After owning the Swarovski dS 5-25x52 P Riflescope for a little less than a year, and now that it is available for sale in the United States, I will share my experiences in this review on what I have learned. I will also answer some frequently asked questions you guys have on this crazy do-it-all digital rifle scope.
The Setup
As soon as I received Swarovski's dS rifle scope, I threw it on my Blaser R8 that I have already broke in. I started sighting it in immediately. First, I did a rough boresight by taking out the bolt housing, looking down the barrel (unloaded, safely and carefully), and adjusting the crosshairs to match. When I got to the range, I started with a three round group. My shots were about three inches high and one inch to the left. When it comes to adjusting the scope, it covers everything you need to zero the rifle. You detach the top turret cover which exposes the scopes battery and two adjustment tools. Then, you take off the adjustment covers on the front of the scope, insert adjustment turret tool and then, zero like normal. Below is a photo of my five shot group at 200 yards with a 300 win mag, after I had the gun zeroed.
Now that I had zeroed the rifle with the scope, I had to upload my load info to the scope using Swarvoski’s dS Configurator app. The first step is linking your scope’s Bluetooth to your phone’s dS app. You do this by holding the + and the – down for three seconds at the same time until the light on top starts blinking, indicating that the scope is in pairing mode. Then you click “find my scope” on the app. The scope’s serial number will show up on the app. If the serial matches your scope, then you can hit continue. On the next page, you will set your sight height above the bore, ammunition type, conditions, zero range; then you plug in fps reading, the temperature, and your good to go. This dS scope offers tons of scope display customization options such as line thickness to even calculating how much energy your bullet has at any distance. After fully customizing your display, tap upload on the app, and your dS rifle scope is set up and ready to shoot.
My Thoughts
This scope is crazy! I have taken out three different shooters, of which none have ever shot more than 300 yards or turned a turret in their lives. After zeroing the weapon and a quick lesson on how to evaluate wind speed, they were all maintaining tight clusters at 800 yards with a 5 MPH crosswind. Two of them even hit 1000 yards before a storm weathered us off the range.
I often get comments about the weight of Swarovski’s dS scope being too heavy (38.4 oz). As a backcountry hunter myself, I do understand the importance of counting ounces and staying light. However, if you add up the weight of a top-end scope and range finder that can read angle, distance, temperature, and air pressure that is good out to 1400 yards, you’ll be surprised how much lighter, and more sophisticated this dS scope is. Another critique I have heard about this scope is the accuracy of the rangefinder to the crosshairs. To test this, I maxed out the down angle and windage adjustment on my dS. I still got consistent dead center range readings of the crosshairs on a ten inch by ten inch piece of steel at 1000 yards. With my year of playing around with this scope and over 2500 rounds through several different rifles in different calibers, I have had no problems or failures. As with any review, I must find a critique on this scope. This scope has a functional temperature of +14 °F to +131 °F. I called Swarovski to ask why the low-end operational temperature is +14°F. They told me this is because the battery manufacturer doesn’t guarantee that the battery will work past that point. I have hunted at 12,000 feet in the Rockies with temps hovering around 0 °F, and after four days of hunting, I had no issues with the scope functions. You can see my kill shot of a goat I got that trip at 500 yards below!
The Verdict
This scope will change the way you hunt, and the MSRP price point of $4500 is a reasonable price for this do-it-all rifle scope. If I had to sum up this scope in one sentence, it would be “This scope takes everyday shooters and turns them into confident, mid to long range hunters with a push of a button.”
Find more information or purchase the Swarvoski dS 5-25x52 P Digital Rifle Scope here.
The Setup
As soon as I received Swarovski's dS rifle scope, I threw it on my Blaser R8 that I have already broke in. I started sighting it in immediately. First, I did a rough boresight by taking out the bolt housing, looking down the barrel (unloaded, safely and carefully), and adjusting the crosshairs to match. When I got to the range, I started with a three round group. My shots were about three inches high and one inch to the left. When it comes to adjusting the scope, it covers everything you need to zero the rifle. You detach the top turret cover which exposes the scopes battery and two adjustment tools. Then, you take off the adjustment covers on the front of the scope, insert adjustment turret tool and then, zero like normal. Below is a photo of my five shot group at 200 yards with a 300 win mag, after I had the gun zeroed.
Now that I had zeroed the rifle with the scope, I had to upload my load info to the scope using Swarvoski’s dS Configurator app. The first step is linking your scope’s Bluetooth to your phone’s dS app. You do this by holding the + and the – down for three seconds at the same time until the light on top starts blinking, indicating that the scope is in pairing mode. Then you click “find my scope” on the app. The scope’s serial number will show up on the app. If the serial matches your scope, then you can hit continue. On the next page, you will set your sight height above the bore, ammunition type, conditions, zero range; then you plug in fps reading, the temperature, and your good to go. This dS scope offers tons of scope display customization options such as line thickness to even calculating how much energy your bullet has at any distance. After fully customizing your display, tap upload on the app, and your dS rifle scope is set up and ready to shoot.
My Thoughts
This scope is crazy! I have taken out three different shooters, of which none have ever shot more than 300 yards or turned a turret in their lives. After zeroing the weapon and a quick lesson on how to evaluate wind speed, they were all maintaining tight clusters at 800 yards with a 5 MPH crosswind. Two of them even hit 1000 yards before a storm weathered us off the range.
I often get comments about the weight of Swarovski’s dS scope being too heavy (38.4 oz). As a backcountry hunter myself, I do understand the importance of counting ounces and staying light. However, if you add up the weight of a top-end scope and range finder that can read angle, distance, temperature, and air pressure that is good out to 1400 yards, you’ll be surprised how much lighter, and more sophisticated this dS scope is. Another critique I have heard about this scope is the accuracy of the rangefinder to the crosshairs. To test this, I maxed out the down angle and windage adjustment on my dS. I still got consistent dead center range readings of the crosshairs on a ten inch by ten inch piece of steel at 1000 yards. With my year of playing around with this scope and over 2500 rounds through several different rifles in different calibers, I have had no problems or failures. As with any review, I must find a critique on this scope. This scope has a functional temperature of +14 °F to +131 °F. I called Swarovski to ask why the low-end operational temperature is +14°F. They told me this is because the battery manufacturer doesn’t guarantee that the battery will work past that point. I have hunted at 12,000 feet in the Rockies with temps hovering around 0 °F, and after four days of hunting, I had no issues with the scope functions. You can see my kill shot of a goat I got that trip at 500 yards below!
The Verdict
This scope will change the way you hunt, and the MSRP price point of $4500 is a reasonable price for this do-it-all rifle scope. If I had to sum up this scope in one sentence, it would be “This scope takes everyday shooters and turns them into confident, mid to long range hunters with a push of a button.”
Find more information or purchase the Swarvoski dS 5-25x52 P Digital Rifle Scope here.
