swavescatter
Pain in the butt!
- Joined
- Apr 3, 2021
- Messages
- 1,213
Background: I bought the new 18's and they sucked hard. Sig said they meet spec and I'm just a crybaby, even though I provided proof. Relevant threads here here here here.
Got my 18x50 HDX Pro's back from Sig with a note that they're amazing and I'm an idiot. Grabbed another set of 18x50 HDX Pro's from Sportsman's, as well as the new 16x50 HDX Pro's to compare against my 16x42's.
Bottom line - only the 18x50 pair that I got from Sportsman's could be imagined to be slightly better optically if you try really really hard. You get MAYBE two minutes more glassing time when it's dark. The difference between 18x50's was noticeable and repeatable. I could mix them up and pick which one was which based on image clarity. Sig must have pretty loose specs for their QC. The 16x50's were atrociously bad. Holy cow.
Save your money - don't buy the HDX Pro's.
Sig Sauer 16x42 Zulu6 HDX:
Sig Sauer 16x50 Zulu6 HDX Pro
Sig Sauer 18x50 Zulu6 HDX Pro #1
Sig Sauer 18x50 Zulu6 HDX Pro #2
These were taken during sunset, so the color isn't something that can be compared. I wanted to stick around until sunset to test the low light performance. No pics of that, but there was a very small improvement after last light. Not a $700 improvement for sure.
Got my 18x50 HDX Pro's back from Sig with a note that they're amazing and I'm an idiot. Grabbed another set of 18x50 HDX Pro's from Sportsman's, as well as the new 16x50 HDX Pro's to compare against my 16x42's.
Bottom line - only the 18x50 pair that I got from Sportsman's could be imagined to be slightly better optically if you try really really hard. You get MAYBE two minutes more glassing time when it's dark. The difference between 18x50's was noticeable and repeatable. I could mix them up and pick which one was which based on image clarity. Sig must have pretty loose specs for their QC. The 16x50's were atrociously bad. Holy cow.
Save your money - don't buy the HDX Pro's.
Sig Sauer 16x42 Zulu6 HDX:
Sig Sauer 16x50 Zulu6 HDX Pro
Sig Sauer 18x50 Zulu6 HDX Pro #1
Sig Sauer 18x50 Zulu6 HDX Pro #2
These were taken during sunset, so the color isn't something that can be compared. I wanted to stick around until sunset to test the low light performance. No pics of that, but there was a very small improvement after last light. Not a $700 improvement for sure.
