New Sightron PLR Scope

[Ledd Slinger]

I like lower powers for setting up chronographs and higher power for shooting targets. All other power levels in between used for field shooting.

just makes no sense with today’s technology to still do a 6-24 or 8-32 when they could
just as easily do 4.5-27, 5-25 or 5-30.

7-42x is a cool range with a lot of potential that you don’t see except for on one scope from Leupold. Unfortunately the quality of that particular optic is questionable from many reviews. If more manufacturers used the 7-42 range more, it could pretty much eliminate the need for 6-24 and 8-32 scopes, and probably even a certain amount of BR scopes

 

[Jud96]

I don’t understand the difference between 5-25x or 6-24x. I prefer repeatable, durability, a solid reputation, and good glass. A 4x magnification range may be behind the times, but to me a 6-24x that’s reliable and is ~$1200 is much better in my opinion than a 4-24x with questionable reliability. There are trade offs for price and performance. I don’t think a 5-6x zoom range would make the PLR worth the extra money. I haven’t handled one yet, but it looks like a lot of scope for the money. It may not be setting the world on fire for innovation, but Sightron has a long record of repeatability and good scopes. The same can’t be said about others in the same price range.

 

[Ledd Slinger]

I don’t understand the difference between 5-25x or 6-24x. I prefer repeatable, durability, a solid reputation, and good glass. A 4x magnification range may be behind the times, but to me a 6-24x that’s reliable and is ~$1200 is much better in my opinion than a 4-24x with questionable reliability. There are trade offs for price and performance. I don’t think a 5-6x zoom range would make the PLR worth the extra money. I haven’t handled one yet, but it looks like a lot of scope for the money. It may not be setting the world on fire for innovation, but Sightron has a long record of repeatability and good scopes. The same can’t be said about others in the same price range.

My main gripe isn’t as much about the mag range as it is about Sightrons inability to innovate over all these years. They finally put a zero stop and some better turrets on basically the same SIII scope and now they want to charge a bunch more money for it. Hell no! Not getting that from me. Never listen to their consumers. The features on the PLR are way too little and way too late. Trijicon makes a far superior optic in every aspect when when you start getting into this Sightron PLR price range.

 

[19 Badger]

I still use a 8-32x SIII that I had to make my own spacer for my turret. It is mounted on my main hunting rifle because the repeatability on it is excellent. I would love to upgrade to a NF someday but if it ain't broke don't fix it.

 

[rsbhunter]

Sightron does seem to be slow on putting features on their scopes....I have 8-32 and 10-50 with the moa 2 and one with the MOA-H reticles,... Other than being "busy" the "H" reticle works in some situations.....as far as power, 32 or 50 power covers what probably 90% of shooters need. I don't know how many "experts" swear that 10- 14 power is enough for 1000 yards. Sightron customer service is great, had a rifle get knocked over and landed on the scope....match scores showed something wrong with scope...contacted Sightron, explained it was my fault, they fixed it, installed new knobs, and sent back for 0$. I would love to have a Night force, or a couple of Tangent Thetas...not unless I hit the lottery...for the money, Sightron just does what a scope is meant to do...rsbhunter

 

[shoot4fun]

Yes I actually have.

I have also made calls to NightForce, Meopta, Sightmark and Leica to drop ideas in the heads of the engineers.

Just hard to believe no one is paying attention or taking action on your ideas. You have such a positive attitude.
When I was in the firearms industry there were lots of people out there with "the next big thing" or "what people really want". Thing was, they were never really willing to put their money on the line for their wishes when we told them it could be done. All they needed to doo was order a minimum of 500 to try it.

 

[shoot4fun]

Yeah it’s like they don’t even try to listen to the demands of their customers. Completely out of touch with the current industry

It took us two-three years from a drawing on a cocktail napkin to a product announcement.
There were competitors that did it faster but they had much higher capacity in their engineering and R&D.
I will agree that Sightron is behind a lot of other players but, again, I/we do not know their capabilities to catch up.
In my case, I tried to buy a Sightron SSVED but had things I wanted they did not offer together. I could get one with zero stop or I could get one with the reticle I wanted but just didn't offer both in the same package. If they had I would likely be shooting one now.
My gripe is with NF. They still can't put yardage numbers on most of their stuff. Vortex does and, even better, those numbers seem to be dead on precise.
I could nitpick every single product line that we shooters are offered but instead I research and choose the ones that give me what I want/need in features and performance. As long as people are buying Sightron in sufficient numbers they will keep doing things the way they do them.

 

[Ledd Slinger]

Just hard to believe no one is paying attention or taking action on your ideas. You have such a positive attitude.
When I was in the firearms industry there were lots of people out there with "the next big thing" or "what people really want". Thing was, they were never really willing to put their money on the line for their wishes when we told them it could be done. All they needed to doo was order a minimum of 500 to try it.

