First I will make mention that Hensoldt scopes are generally marketed to the European militaries and as
such everything is in metric units and the price was only listed in Euro's, though there are English versions of the
manuals which was helpful.
The Next thing to mention is that this scope shares many things with its civilian Zeiss counterpart
scopes, as you would expect. Even the plastic lens caps have the Zeiss name and logo on them. The scope
has the same superb quality feeling to it including the matte black exterior finish. The scope is fairly
compact in relation to some of the other scopes out there, but it is heavy. Why is that? Well, if
you are making a scope for military use, it might as well be a steel tube with 34mm diameter. The
construction material and the diameter of the tube allow for an extremely rugged and durable scope,
though it does weigh 2 lbs.
Normally in my eyes a scope with a 1" tube and a 56mm objective looks nose heavy or out of proportion,
and even with a 30mm tube it has that same look, though not quite as pronounced. But with a 34mm tube, this
scope looks just about right and it is not until you get it on your rifle with the large rings that you
really notice the size of the tube in relation to the rifle, but it is a good looking scope (Not that
that matters!). The 34mm tube does allow for a stronger tube as well as some additional elevation
adjustments, it is not for aesthetics.
The knobs on the scope are fairly large with knurled ends to aide in gripping the knobs. The force to
move each click is fairly high but with nice positive clicks with an audible click that is just about right.
On external adjustment knobs with no dust caps, the high force to move them is desirable to help prevent
accidental movement of the knobs during normal patrol/combat operations. The Elevation and Windage
knobs have 120 clicks (120cm, or 41.23 MOA) per revolution which is quite high. Enough to get a 308 Win
from 100 to 1000 meters in a single revolution. The trick is getting enough up after zero to allow this.
The Hensoldt manual mentions that to get enough up elevation for long range shooting it requires a canted
base. The total elevation is listed at 112cm from the mechanical zero (half way up), we had a total of 228cm, or 124cm from
mechanical zero on this particular sample. With a 20 MOA tapered base, after we zeroed the rifle at
100 meters, we had 162cm (55 MOA) of up elevation left giving us enough to get well beyond 1000 meters
from a 100 meter zero and a .308 cartridge.
The windage (Hensoldt calls it azimuth, which is probably more correct) knob counts up in both directions and
has the same high force positive clicks as the elevation knob and clear indications all the away
around the knob as to which direction is "right". The actual knob design is slightly different than
the Zeiss Diavari we tested, but the side parallax adjustment (focus) knob is the same. It takes less force
to move than the adjustment knobs and is very smooth through out the range and has nicely spaced
intervals from 50 to 1000 and then infinity. The one thing you will notice is an additional knob
on the left of the focus knob, this is the rheostat knob for the illuminated reticle and is of unique
design and function. It has a "forever" adjustment meaning it will just spin and spin and spin, never
getting to an end in the adjustment. The actual full adjustment of the brightness happens in about
270 degrees of a turn (3/4 of a rotation). The illumination lights up the center mil portion of the
reticle as well as the quick ranging steps and it is excellent in function and design. There is no
leaked light and the reticle remains very crisp and defined. I did inadvertently grab the brightness
adjust knob once thinking I was adjusting the side focus. Having both controls in a stacked design like
that could lead to that, but with training and familiarity this will not be an issue, especially with
the different sizes and feel of the two adjustment knobs.
The knobs are in Metric units with each click measuring 1cm at 100 meters, but of more importance is that
this also equates to each click being .1 milliradians putting the adjustments in the same units as the
reticle.
The 34mm tube is one of the newer large design tubes (35mm being the other size growing in popularity)
and it certainly is durable or very 'military grade'. The only limitation being the difficulty
finding rings, the ones we user are made by
Seekins, and the extra heft of the scope. I think those are reasonable things to live with
if you view the benefits of the extra adjustments travel and durability are worth it.
