There is naturally a lively thread on the Hide. Noone has seen the scope yet and opinions are already very... passionate, but I like threads like this. It gives me an idea of how people look at these.
https://www.snipershide.com/shooting/threads/nightforce-atacr-4-20-x50.7051679/
Still, I would not make too many early conclusions. Nightforce has a reputation for testing their design very thoroughly before introducing them and I expect that they spent a lot of time ironing out the kinks in the design. I generally like ATACR scopes and while I may not always agree with the design choices they make with these products, it is a matter of personal preference to a significant degree. These are very good scopes and I expect the new 4-20x50 to be very competent as well.
https://www.nightforceoptics.com/riflescopes/atacr/atacr-4-20x50-f1
The new 4-20x50 is interesting in that at $3k, there aren't all that many high end scope of similar configurations that compete directly against it money-wise. The only one I can think offhand is March 3-24x52 which is more of a crossover design with significantly broader range of FOVs and much lower weight. I have one of these and like it quite a bit. It probably has shallower depth of field than the new Nightforce, but that remains to be seen. Both focus very close and both have a lot of adjustment range.
March 3-24x52 is within $50 of the new Nightforce. Kahles K318i is about $300 more. ZCO is about $600 more. New March 4.5-28x52 (which will be a VERY strong competitor) is also about $600 more.
US Optics FDN 17x 3.2-17x50 is about $300 less. I know US Optics has a spotty history with all the ownership changes, but I kinda like this new scope and it has not given any problem in quite a few months that I've had it (full review coming shortly). Almost comparable adjustment range to the NF, but not nearly as close of a focus though. USO is longer, but lighter. Elevation turret is very good.
I have both the 3-24x52 March and the 3.2-17x50 USO. USO tunnels on low power, but the new Nightforce probably does as well. March does not, so the FOV range is notably wider. March is 10 ounces lighter than NF and USO splits the difference between them.
Everything else with a 50mm or thereabouts is either a significantly more expensive (Schmidt, Tangent, ZCO and the new 4.5-28x52 March) or a lot less expensive. In this case, I am viewing price difference of ~20% as significant.
There are really three fundamental "high level" so to speak questions to answer:
1) Why would you buy the new Nightforce over the direct competitions (March, Kahles, USO)??
2) Why would you buy the significantly more expensive scopes over the Nightforce? ZCO, S&B, Tangent, 4.5-28x52 March?
3) Why would the new Nightforce over the increasingly competent $1500-$2000 options like the Nexus Element 5-20x50, Bushnell DMR II Pro 3.5-21x50, EOTech Vudu 5-25x50, Vortex Razor Gen 2 3-18x50 (it is an often underlooked scope because of the weight, but it is a very competent design). Burris XTR III 3.3-18x50, Nightforces own NX8 4-32x50, etc
Dedicated Nightforce fanboys (every brand has a few of these and Nightforce has many) will buy the scope sight unseen and will never question themselves.
The majority of potential customers will, however, consider all of these questions in some detail.
In the last year or so, I find that new designs in the $1500 - $2000 range are getting so competent, that once we get into the $3k+ range, I essentially want perfection, so we will see how the new ATACR does.
Zeiss makes quite a few binoculars. Aside from an occasional misstep (Terra...), most of them are pretty good.
As with any product line, some models come together better than others.
Zeiss' SFL product line is something I looked at briefly, but never dwelled on it too much. They seemed like nice binoculars, but I never really looked at them carefully.
Imagine my surprise when the folks at Zeiss reached out and asked if I want to take a look at their new 12x50 version of the SFL.
They know I live out west, so they must have heard I have the space to really work out where the limits of a 12x50 binocular are.
Given that sending me a product to look at involves certain risks (until I am pretty much done with the review, I ignore marketing literature and any and all attempts from any company to tell me what to say), I figured that they either decided to live dangerously or that they are pretty damn confident of how good the product is.
I do not know for sure which one it is, but the ...
DNT's 7-35x56 has been here since February and I have managed to have some reasonably significant amount of time with it to date. This video is mostly in the nature of a "first look", although a bit more extensive than that. I will follow up with a careful examination of the reticle and low light performance.
https://amzn.to/4iGPl9w
So far, I am quite impressed with what the scope offers for the money.
