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Posted: 1/14/2010 9:47:12 AM EDT
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The purpose of this thread is to air opinions and thoughts on the new March 1-10x tactical scope. The following is my review taken from my increasingly poorly titled 1-3,4,6x review thread. This thread may be viewed here
My review of the March 1-10x Tactical scope Today was somewhat of a departure for me in my normal review process. Instead of sitting all my scopes on the table of my back porch to compare them, I packed them up and headed a few hours north to the Kelbly compound. For those of you who are in no way involved in the bench rest world, the Kelbly’s are builders of bench rest rifles. They have extensive manufacturing capacity and can fully manufacture stocks, triggers, actions, and rings onsite. Of course, they also have gunsmithing facilities to assemble and chamber the pieces as well. The Kelbly compound is truly a wonderland for a tinkerer such as myself. It seems every serious shooter, regardless of discipline, is always in search of a better optic. For the bench rest shooter this comes down to a search for an optic with better glass, better zero hold through the zoom range, more longevity, and truer adjustments. To this end, Kelbly has become the North American distributor for March scopes by Deon. Deon is a small-scale scope designer and manufacturer out of Japan. In fact, they make less than 1200 scopes per year. Additionally, they sell some of their designs to other makers. They are as much about design as manufacturing. Deon has become a dominant player in the world of bench rest and now is making forays in to the tactical world. Today’s scope, the March 1-10x tactical, is one such foray. My initial impression of the scope with it in my hand is that it feels very refined. The overall appearance is pleasing and attractive. Somehow everything looks in proportion to everything else. It’s almost like an artist was consulted on how large the adjustments and eyepiece should be and how everything should be styled. Speaking of the adjustments, they would best be described as sniper styled. They are ¼ MOA click adjustments that are labeled every MOA. Each rotation is 25 MOA and the total adjustment travel is an almost excessive 200 MOA. Indicator markings exist for each full turn of the adjustments. The elevation adjustment even has an adjustable zero stop. Both elevation and windage have adjustable zero indicators. The adjustment knobs rotate smoothly with nice positive clicks. On the left-hand side of the scope is a very interesting combination knob that serves as both a side focus parallax adjustment and the illumination control. Parallax adjusts from 10 yards to infinity and is marked at 10 yards, 100 yards, and infinity. There is very little space on the dial between 100 yards and infinity so don’t expect to be particularly precise when correcting for parallax. The power selector ring is located directly in front of the eyepiece and is labeled at each power from 1-10. I was happy to find that it is a fairly short throw: going from 1-10 is just about 180 degrees. The ring is stiff but smooth. Though contoured for grip, it is stiff enough and small enough that it’s a bit dicey with wet gloves, so it is probably a good candidate for an R&R racing throw lever. Rotating the eyepiece functions as the diopter adjustment and it does have a locking ring to preserve the setting once this is accomplished. Now the fun part begins. I head out into the icy cold to do the optical evaluation. As you can see in the photos, there are 8 inches of snow on the ground today. I set all the scopes to be compared on one of Kelbly’s cement shooting benches side by side. For 1x comparison I have my Leupold CQ/T. For comparison at 10x I have my Zeiss conquest 4.5-14x and my brother’s US Optics SN-3 T-pal 5-25x. The first thing that strikes me when doing my optical critique of the March scope is how little forgiveness the scope has for head position at 10x. I had wondered what a 2.4mm exit pupil would feel like when using the scope. I can now confirm it is small. There is little variation in head position that will result in an image for the user. By contrast, the Zeiss and USO are much more lenient. Clarity wise, the March does not match either the Zeiss or the USO, though it is really pretty close to the Zeiss. The USO is in another league here. This is not to say that the March has poor clarity; I would not say that at all. The March has good usable clarity at 10x power. It just can’t beat the two quality full size sniper scopes. If you were expecting that miracle you will be disappointed. I took more time at 10x to note some other aspects of the image. I did not notice any significant curvature of field or chromatic aberration. This surprised me as I figured that with a scope pushing the envelope as much as this one is doing, something would have to give. The March has a very small field of view at 10x power. Perhaps the small field of view helped prevent these other optical problems. At 1x, the March easily bests the CQ/T in clarity, especially towards the edge of the field of view. Interestingly, when you turn the March up to 3x power to compare it to the CQT, their clarity becomes so close at the center of the image that it took three trips outside, warming up in between, to determine that the March is slightly better. Again, towards the edge of the image the March easily bests the CQ/T. I have no idea why anyone would use the March at 3x when it goes 1-10x, but I thought the comparison interesting anyway. At 1x, the March continues to display no noticeable curvature of field or chromatic aberration. At this power, March is not nearly as forgiving with regard to head position as the CQ/T, though I do believe it is more forgiving than the 6.8mm exit pupil would suggest. This 6.8mm statistic is, in fact, not mentioned directly in the March literature and I am not completely convinced that it is accurate. If I were to guess, I would guess 10mm on the 1x exit pupil. I next evaluate the illumination of the March scope. As I mentioned