Lol. I’m not a jerk most of the time. Lol.

Most of them listen. Long ago I spoke thru emails with Leica CS and engineering about making their rangefinders work better in bad weather. They used to be worthless in rain or light snow. I’m sure many others voiced the same concerns. Not sure how much they took my personal input to heart, but their new model CRFs and Geovids now range really well in bad weather.

Spoke with Meopta about more modern scope designs with good turrets and wider mag ranges back before they really had much of anything on the market. I was happy to hear that they were already building prototypes of the Optika6 line at the time. Found reticle options were very limited so I gave input that a big thing consumers like to see is a good amount of reticle choices in a scope. Again, not sure how much of my input they considered, but they launched the line with a lot of reticle choices that I think cover a wide range of shooters preferences.

Talked with Sightmark engineers about the Latitude 10-40x60 scope which has 1/8 MOA adjustments yet 1/10 mil turrets on it. Nothing matched up. In the end the engineers admitted it was a mistake and began producing new turrets in 1/8 MOA. In that instance, the result of that change was directly due to my input and made the changes within a month.

Talked with Sightron in the past and any input was basically a waste of breath. Basically said “well this is what we thought would be good and won’t be making any more changes any time soon.” The reps didn’t even seem very knowledgeable.

I think NightForce listens well enough, but they are too much of a bunch of snobs to ever let you think that you had anything to do with any of the new scopes they put out. And that’s ok because NF has always been pretty good at covering a lot of bases in the shooting industry that consumers desire. Can’t knock them when they’ve always been a pacesetter in the riflescope industry.

 

[Ledd Slinger]

It took us two-three years from a drawing on a cocktail napkin to a product announcement.
There were competitors that did it faster but they had much higher capacity in their engineering and R&D.
I will agree that Sightron is behind a lot of other players but, again, I/we do not know their capabilities to catch up.
In my case, I tried to buy a Sightron SSVED but had things I wanted they did not offer together. I could get one with zero stop or I could get one with the reticle I wanted but just didn't offer both in the same package. If they had I would likely be shooting one now.
My gripe is with NF. They still can't put yardage numbers on most of their stuff. Vortex does and, even better, those numbers seem to be dead on precise.
I could nitpick every single product line that we shooters are offered but instead I research and choose the ones that give me what I want/need in features and performance. As long as people are buying Sightron in sufficient numbers they will keep doing things the way they do them.

Vortex listens to its consumers very well. I stopped using their optics for a while because they just didn’t have what I wanted for quite a while. But they are constantly coming up with new designs and quality levels to meet the demands of everyone out there from hunters and varminters to many different competition shooting disciplines.

Needed a set of binos for the wife in a hurry last year for a deer hunt when she decided to go at the last minute. Picked up a set of Vortex binos for her. Came with chest bag and harness, stay on objective covers and all the other bells and whistles a bino should have. Basically everything you need to be hunt ready right out of the box and very surprisingly good glass for the money. No doubt this was a result of Vortex listening to their consumers desires and they hit the nail on the head. Although I’m not much of a consumer when it comes to Vortex products at the moment, I have great respect for them with how they constantly strive to bring the industry what they demand

 

[rsbhunter]

It surprises me that the Sightron reps wouldn't listen to you... Before I bought my first one, I was on another forum and stated that I was considering a Sightron or Meopta Optika 6 scope purchase (went with Sightron because the Meopta release dates kept getting jumped up in time)I was pm'd by the Sightron regional rep giving me his phone number to call him....not only was he very informative (talked for almost an hour) and answered every question I had, but also he shoots. He has shot in the King of Two miles, and shoots in alot of other disciplines of competition, so I think the company DOES get input into what works. No, they don't have a hundred reticles, and just now they are coming out with internal zero stop, but that is why you have the option of Vortex, Burris , Night force, Meopta and a couple dozen more. In any of the forum classified's you'll find all of the above for sale, so seems alot of people don't find 100% of what they expect. Find a brand you trust, with the features you like, optical quality, and reliability that lasts, and stick with it. If it hits where you aim, keep it...Scopes have made leaps and bounds in features and quality in recent years....enjoy ....rsbhunter

 

[Sandstorm]

Scopes have made leaps and bounds in features and quality in recent years....enjoy

Excactly right...in the end its what works for your eye's and yours alone that matters.
I have looked though enough now to know what works for me.
Sure there are a few more I will try eventually... but im good for now.

