The unicorn

FOTIS

Range Officer
Staff member
Oct 30, 2004
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How about a scope that tracks like an NF but is svelte and lightweight like a Leupold for ultralight rifles.... Say a ultralight 257 wby. Is there such a unicorn??
 
How light are we talking? sub 1lb? The Swaro Z5 3.5-18x44 is 15.9 oz. probably the best LW money can buy. Not cheap at $1300 or so.
 
There’s a fellow on Rokslide that must have a day job that requires a ton of scoped shooting with lots of different glass. He says there is no such thing. The absolute closest you can get to light weight, variable, and dial reliably without fail is the SWFA SS 3-9 in his experience. Glass is not the best, eye relief isn’t either. Go figure. And it’s cheap.

Seems like there should be a better way. I guess the mechanics of the thing just require a certain level of ruggedness and the cost of that is weight.

Edit: Recent discussion in case you missed it.

https://www.rokslide.com/forums/threads ... st.150421/
 
26NosFan":3by2n5fl said:
How light are we talking? sub 1lb? The Swaro Z5 3.5-18x44 is 15.9 oz. probably the best LW money can buy. Not cheap at $1300 or so.

Thought about it many times and I have no problem paying that even though it would take forever to pay it off but their tracking is not spectacular
 
You won’t find better than that March at 21 oz. at least I never did


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Fotis,

Without knowing acceptable magnification, weight allowances, etc. The best I can write is that their are a number of non-US manufacturers that might make some interesting 1" scopes. I could be wrong, but for best in class weight I don't think an ultralight 30mm scope is what you are after.

GPO - is the glass manufacturing consortium that makes glass for a lot of the big European companies. GPO USA is doing some OEM stuff at very reasonable prices. I have not had a chance to play with any of their stuff yet, but they might be worth a few minutes investigation, their 4-12 Passion 3X looks promising. Report I read, to paraphrase, was that they wanted to try the USA market as their European customers were missing American needs (generic examples from Europe - Zeiss dropped 1" tubes, bad turret tracking, limited turret options, overly heavy and large objectives for night hunting, excessive distribution / importation costs into the US, etc.) https://gpo-usa.com/riflescopes-2/

The Maven RS2 comes readily to mind. As it is pretty new, their isn't a lot written on its tracking. Custom turrets I believe could be made for it, but it isn't designed for a large adjustment range.

Vixen scopes, I don't know much about other than a guy I know uses what I think is a 4-12 or 4-16 at about 15 ounces. He indicated that tracking was acceptable for his uses, but it seemed a little mushy to me.

Tract 2-10's usually are in the 18 ounce range, so heavier than what you want, but they seem solid. Same with the discontinued Zeiss HD5's, I am running three 3-15's with target turrets and they are repeatable out to 500 yards but weight is in the 18 oz range.
 
Going to try out the 3-12 US OPTICS TS-12, 18oz and good reputation for tracking. I’ll keep you posted how I like it once it comes.


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Thebear_78":3145u4ch said:
Going to try out the 3-12 US OPTICS TS-12, 18oz and good reputation for tracking. I’ll keep you posted how I like it once it comes.


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Bear , did you buy the US optics ? if so how do you like it ?
 
I did. It’s a very short, compact little scope. It was too short in fact to mount on my havak 300 win mag.

It was about perfect in my tikka T1x 22lr trainer.

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In this role it has excelled. It’s clear, sharp image, good milling reticle. I have done a LOT of dailing with it and it has tracked perfectly. You have to do a lot of turret twisting to get the 22lr subs on target at 300+ yards.

My only complaint is the lack of a zero stop. I try to remember to return it to zero every time I’m done shooting but on several occasions I’ve neglected to return it to zero. Next trip out and have no idea where it set at. Generally requiring a few shots at a clean target at 25 yards to figure out what’s up.

As a rimfire scope it’s amazing and I wouldn’t hesitate to put on an Ar15 or something more forgiving of ring spacing.


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sounds good . I know I'd get lost without a zero stop . thanks for the write up . Jim
 
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