earlier, the March scope combines the illumination and parallax adjustment on one knob. Turning the knob changes the parallax whereas pushing a rubber button on the side of the knob controls the illumination. There are 4 settings for the illumination as well as an ‘off’ setting. You simply push the button several times to cycle through them. Should you leave the illumination on, it turns off on its own in an hour. Those of you who desire daylight visible illumination will be disappointed. The highest setting is not even close to being visible by day (reticle appears black even when illuminated in daylight.) Similarly, the lowest setting is probably a bit bright for use in a very dark environment since it was still visible in the lighted room I was in. Perhaps the most interesting note on the illumination was how completely consistent it was across the crosshair. Most illuminated reticles show some bleeding of the illumination off the edges of the reticle or have somewhat blotchy illumination on the reticle. This is not the case on the March. It is crisp. Nor is there ambient glare of the illumination in the scope. Only the reticle is illuminated. No evil clouds of reflected red haze. The March 1-10x scope currently comes with one reticle option in the illuminated model. They call this reticle the MTR-2. It is a second focal plane MOA ladder style reticle. At 10x each major division is 10 moa and each minor division is 2 MOA. Since it is a second focal plane scope at 5x, this is doubled to 20 MOA and 4 MOA. These are shooters MOAs where 1 MOA is equal to exactly 1 inch at 100 yards, not 1 inch and change. Generally, I hate seeing mil or MOA ladders in a 1-(n) power scope. In the case of this particular scope, I have more mixed feelings. On the one hand, it is a 10x scope with sniper styled turrets. It could be argued that it is a sniper scope and should have a sniper reticle. On the other hand, it is a 1x scope that can be used in close quarters with both eyes opened for speed. It could be argued that this scope needs a close quarters reticle that allows for rapid target acquisition. Perhaps some sort of hybrid reticle could be constructed to better reflect the nature of this scope. Of course if I were to have my pick, that hybrid reticle would include bullet drop and rapid ranging features. I personally have come to the general opinion that I do not want to see a mil or MOA ladder reticle in any tactical scope, sniper or close quarters. I simply do not believe mathematical calculations are a good use of time when someone is shooting at you. On the whole, the March 1-10x Tactical scope is a difficult scope to categorize completely. Is it a sniper scope that scales for close combat or a close combat scope that scales for sniping? The 1-10x powered range is mind-boggling, but it does come at a price. The field of view is limited at high power and the exit pupil is limited at both high and low powers. The clarity, though acceptable, is not on par with other smaller power range scopes at this and even greatly less cost. Clearly some sacrifices had to be made for a 10x increase in magnification range. Despite these sacrifices, the scope is significantly better at close quarters than I expected it to be. When I read that this scope a MOA ladder reticle and a 6.8mm exit pupil, I thought it would not be passable as a close quarters scope. That is not the case. It is by no means an excellent close quarters scope, but it is much better than you would think. The reticle is thick enough that you can keep from losing it most of the time as you move positions and engage multiple targets. Similarly, the exit pupil, while not ideal, is not so small at 1x that you constantly lose it provided you have a solid cheek weld. However, if you don’t have an adjustable cheek piece on your rifle you would probably be screwed, as your lousy chin weld is not going to get the job done. In the urban sniper environment that is increasingly becoming a reality for our troops, a 10x sniper scope that can be scaled down to 1x for close engagements is a valuable product. This scope is a jack-of-all-trades and even though it masters none, I found no fatal flaws in its design. That is something I certainly cannot say for all of the other scopes I have reviewed. If you can get past the cost and the 5-year warranty, you will find a very capable and unique optic in the March 1-10x. March 1-10x with box and paperwork 
March 1-10x on the bench with the reference scopes 
March at 1x no illumination 100 yards to target 
March at 10x no illumination 100 yards to target 
March at 1x indoor with illumination set to max 
The March 1-10x scope mounted on my AR 
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THERE WERE A COUPLE OF SIMILAR NEW SCOPES DEBUTED AT THE SHOT SHOW THIS YEAR. IN ADDITION TO THE MARCH 1-10X, I ALSO SAW THE NEW:
1. LEUPOLD 1-8X 2. S&B 1-8X POSSIBLY THERE ARE MORE THAT I MISSED. THERE ARE TRADE-OFFS IN OPTICS. AS EXPECTED, ALL THREE OF THESE SEEMED TO SHARE THE ISSUE OF SMALL EXIT PUPIL AT MAX POWER. BUT THEY DO ALLOW ONE TO FIGHT AT ARMS LENGTH, I.E., 1X, MORE EFFECTIVELY. WHILE AN ARTIFICIALLY LIT CONVENTION CENTER IS NOT THE OPTIMUM SETTING TO EVALUATE RIFLE SCOPES, I WAS STILL QUITE IMPRESSED BY WHAT I SAW. SUCH SCOPES ARE QUITE IMPRESSIVE ENGINEERING FEATS, ADDRESSING A NEED THAT FOLKS WHO FIGHT WARS HAVE IDENTIFIED. GOOD SHOOTING, WES |
| I know this thread is a month old but, I REALLY wish someone would make a scope fit into the budget of alot of us "regular shooters". I like the idea of a 1-10x immensly but the cost is way to high to own one. I'd like to see millette or Vortex or burris do this cheaper. |
| This is a nice scope - but why in the heck can't these people and other manufacturers give us a high intensity red dot similar to S&B's Short-Dot, Leupold's CQBSS and Meopta's new K-Dot. Some of these scope makers sure aren't marketing rocket scientists! With a red dot capability this March scope, which is a full 2 inches shorter than S&B's 1-8 and Leupold CQBSS, would clean up the competition in the higher price range. |
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