I have a good friend who had a small shop at one time, he basically still does… I’ve been fortunate that he will allow me to test any scope or binos I want, and on my rifle, I can even take this stuff home and use it for however long I want and mess around with it, probably an entire season if I asked, Nightforce, Swarovski, Leupold… you name it I’ve tried it, from a NF Beast.. Atacr, NXS, NX8, SHV… I’ve handled or tried them all with no pressure to buy and for free, last year when I wanted a new scope I brought my rifle with me and left with a NX8 2.5-20.
If you search the web looking for reviews on the NX8 you will hear stories about bad eye relief, tight eye box, in my opinion it is all BS, like I said I can try them all for free or for as long as I want, with no pressure to buy, and I have most of them, and ended up spending my money on what you see, the 2.5-20, full disclosure I did end up selling it back, with zero $$ lost after an entire year, but would buy one again in a heartbeat if I was building a long range rig like you, I don’t hunt long range, have no place to do so for the most part, and won’t pretend to be someone who does online, all of my bread and butter rifles that kill most of what I shoot are finished, and no need to mess around with them as they perform as needed with more basic scopes, but my play rifles sometimes get long range toys like the cool kids have!! I hunted one day last year with one of my elk rifles that never gets used because I haven’t been elk hunting in 15 years or more, just to use it, and whacked this buck at 200 yards from my saddle! I could go on for hours about what I did or didn’t like with most of the top scopes on the market today, and binos, that I’ve tried, but my favorite has been the NX8 2.5-20 so far, the 4-32 is nice as well, for my purpose the 2.5-20 checked all the boxes, 2.5x in case you jump something close in thick timber, 20x for the long stuff, it does it all, covered windage adjustment, I would never dial for wind where I hunt, I don’t know how, the biggest reason for me getting rid of it was I just don’t need something that robust, completely overkill for how I operate and the weight penalty was too much for me, I won’t lie though if I end up booking a trip somewhere and know shots will be more than my usual at home whitetail hunts another NX8 will be here fast, real fast. A lot of strong opinions going around about Leupold on other forums and their failure to hold zero, not track, etc.. here is my 2 cents, I have never in 30 years, ever had a Leupold lose zero, never, people can go pound sand about Leupold scopes losing zero riding in a truck, I don’t believe it, has someone had it happen, one person, a couple, maybe.. is the normal thing for a Leupold to lose zero from a car ride, no it isn’t and out of the dozens I’ve owned, used, and tried, that has not been my experience at all and my rifles don’t always get babied, I won’t speak to tracking issues and the Leupold CDS reliability as I never dial when I hunt, but I plan on putting one through the paces here this summer off my bench, a VX5HD 3-15, it’s sitting here waiting to go on a rifle I have to build a load for, if it sucks I will say it it does. Still, usually when there‘s smoke, there’s fire, and I wouldn’t personally buy a Leupold with a CDS dial and expect to crank on it like a Nightforce and expect it to perform the same, track, etc….for set and forget scopes Leupold is still a great option, it’s what I use. For a dialer I wouldn’t even think twice and just get a Nightforce, you know it will perform when needed, so long as you can stand the weight of them.