Talking to one of the owners, he said he wants to be the undisputed bang for the buck champ under $1k. It is too early to be sure, but he might have a point there.
So far, I am quite impressed with the optic for what it costs and everything I have heard about customer support has been good.
The scope I have did have a minor glitch with the focus cell (I talk about that in the video), but it seems to have worked itself out. Perhaps there was some sort of a minor machining mark somewhere in there that got polished out.
Beyond that, it has been a good scope for me. I tried it on a ...
Here is another scope that has been here entirely too long without a formal review.
Delta Javelin 4.5-30x56, along with Athlon Ares ETR 4.5-30x56, stands at the top of the ladder of Chinese-made precision scopes I have seen to date.
To be fair, there are some new ones that are popping up that I have not tested yet (like the Telson 5-25x56) and some excellent ones that are less expensive (like DNT 7-35x56). Still, of the ones I have had a chance to spend some serious time with, it is Javelin and Ares ETR. Athlon has a Gen2 of the ETR that was announced this year, that I am very curious to test against the Javelin. Compared to the Gen1 ETR, I thought they were extremely close optically, but I slightly preferred the turrets and the reticle in the Javelin. We'll see if Athlon's Gen2 will change that.
I talk about Delta a good bit, but the brand is still not very widespread in the US. Still, there are several people selling them including Don at @AnnexDefense . Since he is a member here, I...
Just saying thanks for all your reviews. I just bought a Zeiss LRP S5 5-25x56 and I'm really impressed with it. I was debating between it and the March, but went with the Zeiss because you said it has a better eyebox and dof.
Im going to put it in a Badger C1 Max mount.
Is there a way to make a target card by using lrf binos that can communicate with a weather meter like a kestrel or Garmin, without touching the weather meter?
NOVA has a special on testing effectiveness of Revolutionary War weapons. Here is an interesting article on it.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/04/new-nova-doc-puts-revolutionary-war-weapons-to-the-test/
Well, since I was running a little low on AAC Precision 175gr 308 ammo, I ordered another batch. This one came from a different lot than the batch I had before.
I have about 13 months left to be in my 40s, so I figured this is my last opportunity to get cheeky with this project title.
As I mentioned during last week's livestream, I am kicking off a large review encompassing seven different riflescopes that really share only one thing in common: their objectives are in the 42-44mm range.
Here is a comparison table of the specs for the scopes I have on hand. Note that the Swampfox Warhawk 2-10x44 is not going to be in this comparison very much. I'll do a separate video on it. The biggest reason for that is simply that this spec table is becoming too long and comparing so many scopes all at the same time is exponentially more difficult. I was going to take out either the Warhawk or the Blackhound since neither of them have a zero stop, so I flipped a coin and Blackhound got to stay. I will go over it a little bit below the table.
I did not set out to have this particular line-up in mind, but I like this riflescope type, so I ended up with all of these on hand.
Some of these scopes I have lready reviewed quite thoroughly, namely the Blackhound and Tract.
If you look at the specs carefully, you'll see that these range from true ultrashort designs (GPO and March), to "kinda short" designs (Leapers, Delta, Leupold and Blackhound) to a conventionally sized Tract Toric. Some of these lean toward the MPVO category. Some are unabashedly aimed at the Crossover market. Tract stands alone as a relatively conventional hunting scope, except configured very nicely to do everything as necessary. Another scope that would fit this category very well also that is no longer here is Vortex Strike Eagle 3-18x44. I might reference it occasionally.
I have a good amount of mileage with all of these, although I have not yet released a final review on every design. Still, I can offer some initial thoughts in order of ascending price.
Like any self respecting firearm enthusiast I always have some number of projects going on concurrently. One of them is a fast twist 22-250 bolt gun.
Every once in a while Tikka makes a run of 22-250 T3x rifles with 1-8” twist barrel and I happen to have one. That dramatically changes the varminty character of the 22-250. With a modern 80gr bullet, it is a nicely viable hunting rifle for small and medium game (just about perfect for pronghorn). It is also a very capable long range number. At the altitude where I live, it does not go subsonic until you get to about 1400 yards.
1-8” twist will not stabilize the heaviest available 22 bullets, but works well enough for anything up to about 80grains, depending on the bullet construction.
