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Time to Level Up, Part 3 - Optics

ballisticxlr

Like my other threads on which rifle, this doesn't really look at price concerns. It's 1 scope for everything the Desert Tech rifle will ever do with any chambering I might want from .223Rem to .338Lap. I will have dramatically fewer rifles and dramatically fewer optics in the very near future. 1 "hunting" rifle and 1 "everything" rifle which is more for competition and long range stuff than walking around through the trees with.

Top line:
Hensoldt's 3.5-26x56 in desert sand finish tops my list. - Has flouride lenses which are going to be the best glass that can be had, period. 7.4x magnification range. Available unit has kind of a basic bitch mil scale reticle (at least it's lines and not dots). >$7,000
Steiner M7xi IFS 4-28x56 in coyote brown - Has a pretty damned cool ballistics engine dealie bopper and still kickass glass. 7x magnification range. MSR2 reticle. >$5,000
S&B 3-27x56 PMII Black DT/MTC/CCW/LT - Has S&B price tag, glass compares well to Steiner M series. 9x magnification range. Available MSR2 reticle. No decent reticles in pantone (coyote brown) finish available. >$6,000
March Genesis 4x-40x52 - Mechanical adjustment is externally applied (scope tilts) on a proprietary mount, March optics are pretty spectacular. 10x magnification range. 86 mils of up. FML-TR1 reticle. > $5,000

These all go from relatively low magnification to bordering on unusably high magnification, especially the March Genesis. The reticle on the Hensoldt is poo for feature richness compared to the others but I don't actually need anything more than that. I have some Kowa spotters with flouride lenses and they're beyond anything else I've ever looked through by a mile when you're looking at very small details and trying to use color as a differentiating factor on long range and small targets, especially targets in heavy cover like animals in bushes or people in camo. I'm a little leery about the durability of those lenses but if it's in a Hensoldt then it's gotta be tough as bulls nuts.

Below those scopes sits an entire class of optics from Leica's PRS stuff to USO's Foundation series to PMII 5-25's and similar price class PMII's as well as literally a hundred others including such tank-heavy options as the good ol' Vortex Razor 2's and Khales 6-24x etc...

It's not really about value for money. When you get to optics heaven where prices above 2500 bucks are standard you've left value for money in the rearview mirror a long time ago. Now you're looking at performance decimal points per additional thousand bucks spent so it's not really about common sense. Personally I'm kind of inclined to go the Hensoldt route despite the comparatively bland reticle offering because those lenses are going to be farking STUNNING and it'll be tough as nails. The Steiner M7Xi IFS really has me thinking though as it has a really great ballistics engine in it and a kick butt reticle and the glass difference isn't that much of a thing. The March is in the list because it's so bloody unique and since the adjustment is done outside of the lens pack the optical quality is going to be so much better than it otherwise would and the reticle is pretty nice. The S&B is going to be an S&B and has a killer reticle and S&B glass.

Fight!
 
Another optics snob. I tip my hat in your direction. I was into amateur astronomy years back and was investing in Fluorite APO's like Takihashi. They offer stunning views of both the sky and the land but at prices considered absurd by most but the fringe snobs. I've backed off with rifle scopes. Got too many of them and buying in the class you recommend would empty the accounts far to rapidly. Not to mention that I'd be sleeping with them in the shop when my wife saw the balance in the accounts and they are not warm.

I'm finding that there is good value in levels below where you are buying including down to some of the Weaver, Vortex PRC line, Sightron, Nightforce and recently Trigicon. Most people would be hard pressed to tell the difference but once you can it does require a firm grip on the tongue with your teeth to buy down market.
 
I have thought about IOR optics, really do like the recons but they're so impossible to deal with even finding anymore. That said, I know someone that might just sell me their used recon and it's a great scope. I just wish they had locking turrets. I have had a case where the turret not only spun but spun and then came loose and lost the zero during a hunt. Had to find a rock to shoot at to get my POA/POI figured out and then use hold-over for the rest of the day. Ended up killing a nice kudu so no harm no foul but it was irritating and taught me a lesson about IOR turrets and real field conditions.
 
It's not "flouride lenses", it's actually "fluorite crystal lenses or glass." This is not a cooking show, it's optics.

I have heard some years back that an Airbus Hensoldt scope supposedly had fluorite crystal lenses. In 2018, Airbus sold its shares of Hensoldt and the later was an independent company.

I went to their website to look at some information on their offerings, the ZF scopes, and I could not find anywhere any information about the glass used in these riflescopes. They talk about adjustment range and zoom range as if they think theirs are special. Yawn.

