Hi mrsmitty,
I'm also looking for a scope for the m14. It's going to be used for BCRA rifle matches.
I'm considering the Burris 3-12x50 XTR and the Leupold Mark 4 3.5-10x40mm LR/T M2.
I'm waiting for a reply in another thread in Optics asking peoples input, but havn't received comment on either yet.
I'll share what i've learned and hopefully can be of some use in your search for a scope.
The Leupold does 3.5-10 with a 40mm objective, but the glass is supposed to be fantastic.
Burris gives you a bit more reach at 3-12 and a larger objective of 50mm.
The build quality on the Burris seems quite good from reviews, the Luepold is known to be excellent.
Both have lifetime warranties, but Burris doesn't have a Canadian service center that I know of.
Both have illuminated reticles, but vary on the type of retricle used.
The retricle on the Burris looks really interesting. It has regular Mildot for top, left and right quadrants for mildot measuring and range estimation. On the bottom quadrant, it was designed for the center crosshair to be sighted in (zero’d) at 100 meters, then each additional ballistic line below center represents 100 meters in additional target distance. It works for both .308 as well as .223 (but that doesn't matter for us with m14)
The Leupold uses a TMR crosshair and has similar features to the Burris. It also provides the same target distance ranging capability, but looking at the diagrams for the TMR, it is personally harder to read then that of the Burris to make the same holdover on the ranging, but it will work fine with practice.
Both are rear focal plane reticles.
Both are 30mm tubes.
The Burris XTR runs around $800us, the Leupold runs about $1400us
Hope that helps some.
