There are a few unbiased optics dealers that weigh in from time to time, you know, the ones that sell more than one brand; P&D, Hirsch, Plain Sight to name a few.
Nothing against Jerry personally, but there are other brands out there equal to and better than Sightron and I agree with Marcoman that it gets a little tiring when every one of his posts is lauding Sightron as the be all, end all. Heck, even the Nikon sales rep on here doesn't bash other brands.
Any-who, no biggie, back to the topic at hand.
Just so you are clear... I CAN offer other brands of optics. I am not wed to any one brand. See my very outdated website and there might still be links with my thoughts to other brands of scopes.
In fact, I started years back using Bushnell Elites when Baush and Lomb was part of the family. Remember those 4000 and 4200's? Maybe a Scopechief and even Balvar. Was likely one of the first to get really excited about the then new 3200 10X. I know I called it the best entry level tactical scope on the market at the time. I remember the SH1T storm that stirred up from all the Leupold fans. Then Barrett made it a standard offering on their BMG...
Dig up my very old posts and you will see my comments on these as value leaders. See my very old posts and even website articles. What did I use when I drove a 223 out to a mile?
I was one of the first to get the then new Nikon side focus scopes including a few Monarchs. Even brought in Nikons that weren't available in Canada just to see and test.
A very brief stay with Burris
Did a stint with Weaver and was one of the few that offered the fixed 36X. Still could... maybe.
Was in the process of doing a full on review for a very big name US brand but their product just wasn't up to snuff. And so forth and so on.
Helping customers and working on a wide range of customer rifles, let's me see a very wide range of product. Huskemaw and Vortex and Zeiss Conquest and swarovski come to mind.
Walk into sports stores from time to time to "shop". What else can we see Leica, Zeiss Divari (at least what WSS calls it), and so forth
A few Elcans including the Spectre 1-4X from a few years back.
Then in competition, we get to play with the deep end of the pool including NF - NXS and BR's, Schmidt and Bender, March, Leupold (old gen stuff - never saw the prototype at the Worlds... bummer).
I hope to get some quality time behind a NF competition shortly... should be a positive experience I hope.
We see how they work and how some fail.
I really really want to climb behind a Tangent Theta... maybe next season.
Of course, this doesn't even cover the spotting scopes and binos but that is another story.
I never stop looking at optics cause I feel this is one of the most important parts of any precision rifle and a significant part of my business. Do I feel I have a wide base of experience and info to base my opinions on?
So, I am not just lauding Sightron as the end all.. BUT in this price range and even a whole lot more money, at this time in the Canada market place, I have not seen anything that comes close as a value discussion.
Maybe a shooter needs a certain feature or bell/whistle not offered by another brand. Great... get the tool that suits the job. But tell me another $1000 scope offers the same quality of optic and tracking, enough to take to high levels of competition, I would be very happy to give it a try.
Get out there, climb behind as many scopes as you can. Decide for yourself what is or is not important. What is or is not good.
For me, I need to see the target and the air. I need to trust my scope adjustments to give the desired effect. I have the option of buying far more expensive products. So far, nothing has impressed me enough to sit my rifles.... and that even includes MARCH. Yes, I said it.
YMMV.
Jerry