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Posted: 12/28/2003 5:41:12 PM EDT
| I was thinking of getting their 6-20 scope and was wondering how clear they where on the high power say compared to Leuys? |
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You'll be hard pressed to find someone with the equipment to measure the resolution of these scopes that is actually going to use it and then publish the results. I have an old first generation Springfield Armory 4-14 56mm and an almost brand-new Leupold Vari-X III tactical at 4.5-14 40mm. My naked eyes can't see the difference in resolution and I can make out stop lights at what must be about 2000 yards away (my laser isn't good for that distance) about six city blocks and a highway away. Both scopes are efficient and use mulitcoated lens. The SA is a much larger scope because of it's 56mm objective. The SA tube is 30mm, the Leupold 1". It's cloudy and overcast here this morning - near perfect lighting conditions. I have resolution charts at work and I'll see if I can steal one or how well they copy with a nice copy machine. Wonder if the guy across the street will mind if I hang the thing up on his garage door and point various weapons and scopes at it? They don't seem to mind me waving the rifles out the window pointing them at the stop lights over the top of their house. |
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Quoted: Alot of the better gunshops in Texas have just the thing mentioned above (resolution chart) in their store, so comparisions can be made before purchase, by eyeballing through different brands, they work very well (the charts). Mike Got to be in a big shop! Ideally you'd want the thing posted about 50 yards away - longer if possible. Many scopes can't focus up as close as 25 or 50 feet - why you'd need a scope to hit something at that range is questionable anyways. Many of the .22 LR scopes are constructed to focus that close though. Our resolution chart sits in a calibrated light box for use with video cameras. All I need is the glass slide portion for a few minutes worth of time on the copy machine [:)]. |
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Quoted: Quoted: Alot of the better gunshops in Texas have just the thing mentioned above (resolution chart) in their store, so comparisions can be made before purchase, by eyeballing through different brands, they work very well (the charts). Mike Got to be in a big shop! Ideally you'd want the thing posted about 50 yards away - longer if possible. Many scopes can't focus up as close as 25 or 50 feet - why you'd need a scope to hit something at that range is questionable anyways. Many of the .22 LR scopes are constructed to focus that close though. Our resolution chart sits in a calibrated light box for use with video cameras. All I need is the glass slide portion for a few minutes worth of time on the copy machine [:)]. Well ya know what they say IS TRUE, Paul [b]"Everything really is bigger in Texas"[/b] [;)], and at the Katy location Carter's Country has one stuck on the upper end corner of the store, opposite the opposing corner where the scopes are sold. Guess it's about 50+ feet away with a larger pattern up top graduated to a small tighter pattern the lower down the paper. It works, as you definately determine which scope allows crisper viewing in the tighter patterned area. Leupys have no problem focusing at the shorter ranges, at least in Vari-X III and higher end scopes. While cheaper scopes are fine for the most part if used in the "hunting" set it and forget it type mode, when it comes to precision optics, I like many, know only one brand, Leupold. Mike |
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i have a 6-20x56 3rd gen. i too was goign to get rid of it and get a leupold. then i realised there wasn't a damn thing wrong with it. i had been listening to people badmouthing springfield, and failed to actually sit down with the scope and try it out. i like mine, big as it may be. my father's got an older 6-20x56. not 3rd gen. the rheostat went out on it. so, i'd avoid buying the used older ones. |
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There must be a reason the Leupolds cost twice, and US Optics cost three or four times more than the Springfield Armory scopes. It couldn't be for just the name right. Like Mercedes Benz and Volvos cost several times than the equal Ford. I'm the kind of car driver that changes the oil every 3000 miles, parks at the far end of the lot, and drives carefully. A Ford is all that I will ever need. Whatever the differnce that MB and Volvo put into their cars I don't [i]think[/i] I'll ever need. I have to buy Fords so that I can continue to make the mortgage payment and put food on the table. If I made twice my current military salary I might be driving a nice SL500 Mercedes Benz rather than a five year old compact SUV. I also might be hanging Leupolds off of all my rifles as it is I was able to cherry pick one off the SWFA samplelist marked down a bunch because the box was damaged. Life is full of compromises that must be done carefully and balanced against performance. |
