Quote Originally Posted by Zhurdan View Post
Got it JSantoro, I was just introducing another fold.

Quality lenses, so I've heard, have more to do with better clarity/brightness.

Aside from that, I've looked thru some S&B glass, Zeiss, Nightforce and others, but the only time I've seen a difference is in really low quality optics (Nstar, Bushnell, Tasco and such) and that's only because I was switching back and forth at the fun store just to see if there was a difference.


From what I know on the subject glass is part of it but the coatings have more to do with it, and the coatings are very expensive on pricey optics because there is such a limited market for those products.

2nd pricey thing is the quality of the internal movements. One of the beefs I have with scopes on the cheaper side is tracking, crispness, and accuracy. A lot of cheaper scopes come 'close' to being true to their designation (1/4 1/2 .10). Obviously to get them spot on the law of diminishing returns comes into play, and it becomes very expensive to get them accurate every time.

I will say a gun store is not the place to be testing optics. I do think NF makes a really good scope but they are out matched by other brands which do cost more. Ive owned NF, shot other peoples, done tests with other members guns on the range. During daylight theres not too much difference in brightness, and NF is certainly a brand that does put some nice coatings on their glass. What I like about SB personally is during bright days against lighter backgrounds the image appears almost polarized where you don't get tons of glare but during low light they simply come alive. I was shooting with another member at dusk last year, and we each had a NF optic and I had a SB. The SB was simply way ahead when it came to picking out the target which was a black painted steel hanging target against a dark dirt background. The NF optics you could barely make out the outline of the target while my SB was still very bright and had no problem seeing the target.


And I think it has to do with getting used to the differences, and being able to pick them out. Obviously a quick look through isn't going to show it all.


The features we are seeing on newer scopes are things some other brands have been doing for a long time in some cases or came out with first. SB has had the Flash Dot system for a decade, and yet still it seems half the industry still can't get a day light visible dot in their scopes.




And yes this necro thread got a good lot of them.... Still good info though and food for thought.