Nightforce scopes

[Deer Assassin]

Nightforce scopes take a bit of a bashing on the SD forums, yet after spending half an hour looking through some of the members galleries about 30-35% of the pics i seen had a nightforce scope in them.

Why are so many using them if the light transmission is not equal to that of the other high end brands?

 

[sauer]

i used to have the same "general" opinion regarding nightforce too.....ok but not a patch on the big 3.....but id never looked thru one.....was just accepted that was how it was.

got a rifle built by Russel Gal .....turned up with my swarovski and he just looked at me......follows a discussion on scopes and he swore by nightforce.

said he tried em side by side at low light as had a previous poster and for him it was much n such the same.....but the durability/ build quality and the dialability of target turrets won out for him.


well as time went on i got a look thru one and have now ended up selling the swaro wee while back and both my centrefires have nightforce on them now.

as was previously stated in a previous post.....at absolute last light i cant see much difference.....if im struggling to see....im struggling to see end of and shouldnt be shooting anyway and leave the beast for another day.

everyones eyes are different and i accept that NF will be better for some and worse for others.....so best advise to anyone is to try before you buy...even better if can try them side by side at low light see what suits you. what does **** me off is when someone sees the NF and dictates that you are definately wrong and doing yourself no favours get a swaro!!! and wont even listen to the fact that everyones eyeballs are different!

i think from what i hear from long range target folks are that the NF are bout the best for dialability...for dialing in and returning to perfect zero time after time.

certainly a robust scope

 

[MountainStalker2]

The strengths of a NF lie in the package of robustness, great glass, reticle and adjustment coptions, zero stop, and the amount of adjustment and its repeatability in the adjustment. The glass is pretty good, maybe not swaro good but a lot are used here by pro roo shooters who do almost all there shooting at dusk and into the night so they are not to bad. If you were to judge both makes on attributes required for and ability to be applied to consistently make long shots at varying ranges then the NF is in a seperate class to the swaro. I like swaros and use them but for shots beyond 500m their dials or the tds reticle do not cut it, certainly not on my AV models. I love the little swaros on my mountain and stalking rifles where shots are inside 350 m and lightweight is desired.

 

[Rob Dhu]

I have used NF scopes for 18 years, never had a problem. With my 3-15x56 I could still see deer and not see deer with my Zeiss 10x40 Bgat binoculars

 

[jay 22]

great turrets great crosshairs. but for the price you would expect better glass when under the lamp

 

[Deer Assassin]

great turrets great crosshairs. but for the price you would expect better glass when under the lamp

Im not having a dig at you here jay22, but i dont understand what people see differently to me when the looking through the nightforce.
Never once have i had any issues with image clairty or quality when out lamping, & ive taken foxes at 320yards + in the dead of night with these scopes.

Do you really need to be able to count all the indivudual hairs on a fox's b*llocks under a lamp before it becomes "descent glass"?

 

[Serkin]

I have a ziess 3 - 12 x 50 duralyt great scope for the money

 

[sir-slots-alot]

Do you really need to be able to count all the indivudual hairs on a fox's b*llocks under a lamp before it becomes "descent glass"?

No you dont - you could use the same arguement to buy a £100 Hawke scope.

The reason there seems to be so much controversy over NF scope performance, is they cost close on top european scopes - yet their optical performance is much closer to a Bushnell 4200 ( which is pretty good actually ).

Myself and quite a few shooting friends - all very experienced and unbiased guys have been down the NF road - and to a man - binned them in favour of better glass.

A year or so ago , one of my shooting mates bought a NF scope - ( I did warn him and gave my experience of using them ) Last week he sold his NF on here - Stating he had never missed as many foxes in his life. ( he has gone back to his Leupy )

Last summer shooting rabbits - getting toward sunset - my mate using his NF 8-32 NXS - and I use Zeiss 6-24 victory. the NF was much darker and failed - the Zeiss stilll on 12 mag ( ok only anakdotal evidence - but that NF was on ebay the week after )

NF scopes take some beating for target shooting - what they were designed for - but for shooting in low light levels - lamping - they are simply outclassed by the euro glass.

Alan

 

[geoshot]

I've got 3 S&B which stay on my stalking rifles
Got one NF which stays on my F-Class and is used almost exclusively on the ranges (my F-Class is cleared for deer, fox and vermin - but now gets used for that only very occasionally)
I find the NF has too many things to adjust for me to use it as a stalking scope, nothing wrong with the quality though - the Schmidts deffo have the edge as stalking scopes, well, in my opinion anyway.

 

[woodcock]

get a good second hand swaro or zeiss I use both, brill in low light but then so is my schmit

 

[spaceball]

Wouldn't like them as there too big and bulky but built to bang in fence posts.
I have zeiss swarovski Schmidt and kahles at the moment and I like the kahles scope the most.

 

[MountainStalker2]

The guys buying NF scopes for short to mid range hunting and getting rid of them are guilty of buying the wrong tool for the job at hand. Like wise you would guilty of the same if you bougt a Z6 for your 1000 m steel gong banging, LR targets or military/ paramilitary uses. Both are good scopes but their applications do not over lap that much.

 

[Selous]

I have used NF, zeiss and S&B quite extensively. I think the difference in image quality is minimal and I couldnt see any difference between light gathering between the S&B set at 12x and the NF set at 12x. Both S&B and NF have absolutely reliable adjustments which makes dialling in possible with confidence. Something I wouldnt consider with lesser scopes. With any of the high mag scopes there are more adjustments possible but it is possible to use them in exactly the same way as a simpler 8x56 or 6x42 should you wish. Just zero as normal (e.g 1.5 in high at 100) with the turrets zeroed at 100, set the scope to the power you want and set the parallax for 100-150 yards. You can then point and shoot in exactly the same way as you normally would. The big advantage is when you get time to take a leisurely shot you can place the shot with absolute precision whether the shot is short or long. I simply dont think you have the same flexibility with the fixed power scopes BUT I would encourace all novice stalkers to use a fixed power scope to start with.

Just my 2p worth

 

[shep7376]

Well, despite all the advice I recently traded in the Zeiss for a NF 5.5-22X56 NXS.

And I'm not in the slightest disappointed.

Fantastic low light ability, easily on par with many of the Zeiss/Swar/S&B scopes costing alot more, even a friend who is strictly S&B admitted he was impressed.

For anyone wanting an excellent quality scope without paying the earth the NF range are worth seriously looking at.

 

[wraith]

have used the nf5x15x56 was not impresed kept my luepold 10x40 purchased s/b 4x16x50 long range on the gun once sold it crap ior nice looking 6x24x56 crap when light dims nikkon 8x32x50 crap ags 8x32x56 80pound from flee bay was as good to look throe as the high end stuff and when it gets dark i put a n/v monocular on the back and shoot all night get some night vision they work the dark and the high end scopes dont work with the night vision they put so meney coatings on the glass to give you better view during day time they cut all the ir spectrum from getting to your night vision so you can pay thousands for a day scope but thats all it is a day scope sorrey if i offend the high end users but ihave had these scopes and they do not work at night