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Quoted: There must be a reason the Leupolds cost twice, and US Optics cost three or four times more than the Springfield Armory scopes. It couldn't be for just the name right. ...... No, it's not just for the name (at least as far as the Leupold is concerned, I don't own any USO optics so I can't comment). I owned a 3rd gen SA scope, and a good friend owned one right after I got rid of mine. With all due respect, my SA scope did work, relatively speaking, and I do actually like the gov reticle, where a lot of people don't. But,.... the quality on the SA scope is lacking. First of all, they don't track all that precise. They work, but they are not ON. If you will attempt the box test with your SA scope at the range, you may see what I am tlaking about. For anyone that doesn't know what the box test is, basically place one shot at 100 yards aiming at bullseye. Then adjust windage 2 moa over, shoot aiming at same bullseye, then adjust elev knob down 2 moa, shoot aiming at bullseye, move windage back to right 2 moa, shoot, and then adjust elev back up 2 moa. Your last shot should be where your first shot was, and your shots should all be making somewhat of a box configuration. When I did this test with my Springfield Armory 3rd Gen 3.5-14x56 scope, it was obvious that the tracking was not at all accurate. My Leupold and Nightforce are completely on their tracking in this test. Now, that was just one SA scope. So, when my buddy put one on his 700P with Badger base and rings also, we did the test again. Pretty much same conclusion, the box was screwed up by a couple of moa. Plus, the next weeks outing back to the range, something broke inside of his scope after about 5 shots (.308). Then the tracking was WAAAYYYY off. He had to send it back to SA and they did fix it and got it back to him within 3 weeks (that was good service, kudos to SA for that atleast). As soon as my buddy got his scope back, it went on eBay and he then bought a Loopy M3 and is very glad he did. Another problem with the scopes is the internal bubble level. The scope I had, the one my buddy had, and about 4 out of the 5 SA scopes one of my dealers had, the bubble levels were all off. I noticed mine being off when I installed my scope, so I disregared the bubble level. But my buddy didn't, he installed his scope to his rifle using the internal bubble level. Needless to say, the bubble level was right on with the gun's levelness (is that a word?), but at the same time the crosshairs were quite canted. So pretty much, we figured the internal bubble sounds nice, but is completely useless when it isn't accurate. Now for my last gripe about the SA optics, the glass sucks. I didn't know how bad it sucked until I compared side by side my SA and a VXIII leupold. The difference was shocking to me at 300 yards. I mean come on, the SA scopes aren't that much cheaper than a decent Leupold VariXIII scope. You don't have to buy the biggest and badest Leupold to get quality, there are many VXIII scopes within a hundred bucks or so of the SA scopes. I'm not saying all this to really bash SA. I really like their weapons and I'm pretty satisfied with their customer support, I'm just very dissapointed in their optics. I want to try and let people know some things that I didn't know and realize about these scopes when I bought mine before they put down hard earned money on them. People can make up their own decisions on what they want to do with their money, but it's nice to have a collection of information from both sides of the fence. That's what my info here, and a lot of other people's info in those links I posted above in my earlier post are supposed to do. Depending on how you use the scope, the deficiencies in the SA scope may never matter. I just think for the price SA is charging for those babies, they should be much better. |
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It works, but its huge. With the smaller 50MM lense they might actually see military use. It would be a heck of a scope for a DMR in Afghanistan. I knew a guy in Alaska who killed a lot of Caribou at long range (500-800yds) with his. His dad was a vietnam war Marine sniper, and he was lucky enough to have the help doping wind. Last I talked to him he killed 58 caribou in one season filling proxy tags for old people who couldn't hunt but needed food. |
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Now for my last gripe about the SA optics, the glass sucks. I didn't know how bad it sucked until I compared side by side my SA and a VXIII leupold. The difference was shocking to me at 300 yards. I mean come on, the SA scopes aren't that much cheaper than a decent Leupold VariXIII scope. You don't have to buy the biggest and badest Leupold to get quality, there are many VXIII scopes within a hundred bucks or so of the SA scopes Looking at the street lights about six city blocks way I can't see the difference at the same power. If there's a difference there's not enough to make the difference when shooting something the size of a human at that range. With either scope I can read printing 5/8" high lettering (license