On the other hand, I should think that if they still used fluorite crystal glass, they would brag about it, because it would be something special. So far, the only thing special I see about their products is the astronomical price.

Kowa does indeed have a few spotters with pure fluorite crystal glass, and they are awesome. Kowa also brags about that a great deal on their website, as they should.

Fluorite crystal glass is expensive to make, especially in larger sizes and it is fragile and affected by temperature shifts. Spotters are not subjected to the pounding that riflescopes experience and I can see where fluorite crystal glass can be used in spotters and in camera lenses, among other things.

Fluorite crystal glass does not exhibit the chromatic aberration that occurs in regular glass. This is a phenomenon created by the bending of the light and one bends the light more as the magnification increases (it's more complicated than that, but this will do for now.) In the 1960s, Nikon invented a type of glass called ED glass, where ED stands for Extra-low Dispersion. This was a step up from regular glass in controlling CA. This type of glass found its way into a lot of camera lenses and about 14 years ago, soon after its founding, Deon started using ED glass in their riflescope offerings. They were the first ones to do that. I'm not clear when Nikon came up with its next iteration, but they introduced Super ED glass in their camera lenses at some point. This Super ED glass makes extensive use of fluorite crystals. Currently Deon is the only riflescope maker to use Super ED glass and that's in their High Master lens system. The Super ED elements are the doublet at the objective, the two biggest pieces of glass in the riflescopes.

You can read an article at the marchscopes.com website where they discuss the use of a special type of Super ED glass that is much less affected by temperature changes. Remember, Super ED glass has a lot fluorite crystal glass in it and that's what makes it sensitive to temperature changes.

At this time, there are only about 5-6 riflescopes in the world which use Super ED glass, all March products. The Genesis riflescopes use that glass, as does the March-X 10-60X56 HM, the March-FX 5-42X56 and 4.5-28X52. The March 10-60X52 and the March 40-60X56 EZ also use Super ED glass, but not the glass that is immune to temperature changes. All the other March scopes use ED glass, except for the 24mm objectives.

I do not know if the current Hensoldt use fluorite crystal glass, their website is mute about that. I believe the difference in CA control between Super ED and pure fluorite crystal glass is minimal at best and probably cannot be detected. On the other hand, I will take the strength and temperature immunity of the Super ED HM glass.

If you are considering the Genesis scopes, there are two models, the original 6-60X56 and the smaller 4-40X52. Deon considers these two scopes to have the very best IQ because you are always looking through the middle of the optics due to the external adjustment. That is also why I installed my March-X 10-60X56 HM to be at or very near the middle of the optics at 1000 yards using a 20 MOA ramp and Burris XTR Signature rings. If I'm paying that kind of money for a riflescope, I will be looking through the middle for most of my shooting and not crank it up.
 
Oh look we have pointless semi-accurate pedantry and March fanboy in the house. Yay. Flourite (literally calcium flouride crystal so the pedantry is less than helpful hair splitting) doesn't have zero CA, it just has less. I have Kowa Prominar spotters and a Hensoldt spotter and a few high end astronomical telescopes, I'm familiar with the differences in the various kinds of optics that are to be had. How you think a military oriented optics supplier should describe their stuff seems even less helpful. Thanks for the input though.
 
I'm going to sleep reading this....

I look at those scope prices and specs in disbelief...would I spend that kind of cash on a few bits of glass with flashy specs? I'm happy with a Sightron or two and a couple of good Jap scopes that perform well above their price,

Then I have a look at my camera lenses. Mostly Canon. All pro grade. Tilt shifts, Macros, Zooms, Primes. DX series bodies. a Couple of Sigmas, cos the pics look nice. What a hypocrite. I think I'll retire and get a couple of scopes....
 
ballisticxlr said:
Oh look we have pointless semi-accurate pedantry and March fanboy in the house. Yay. Flourite (literally calcium flouride crystal so the pedantry is less than helpful hair splitting) doesn't have zero CA, it just has less. I have Kowa Prominar spotters and a Hensoldt spotter and a few high end astronomical telescopes, I'm familiar with the differences in the various kinds of optics that are to be had. How you think a military oriented optics supplier should describe their stuff seems even less helpful. Thanks for the input though.
Click to expand...
Remember, you're the one who went negative and snarky first.

I sure hope you shoot better than you read because you keep missing the point. If you are going to flaunt your choice of optics, you should at least know what you are planning, and in this case, thinking of getting and know it by the proper name.

