I went to Cabela's in Austin last night. It was late evening and they were not very busy, so I decided to check out their scopes a bit. I always hear about this brand or that brand and how much better they are. I figured I would check it out myself.

The guy behind the counter let me pull out any I wanted to look at and mess with them for as long as I wanted. I do not remember the specific models, but we grabbed: a Nikon Monarch, a Zeiss Conquest, a Leupold Mark 4, and a Nightforce.


In order to check out the glass, we found a fish mounted on the far wall, and lased it at 100 yards. We set all the scopes to 10X and checked them out.

First thing I did not like was the BDC reticle on the Nikon and the Zeiss had a mildot type reticle, except it had lines instead of dots. I did not care for either one. The Zeiss reticle just looked too busy. The Leupy and Nightforce were nice, but I got a different mildot reading on the fish we sighted on.

The glass in descending order was Nightforce, Leupold, Zeiss and Nikon. The Nightforce seemed to be more clear than anything, hands down. The Leupold had a huge eye relief that was very forgiving. It seemed like this would have had to be mounted way forward on the rifle to get it set optimally. Both the Leupold and the Nightforce were clear out to the edges. Both the Leupold and the NF had 30mm tubes, so this may have given them an edge, but they sure were clear.

The other thing I looked at was the elevation and windage adjustments and how sure the adjustments were. Of the lot, I liked the adjustments on the Nikon best, very sure and firm with no mushiness at all. The Zeiss was dissapointing, I had a BSA that it reminded me of, mushy and very loose. The NF was second best with the exposed turrets.

Price points were roughly: Nikon $500, Zeiss $1100, Leupold and NF about $1500.

Of the scopes looked at, the Nightforce seemed the best of the lot. Now to find $1500......