The 30mm scope tubes are plenty adequate and I'm not really sure just how much more
durability and adjustments, or other advantages, of a 34mm or 35mm tube are really necessary or just the
bigger is better mentality. This scope does have about 80 MOA of travel, but that is really not better
than other quality 30mm scopes in that same magnification range. I suppose what really matters is that this
scope, with its large 34mm tube, is of excellent quality and durability with a good amount of adjustments.
The reticle is a traditional mildot reticle with what appears to be the US Army standard .22 milliradian
diameter dots. The unique thing about this reticle is the rapid ranging steps in the lower half of the
scope. The idea is similar to the human ranging scale you will see in some PSO and other scopes with the
idea at least becoming popular on the SVD rifles, if not originating there. The difference here is that
these steps are used to quickly measure a one meter tall target. You simply find the step that correctly
covers one meter on, or near, the target and then read the number beneath and add two zeros. The 2 means
200 meters, 4 means 400 meters, etc. The use of a meter is a good choice provided you can rightly
estimate a 1 meter size target. Nothing a little training can't resolve.
The reticle is in the first focal plane (FFP) which makes the reticle grow and shrink depending on the
magnification so that the measurements on the reticle are always correct. The picture above illustrates
the size of the reticle at 4x which you can compare to the picture of the reticle at the top of the page
which was done at 16x. The thickness of the stadia is always a challenge to get right on FFP scopes
so that it is visible at lower powers but not too thick at high magnification. Hensoldt did a good
job with this one and I have no complaints. Yes, the entire reticle is fairly small when at 4x but it
is still usable, contrary to what the photo above may look like. We lose the clarity and sharpness
when getting that digital image of the reticle to your computer screen.
The optics on the scope are fantastic. They are extremely bright, clear and are very sharp.
Zeiss has the reputation
for exceptional optics and that reputation is well deserved. As you would imagine, they do not cut any
corners for their military brand Hensoldt scopes. The light gathering from the 56mm objective is
impressive and I could not find fault in the optics, they are fantastic.
The eye piece has a fast focus style dioptre adjustment that moves about 1.25 rotations. It adjusts
from a range of -2.5 to +2 which will cover most bad eyes out there. There are some light knurls on that
eye piece adjustment to help with gripping it for adjustments. The power adjustment ring also is knurled
with a single larger raised finger indent to aide in gripping it and it takes moderate force to adjust
the power but it is very smooth through the full range.
We mounted the scope on our Remington 700P test mule rifle and headed to the range for the shooting evaluations.
The eye relief on the scope is just about right and should work fine on magnum rifles. All of the
adjustments and controls are military durable and very usable and easily read from just about anywhere
behind the scope. The weather was overcast and 27 degress with calm winds and
we zeroed the rifle and zeroed the knobs. The knobs are a tooth design meaning the knob has
teeth that match to the internal mechanisms teeth. This insures positive connection at all times but it
also means that the markings can be slightly off from the reference mark on the scope body. This
particular example was right on, another sign of quality.
With the knobs zeroed we ran the scope through "the box" shooting groups at each corner of a box by
adjusting the knobs and then shooting a final group back where we started to insure repeatable
adjustments. This scope was dead on all the way around. We like to shoot some cross corner boxes as
well to test the adjustments while moving both of the knobs between groups and the results were
the same.
The summary of this scope pretty much says "excellent" in every important category. An argument can
be made that the larger tube adds a lot of heft for not much advantage over a 30mm tube, but the
argument can also be made the durability and extra adjustments are worth it. We will not try to settle
that argument but we will comment on the merits of the scope which were all positive. If we were
assembling a tactical rifle package this would certainly be one of the scopes on the short list if
price was not an issue. They are expensive, but you pay
for quality as well. The only negative in the log book was the mistaken use of the reticle brightness
knob as the focus knob, but that was it and that issue will easily be resolved with a bit more
familiarity. With everything taken into account, I highly recommend this scope for tactical
use.
|
