Actually not first impressions, I’ve had it over a month and shot it on two different rifles in two different competitions, but I didn’t want to over promise since I don’t have a lot of pics.
I have the CQBSS version with the TMR reticle on it, mounted in a Larue mount. The scope has a nice feel to it. Pretty easy to grab the power ring, its the back third of the scope, and turn it. The relatively high mounting of AR optics helps to allow me to get my hand around it. No parallax to fiddle with. The windage and elevation knobs are trully inspired, they are not going to move unless you are grabbing from both sides, and I’ve never failed to get the knobs to move from a bad grip. Like good technology, it keeps you from getting into trouble, and it is barely noticable that they are there. You need an allen wrench to rezero them, I’ve been spoiled by my Premier knobs. By how high you set the knobs you can limit the knobs to one turn. The elevation knob is marked for MK262 out past 700m. Illumination knob works well with 10 levels and and off inbetween settings.
It is with the illumination that this scope gets kind of squirrely, and at $3400+ sales prices I’ve seen, you shouldn’t have squirrels you should have mink. Bone head me left the scope on, with a pretty fresh battery, on a fairly high setting. When I got back to the rifle the battery was dead. S&B Short Dots auto off to preserve batteries don’t they. Actually figuring out the battery was dead was another issue and the biggest drawback to the scope. A step back first.
I have the the TMR reticle version, not the uber-ninja holographic low power dot with the Horus reticle. Not nocking the TMR reticle, I’ll talk about that when I talk about the optics. The issue is that the reticle is not day light illumination visible. Dun-dun-dun… Something that scopes a quarter of the price seem to have figured out, Leupold has not put into their “Hey we can make real tactical scopes” offering. I confirmed with another CQBSS owner and he concurred that it is not day light visible. Does it make the scope unusable, not by a long shot-- but to go from the low power DAYLIGHT visible dot in the Horus scope to a non day light reticle seems a bit odd. I noticed it mostly during the matches when I had to shoot black steel targets. You can still see the reticle, it just gets a little more difficult, especially when you are using hold overs. I’ve looked thru the Horus/Dot version (for only like a minute), and while it was a bot odd- it was red till viewed a bit off kilter and then it turned green- at least it gave you a nice red dot for low power shooting.
And I think that is the biggest issue, with out the a daylight lit feature, the scope isn’t nearly as fast close up as it could be. They can get the Red dot lit well enough, why not the TMR reticle???
Moving on, the optics are great. Edge to edge clarity, razor sharp. (I know, everyone says that about their scopes like everyone is an above average driver). I’ve shot it out to 400 yards and could read bullet hits like I was looking at the back of my hand. The 1.1 works like a 1x to me- no issues when I’ve tested it out or in matches. From 4-8x the reticle comes into its own and is very readable. The first match I used it on an LMT MWS, but the longest shots were 100 yards. Even a lot of the shorter range targets were head shots or tight shots, so 3-4 magnification helped me to be precise and know that I had neutralized the target.
The most challenging stage was at Pueblo’s Rifle match where I ran it on my JP 556 upper. The first bank of targets were at about 15 yards and you needed head shots, so I started out at 1.1 and engaged them. You then had to engage IPSC target at about 400 yards, so I cranked it to 8x and used the reticle to hold over. You then had to engage 4 swingers at 150-230 yards, along a hillside, so I cranked it to about 4x and engaged them. You then had to move to three other shooting postions and engage the same IPSC and four targets. The IPSC got a bit closer, and the 4 disks got about 25-30 yards farther away. I did the same dialing back and forth to help my accuracy at 400 and dialing it back to help with the hillside targets. This really showed how the scope shines. On longer range targets the TMR held true and allowed me not to have to fiddle with the elevation knobs.
Another stage had a VTAC wall and a single reduced size IPSC target at 125 yards. My first time shooting the wall and I didn’t have experience with the positions. I had the scope dialed to 3-4, and the lowest holes gave me fits as I tried to get behind the scope. A bit of an issue with eye relief, but that is more an issue with my ergonomics than the scopes, and a had a bit more mag on than I should have. An illuminated reticel might have nade me feel better about where the POA was on the black IPSC target.
Going to cut this a bit short. Got a head cold and I took some Nyquill and thought I’d type faster than I have, and its been a long day.
All in all a great scope, outside the un-illuminated illumination set-up. It really is hard to judge since I think its direct peers- the S&B and Premier are still not out- and the CQBSS has been in the field for awhile. If those are everything they are claimed to be, the CQBSS will take a beating. It is really hard to damn the CQBSS when its peers are still not on the market.
Here’s hoping Leupold figure out the illumination, or figures out a cheaper way to do the red dot like on the Horus models.
