX8, Maven RS1.2, Trijicon Tenmile 3-18, ATACR 4-16

Best - I don't think there is a scope that fits into this category for hunting.

 

[Tony R-MkMachining]

Good - SWFA 3-9, 3-15, NF SHV f1

Better - NF NX8, Maven RS1.2, Trijicon Tenmile 3-18, ATACR 4-16

Best - I don't think there is a scope that fits into this category for hunting.

Curious on your "best" statement. Do you think it just doesn't exist, or there are too many very high performers to nail one or a couple down?

 

[alexnelon]

Curious on your "best" statement. Do you think it just doesn't exist, or there are too many very high performers to nail one or a couple down?

There's not one. Nobody makes a "high end" scope that ever even considered hunting in the design process.

They all have goofy reticles and weigh 3 pounds. That's not useful for hunting. We need a 20 oz scope that holds zero, dials accurately, with a zero stop, capped windage, and is ~3-15x40, FFP with a reticle that is usable through the whole magnification range.

Nobody makes one. Nobody even tries.

 

[MagnumHntr]

Good- NF 4-16x42 mil-r- heavy at 30oz

Better- swfa 3-9x42 MQ- no capped windage

Best-Maven RS 1.2- needs NF turret caps and clicks


Good better best is mainly based on reticle being useable for ffp scopes in western hunting terrain at almost all powers. All scopes listed are also durable and retain zero

 

[nm.otter]

Some background here just in case. The overwhelming majority of current offerings don't function reliably under realistic field conditions.

 

[RockAndSage]

@Tony R-MkMachining , if you dig into the link @nm.otter posted, you'll see a lot of stuff related to reliability, as he mentioned. This has profoundly influenced a lot of the community here.

There's a segment of us who have been burned by wandering zeros or hard-breaks internally from a relatively minor drop (gun sliding down a closet wall, for example, or riding along dirt roads even), who have tended to become pretty ruthless in seeking out reliable, durable, usable optics. The tests in that link are perfectly reasonable, and realistically sufficient in protocol and repeated results to be "scientific enough", especially when you see the consistent patterns of which companies have few or no problems, and which ones end up being expensive trash.

And most of that expensive trash is what the vast majority of the hunting world would see as high-quality hunting optics.

That fact alone will make any list coming from Rokslide pretty problematic for your audience. Unless they come here and spend a few hours digging into the drop tests across a couple dozen scopes, and see the repeated results of all those "best" scopes just getting crap results, they just won't get it.

Even then, you get some severe cognitive dissonance - people seeing the repeated results, while being absolutely unwilling and unable to reconcile it all with what they "know".

Your safe route would be to focus on optical quality and lightweight - but that also wouldn't be the truth of what makes a good hunting scope. In reality.