Today I conducted the first part of the field eval on this scope.
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 packed, semi crusted snow.
Being that so many want to say that the method I use to mount scopes using 18 in-lbs wet torque when mounting and using thread locker is incorrect, for the last few scopes I have done it exactly as that manufacturer has stated. That is most state 15-18 in-lbs and do not specify wet or dry. Unsurprising have been the results…
I mounted this Trijicon directly after pulling another scope out of the rings, without removing the rings from that rifle. (That scope held zero through the drops BTW). I torqued 16 in-lbs dry and started shooting.
Left side of target below dot is first round after 25 yard bore sight. The rounds on the lower left of the dot is the ten round group after the adjustment from the first. The center target is the drop evaluation. The three 18” drops went fine, as well as the first two 36” drops. The third drop caused the POI to shift approximately 4 inches to the right. A second shot confirmed it stayed there.
Looking at the scope it was visible that it had slipped in the rings slightly. Whether that was the cause of the zero shift or not wasn’t certain. So, I pasted the target, torqued the ring caps to 20 in-lbs and started over. The first try won’t count against it as 16 in-lbs will let scopes move.
Zero in the left dot with 11 rounds in it I think. Center is drop eval. The 18” drops had no shift, but 2 of the 36” drops caused a miss on the dot, and the 3x3 36” drops missed as well. The RTZ target is the right dot. The first two shots are the one outside the dot and the one just barely touching. Then it settled back in.
To check adjustments I used the reticle and measured 25 moa between the top and bottom dots. It adjusted to within 2%.
The overall groups are slightly larger than they should be for this lot of ammunition, and dropping it at 36” definitely caused some issues. There is a slight left bias to the zero and it needed .25 MOA right to be correct. However it did not lose zero even though the groups opened up from the drops- that is I did not need to rezero the scope from the drops. This concerning, but whether the POI shifts are from the erector getting bound up or something else I do not know yet. I will take it apart, degrease, loctite and torque it as per standard, and reshoot it.
Initial thoughts:
This is a different scope than the Tenmile, or at least it does feel different in ways. From the turret feel to the parallax knob feel, it’s just slightly different. Reminds me in use of another LOW scope with similar specs actually. Except that one has catastrophic loss of zero. The reticle is decent if not good for its type, the eyebox is good, and the “glass@ good. Parallax knob is stiff.
Cont…