In your OP, you said the Hensoldt has "flouride lenses." Even as I type the word flouride here, it gets underlined because it is NOT a word. That should have been a clue for you, but you missed it. I corrected you and called it "fluorite crystals". Notice that the word fluorite does not get underlined here, that's because it is a word. Let me spell it for you so you will see the difference. It's F, L, U, that's right the U comes before the O, R, I, T, E. You insist on spelling it F, L, O, U, R (like the stuff we use for baking.)

I realize people make that mistake pretty frequently. Another similar word that gets used quite a bit in the reloading section and is misspelled in a similar fashion is "fluorescent." Lots of people write it "flourescent."

However, in your case, you made two mistakes, your spelled it "flouride", mixing up the O and the U, and you used a D. I corrected you by saying it was "fluorite", correctly spelling it U, O and using a T and not a D. As you can see, I was not splitting rabbits, you were just very wrong and continue to be wrong.

In your snarky response, you focused on my use of the word crystal, and also switched the D in your "flouride" to a T in "flourite" the first time and to further demonstrate your utter lack of awareness and total failure at reading comprehension, you went back to "flouride" three words later.

<tl;dr>
Here's a pro tip for you: if you're going to accuse someone of being pedantic, at least understand what the pedantry was all about.

I make spelling mistakes all the time. In my defense, English is not my first language. But I try to correct them after someone kindly points them out to me.
 
ballisticxlr said:
Oh look we have pointless semi-accurate pedantry and March fanboy in the house. Yay. Flourite (literally calcium flouride crystal so the pedantry is less than helpful hair splitting) doesn't have zero CA, it just has less. I have Kowa Prominar spotters and a Hensoldt spotter and a few high end astronomical telescopes, I'm familiar with the differences in the various kinds of optics that are to be had. How you think a military oriented optics supplier should describe their stuff seems even less helpful. Thanks for the input though.
Click to expand...

He does like March but what he articulates with respect to lens construction and IQ is correct based on my experience.

As to specifics of construction of specific brands of scopes, if the manufacturer fails to deliver specifications that would set their scopes apart then it leaves one wondering why. Televue is known for that in the refractor market. Very good quality scopes but shy on the details of the glass they use. They call it a special ED glass. CA free but not to the level of fluorite. Most of the quality glass is made by a relatively small number of producers. That glass is bought in lots of a specific composition and sent off to be ground. It is often the design of the grind that is targeted at solving a specific problem that is the magic sauce. Not to mention the magic sauce's associated with lens coatings. Still, not as much variability as one would presume.

Fluorite crystal is a different animal. Grown in a lab rather than mined in a desert. Expensive and worth the money if one can afford it. This is an old thread that talks in detail about the attributes of IQ. One can go much deeper than that but then you start getting into the math of it all and... well... screw that.

ED glass, CA and mirage

Since I can't shoot rifles at long range during the Wuhan virus pandemic, I can at least think about it. So, while reflecting on the atmospheric vagaries than engender issue looking at a target on 1000 yards, I dedicate a few neurons to try to explain why I believe that ED glass helps tame the...
forum.accurateshooter.com
 
@ballisticxlr I sure hope you come back to this thread as I was looking forward to reading about your discoveries and impressions with the various riflescopes you were considering.

Let's just put the fluorite/flouride kerfuffle behind us and let's move on because I think you may have a lot to contribute here. Just keep in mind that we're not here to argue (well, not too much,) we are here to talk, learn, bounce ideas off each other, and make fun of people who like the .270 Winchester. Oh, and those who drive blue cars.
 
I bought a scope and it's a pretty astonishing bit of kit. I don't feel like I owe it to anyone to participate further or add more detail. Our resident Chelonian's behavior has thoroughly soured me on literally any further participation in any gun forum that doesn't have the dedicated purpose of sarcasm and snark. At least in such places you expect unhelpful replies and walls of inane off-topic blather rather than useful answers to honest questions. Turtle displays is exactly the instinctively hostile and self-superior jibber jabber that drives people away from the sport and I don't need it.

I bring more than 100 people per year into the shooting sports through direct advocacy and training courses that I teach and seeing the kind of behavior that's tolerated around here from individuals like Turtle makes me wonder if I'm doing them a solid by exposing them to a world of fun or if it's actually a disservice and I'm just setting them up to be pointlessly chewed on by egocentric jerks that can't take it when told when to STFU and actually contribute instead of resorting to pointless pedantry.

Thank you to the 3 of you that actually contributed. I took your words very seriously and investigated appropriately before making my final decision. You've acted with class and I will assume you are a credit to the sport. Have a wonderful day.

Turtle, your internally logically inconsistent last post of contrition does not make up for your initial behavior. Rather, quite the opposite. You should perhaps look at that last post and see why we don't need exactly your attitude in the sport at all.
 
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