New Safariland Scope?

[noxcuse73]

Has anyone seen or heard about the new Safariland 1-4 scope. Different looking reticle. kinda pricey too.

JV

[00bullitt]

Erik Lund(Bear1142) has had one for a while testing it. I shot it the other day and was not impressed. I can't for the life of me understand why companies keep building low power scopes with the reticle in the front/first focal plane. On 4x the reticle is too large and busy and obscures most of the target and on 1x it is too small for fast close work. The illumination sucks in the daylight too. But the glass looked pretty decent.

I'm sure he'll post his thoughts if he sees this thread.

[Bear1142]

I had a Safariland to T&E for about a month. The cliff notes version is, not very impressive and I would not recommend it (at this time.)

Overall this scope is a good design. It's size and weight are comparable to other scopes in the 1-4 range. The glass is very good and it has a good field of view. Eye relief is around 2"-3" depending on magnfication setting. Turret adjustments are easy to use with your fingers and have positive clicks.

Some things needing improvement, the magnification adjustment ring could be a little larger (but it's about the standard size for the style of scope.) The illumination capability is very weak. Zero visibility in bright daylight and I had to dial up to setting 7 (of 10) to get any lowlight usefulness. Definitely needs to be strengthened.

The reticle design is simply horrible (IMHO.) The reticle is in the first focal plane and changes size as the magnification range changes. On 1x, the reticle is very small. If your targets are in shaded areas or when transitioning from target to target, finding the reticle with any speed can be challenging. On 4x, the reticle is difficult to use at best. The center dot might be usable, but the tight ring around the center obscures long distance targets. The reticle is cluttered with a bunch of useless ranging brackets and the stadia lines are thick enough to block out targets over 300 yards. The calibrated reticle is difficult to use in the 100-300 range and the entire design is not very intuitive. Simply put, the reticle needs to be trashed and a new design developed. There is nothing good about this reticle that I would even try to salvage. Time to start over.

I will write up a more in-depth review for our website, but as it stands I would not recommend this scope for competition or any serious social work.

Erik

[ArturoJ]

As to "why companies keep building low power scopes with the reticle in the front/first focal plane". One reason might be that, front/first focal plane scopes can/will range correctly at any power setting. Second focal plane scopes will range correctly at one specific power setting, usually the highest.

I am not saying I like it, just that it's the way it works. Horus scopes/reticules are an example FFP scopes that "work" at all power settings. I agree that this is not good on a low powered variable.

[Cardinal]

First, I'm not an expert unlike some of the others who have commented here, so my perspective and opinion might differ from the best.

I shoot a S&B PMII Short Dot 1.1-4x gen 2 which has a FFP reticle, and I love it. I agree that at low power the reticle is difficult to see, but at that power I use the red dot which is visible in bright sunlight. At higher power I like being able to use the reticle for holdovers and compensating for wind (nice on 3-400m poppers).

But having a red dot which is bright enough to see in daylight, is an absolute must in a low-powered FFP scope for IPSC IMHO.