Nightforce SHV 3-10x40mm Field Eval

[Formidilosus]

This is a field evaluation of the NF SHV 3-10x40mm SFP 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 1.5” at 100 yards.

The scope:






Turrets:

Elevation and windage turrets are capped, revolution indicated, and 10 MOA per rev.






Reticle:

Standard duplex-






Con’t….

 

[Formidilosus]

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 semi frozen soil, with about 1/2” of snow on top.

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


The rings were degreased and installed with 65 in-lbs on base screws, and 18 in-lbs on ring cap screws (Hawkins states 25 in-lbs) as per the standard for the evals.


Boresighted, aimed at center dot, and shot three rounds. Asjusted UP 5 MOA, and RIGHT 2.75moa. Then remaining 7 rounds on left dot. Made a final adjustment of UP .25 and LEFT .25 MOA. Two shots on center dot to confirm.




Drop Eval-


18” drops had no effect. The 36” drops shot all around the dot. Went back to zero target and confirmed zero-




As per standard, scope rings cap screws were tightened to 25 in-lbs, zero was confirmed, and the drops were repeated- except all drops were from 36”, and there were 3x36” drops per shot, and then 9x36” drops for a shot, then a drop from mid chest (shot #8) for a total of 28 drops.



Only the drop from mid chest caused a shift.




RTZ:

From shot #8 on the drop portion, straight to RTZ-


Adjusted left .25 MOA.



Adjustment (tracking):

Used the reticle in the spotting scope to measure between each dot and it came out to 23 MOA.




Bottom “0” dot-



Top, should have been 23 MOA-



Instead it gave approx a 21.75 MOA correction. For my math in public of a 6% error.






Con’t…

 

[Formidilosus]

Zero went without issue, RTZ is no problem, adjustment value per click is off 6% or so, it is consistent.
18 in-lbs proves once again to let scopes slip/shift zero. Once tightened to 25 in-lbs no shifts were observed from 36” drops.


Overall the scope performed as every other SHV I have seen has- not quite bomb proof maybe, but works without issue and holds zero. The turrets are completely usable for dialing, and the reticle is excellent for low light use.

 

[Formidilosus]

Haven’t updated this in a bit, but the scope has been used pretty steadily. No issues at all.

 

[Formidilosus]

Zero check today-

 

[Formidilosus]

Zero check-

 

[Formidilosus]

Was used heavily the last few weeks. No issues. Dialed out to 1,110 yards.

 

[Formidilosus]

Still working without incident. Will look, but it is getting close to 3,000 rounds.

 

[Formidilosus]

This scope is done. Passed 3,000 rounds without issue at all.