Lets not get bogged down in birds vs leaves.
We can only go by what is stated. It’s not personal.
I am not trying to denigrate or disparage the scope. I rather like it for what it is (actually have 2). I'm just trying to give my honest impressions of the glass in a thread where a guy asked what people thought of the glass. Ive compared it to the SHV, a Viper, and a Nikon. I would say the issues I have mentioned are quite distinguishable from those. I apologize if you feel that I am being either unfair or dishonest, but those are all I have for comparison and what I have stated is my observed reality.
I believe you, however in seeing lots of them, that is not how they are. I am legitimately saying I can believe it’s as you say, so I will buy it from you and you can get another to see that they aren’t like that. If it’s a MQ version, I’ll trade you this brand new one I have sitting here for it.
I do appreciate your offer to purchase, but as I stated, I like them. Maybe I am harsher on the 6x than I should be, but its probably the result of my expectations vs reality. I'm just trying to help others have proper expectations. I am responsible for my own expectations, but when people who appear authoritarian on the subject make statements like "indistinguishable from any other non-alpha scope," it makes me think the glass should be pretty darn sharp, at least as sharp as the fudd scopes I own, and that just isnt what I see.
It should not be markedly different than any other scope on 6x. If you took the reticles out of 10-15 scopes I have sitting here that range from the SWFA to $4,000 and had them all at 6x, no one could line them up by cost and be correct. Having done that, the SWFA 6x will land just above mid pack for most people.
You would say unequivocally that the 6x is as clear edge to edge as ANY non-alpha glass you have compared it to? Low light detail as well? If you can say yes without qualification, I will defer to your expertise and just say I dont know what I am looking at. If you must use a qualifier like "functionally" or cannot fully agree, then I guess I dont understand why you would critique my opinion?
Because you stated they are so bad, or yours was so bad, that you could not tell a bird from a leaf at 75 yards in daylight. Then I had multiple people message me and ask “are they really that bad?”
So only two options exist: you have a very bad sample- as in it has oil on the lenses bad, or you are making it up. I have no reason to believe you are making it up, so I am saying that something is wrong with yours. I know good glass, I am surrounded by it. I do not care about “the 10% of edge clarity”. It’s an aiming instrument, you aim in the middle. If there were better scopes for general purpose
killing, I would simply use them. Note: I said
killing I do not care at all to stare at birds with a scope or make a mountain out of a mole hill over minute differences in “glass”. And, I am no fan of anything- it is ridiculous that no manufacture can make a single scope better than an off label $219 special for
killing game animals.
Having used dozens and dozens of them, with 50 plus different people from Florida to Vermont, Arizona to Washington, and all the mountain west states- the SWFA 6x will not cost someone a big game animal in legal light in all but the most outrageous conditions- conditions that no 6x40mm scope will work in.
Three year ago during hunting season we lined up 11 or 12 scopes including a bunch that a poster posted in this thread saying were unequivocally better than the 6x SWFA, and we watched deer at 150-350 yards in open fields and tree lines switching constantly between scopes until the 8-9 people present could no longer aim at any of the deer with any scope. The scope that by far went the longest was the Minox ZP5 5-25x with THLR reticle. The second best was the 3-9x SWFA with MQ reticle and the third was the SWFA 6x with MQ. Every other scope got removed well before those three- most due to the reticles being completely unusable. Ironically, the first to be unusable was the Tangent Theta.
At least 4 Rokslide members were present for that.