 

[Ledd Slinger]

It surprises me that the Sightron reps wouldn't listen to you... Before I bought my first one, I was on another forum and stated that I was considering a Sightron or Meopta Optika 6 scope purchase (went with Sightron because the Meopta release dates kept getting jumped up in time)I was pm'd by the Sightron regional rep giving me his phone number to call him....not only was he very informative (talked for almost an hour) and answered every question I had, but also he shoots. He has shot in the King of Two miles, and shoots in alot of other disciplines of competition, so I think the company DOES get input into what works. No, they don't have a hundred reticles, and just now they are coming out with internal zero stop, but that is why you have the option of Vortex, Burris , Night force, Meopta and a couple dozen more. In any of the forum classified's you'll find all of the above for sale, so seems alot of people don't find 100% of what they expect. Find a brand you trust, with the features you like, optical quality, and reliability that lasts, and stick with it. If it hits where you aim, keep it...Scopes have made leaps and bounds in features and quality in recent years....enjoy ....rsbhunter

Yeah I must not have got a very good rep. It was many years ago long before any of the new SVSSED, PLR, or whatever else they have now. Was basically just the S2 and S3. Probably long before Ko2M competition existed as well.

I think they did a good job on the long range benchrest 10-50 when they went to the ED glass and ultra fine focus adjustment, but they kinda messed up being that it weighs as much as a Sherman tank. Lol.

As I watch them continue to release new optics over the years, they do make improvements but still miss the mark here and there in my opinion. So I just do like you said and buy something else.

I was excited about the PLR scope line, but I can’t see how they justify the grossly excessive cost over a standard S3 with the minimal improvements they made. If the PLR had the SVSSED glass, then maybe the price would be justified, but it doesn’t. Same glass as the S3 as far as I am aware. Basically just added a zero stop to the S3 and are charging people a lot more money for it. Lame...

A good example of a quality scope makeover was the Vortex PST. The original was a good scope when released. Had a ton of bells and whistles and offered a lot of value for for the money at the time. Then they went and completely redesigned it with wider mag ranges, better reticles, bigger turrets, zero stop, better glass, and a few other things to meet shooter demands. BUT, the price didn’t change much. PST Gen 2 was released at only a couple hundred dollars more than the origInal PST. So Vortex can do all that and not charge much more, but Sightron basically just adds a zero stop to an existing scope and charges $400 more. Doesn’t make sense. Total waste of R&D effort by Sightron as far as I’m concerned.

 

[Kracken McGraw]

There’s lots of ways to look at this. I figure my new 6-24 PLR scope has the same features as a Nightforce NXS 5.5-22 and I keep a thousand in my pocket. But I don’t have that Nightforce and I may be wrong, LOL!

 

[rsbhunter]

When you get to the Razor, SVSSED, NSX and 5Xi range of scopes, you get alot of improvements over the 9-1400$ scopes for sure. I would like to see the percentage of scopes in the different price ranges sold. It makes sense that scopes in the $300-500$ range probably make up the bulk of sales for casual shooters and hunters....now, within the last 10 years, it seems that the available dollars for high priced glass has risen considerably. I shoot with guys (young , with families)that shoot $2000 + scopes on multiple rifles, and these are custom rifles that cost big $$$$. So I'm sure its a balancing act on R+D and retooling costs vs sales as to what options are offered..... Plus, as stated, there are almost unlimited choices of acceptable, good, and great optics available from alot of companies.... My next purchase honestly probably be a SVSSED , as most of my shooting is off the bench where weight doesn't matter, and reticle choice is simplified.... Or maybe a Night force, or maybe a ...........rsbhunter

 

[Ledd Slinger]

There’s lots of ways to look at this. I figure my new 6-24 PLR scope has the same features as a Nightforce NXS 5.5-22 and I keep a thousand in my pocket. But I don’t have that Nightforce and I may be wrong, LOL!

You can get a new 5.5-22 NXS with zero to stop for $1700-$1800. Pick them us used for $1100-$1400 depending on condition and features.

 

[Kracken McGraw]

You can get a new 5.5-22 NXS with zero to stop for $1700-$1800.

You’re right, I had the NX8 price in my head.

 

[Liven The Dream]

I am old and boring .
I have three Sightron Scopes on three F/Open Rifle . They work just fine . Had two Vortex GE did not care all that much for them.
I have a shooting friend that has had March ,Vortex, NF, Leupold , Tried my Sightron !! Brought two ?

A couple years back we shot with a Optical Engineer . His take on Scopes was : If your eyes like what they see and it repeats you are set ?

 

[rsbhunter]

You shouldn't, and that's meant nicely... No more than I should buy a Tangent Theta for $4000. For the longest time, bench rest was, (and to a degree) still is dominated by 1/8" dot and crosshair reticle's.....you couldn't give me one...but they did what the owners wanted...and very well . Reticles and zero stops and locking turrets and tailgates that have 10 different configurations are great, IF that floats your boat. I use scopes that have some or all of those features (except for the tailgate) , and use them all on some, and none on others....it's a good time to be alive....rsbhunter

 

[Kracken McGraw]

Midway USA has a 15% off sale on these scopes at the moment.

 

[CA_Shooter]

Why the heck would they make these turrets adjustable to 1/4 instead of 1/8 MOA