plate registration months) at 90 yards (laser measured) extracting that I figure I could make out a 9" human face at 1200 yards. I wouldn't know of a reason to shoot someone with a .308 rifle at ranges beyond that. Of course you know that you don't use come ups and downs with the Springfield Armory scopes as they have the built-in no-moving-parts bullet drop compensator right? Windage adjustments might be an issue but where I shoot I rarely see more than 3-5 miles an hour of wind. At 1500 feet that's a bit more than 9 inches of drift. I had planned on doing some more long range work today but woke up feeling like I was coming down with a cold. If I feel better tomorrow I'll tote the Remington out and have some side-by-side shooting done with the Leupold (which is torqued down properly) with the Springfield scope mounted in ARMS #22 rings. I'll also do the tracking exercise though I typically use Kentucky windage as I get to shoot in all four compass directions up in the high desert. I wanted to re-torque the scope anyways [rolleyes] and needed a reason to buy my own wrench rather than borrowing my Uncle Sams' over night. The one question that will remain is the practical difference in the hands of the weapon operator. 25 years ago I use to go to the range and get upset at all the old guys with $2500 rifles shooting - now I'm one of those guys [lol]. There comes the point of diminshing returns where to get 99% accuracy it costs X dollars. To get 99.9% it costs 2x, to get 99.99% it costs 4X at what point does the practical limitation of the shooter and other variables (weather: temp, humidity, wind gusts) create a greater tollerance than the accuracy of the rifle. I don't shoot targets except for practicing for shooting people >.< Getting that last 0.05 of an inch improvement doesn't excite me as it's not going to make a practicial difference to me or my intent. Most weapons are more accurate by a large measure than their operators. Sitting on a concrete bench, shooting over bags, at a known distance target optimize conditions and attempt to remove all the flaws from the system - the operator. Shooting at people rather than targets the required accuracy is much lower. Hit-or-miss that's it. Either I can hit an 8" paper plate at some unknown distance or I miss it. As long as the buyer of the weapon system understands the weapon's purpose and the limitations of it and the operator all things are in balance. I do have one target rig - a Ruger in .22-250 that I preform all the normal voodoo rights seeking that last 0.05 of an inch of accuracy. I shoot with weighed and sorted bullets and cartridges, hand thrown power charges, using primers from the same lot ... |
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OK more data gathered. First I found that a real resolution chart is real money - about $100 from [url]http://www.sinepatterns.com/[/url] so that's out of the question for now. I sat up a bench and put both a Springfield Armory 4-14 x 50mm first generation scope next to a Leupold Vari-X III 4.5-14 x 40mm black ring tactical with mil-dot and adjustable objective. I mounted two pieces of wood to a larger piece used as a bench and then two sections of weaver rail to the tops. I adjusted the Leupold's AO and then each scopes focus for best results. I set each scope for 14x. At the distance of 31 yards (93 feet) I was able to clearly read printing 0.18" of an inch tall and with difficultly 0.14" - but that could be due to my 20:20 vision. If there was brightness difference I couldn't tell as I was viewing a high-contrast object in nearly full mid-day sunlight. Objects seemed as sharp edge-to-edge. Doing the math the smaller print works out to be 0.0071 degrees and the larger 0.0092 degrees. The smaller lettering was 25 arc seconds or 0.42 minutes of angle. With either scope I would expect to read lettering 1.3" high at 900 feet which I suspect is plenty good enough for most social work. I'm suspecting that my eyes were the limit here rather than the scopes. For those that suspect that the Springfield might not be rugged I did a one drop test onto a concrete surface from the height of 30.5" high (NOT ON PURPOSE! [shock]). The scope simply rolled off the end of the optical table I had built and landed what looked to be dead nutz square on it's side. No rattles, no broken glass and the controls seem to work still. If anyone wants to try that with their Leupold let me know and I'll give you my shipping address [:)] I've got a Weaver V16 Classic scope that I'll test out side-by-side with the others next time I get the urge. I need another piece of weaver railing. If anyone can 'splain me how to get my digital camera to do a decent job taking pictures though the scopes I'll have at it. I tried using diopter close-up lens and that didn't work. I've got a really nice close-up auto-bellows for my film cameras that I might have to dust off. I was using my Olympus with a 49mm ring size as it was a pretty good match to the size of the scope I'm thinking I should try a smaller piece of glass so I'll try my Nikon with its tiny 28mm len next time. |
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