Good evening folks,

Since there seems to be little first hand reviews of the new steiner p4xi 1-4x scope, I wanted to share my initial thoughts.  Please note that my "good glass" experience so far has been limited to various offerings from trijicon, vortex, leupold, and an old nightforce.  I say that in hopes of you understanding my perspective.  Without further ado, I'll lay out my thoughts in a simple pros/cons list:

PRO's

* Glass. - The glass is extremely clear! If I had to compare it to another I'd say it's on par with the trijicon 1-4x, but not quite as nice as the razor ii 1-6 (yet better than the viper pst 1-4x).  I'm a big trijicon fan, and my goto scope is the acog TA31F...though this $579 offering from steiner is really growing on me.  

* Illumination - A single red dot on the reticle is all that lights up, though I can confirm that it is daylight bright.  Even in the bright South Carolina sun the dot on max setting was easy to pick up and reminded me a lot of an Aimpoint.  Another nice feature is the "off" setting between the brightness levels and how ridiculously low the level can get.  The manual states the last two levels are for NV use, and it is probably true because they were not visible with the naked eye when I tested it in a pure dark room (though didn't wait for my eyes to fully adapt).  I plan on using it for hogs this season.

* Reticle - Simple, uncluttered, and yet has holdovers.  Though that being said I currently have no idea what the holdover marks correlate to as it's not stated in the manual (a range trip this next week should answer those questions for me).  The reticle is sharp and black and easy to pick up near twilight even without the illumination.

* True 1x! - Yes, when set at 1x I can keep both eyes open and transition perfectly from at the ready to firing position.  Unlike a few other scopes I've either bought or played with at Cabela's, there is no fish-ey effect or other such nonsense.  I'll give it a few months playing with it at the range, but my initial thoughts are (combined with it's daylight bright dot) that I'll never mess with a red-dot type scope again.

*  Eye relief - Pretty decent in actual use.  Other thing to note is it has a generous eyebox (?).  I believe that's what it's called...I find it's very easy to get behind the scope.

Cons

* Controls - The windage/elevation, and the illumination dial are best described as "mushy".  It doesn't have the super positive clicks like the vortex or nightforce, though on a scope like this I'm not sure if that matters much. Like with my trijicons, I'm more of a set it and forget it type. The dials are finger adjustable under the dust caps.  So, once dialed in I may never touch them again.  However the illumination dial will get use, and after playing with it for a week I still would prefer more definitive clicks on rotation as I find myself either visually confirming the dial position or looking through the scope to make sure it's off.

* Weight - at @ 17oz it's not a porker, but would have been nice to be a bit lighter, like some of leupolds offerings.  Then again, if it's as robust as Steiner claims I could overlook this.  On that note, the razor ii 1-6x is my second favorite scope, but darn if it isn't heavy.

Other thoughts

* Briefly playing with it outside at night showed decent low light capability.  
* Reliability is unknown at this point, but at least steiner does offer a lifetime warranty.
* Scope is currently mounted on a 14.5" Huldra arms gas-piston lightweight upper in a burris apper quick detach mount.  So far so good as far as repeatability and durability.

 Well, there you have it.  I would love for someone more experienced to do a proper review, but for now this'll have to do.  If any of my opinions change in the coming weeks/months I'll come back and update this. Also, if there are any questions you might have or things I failed to cover please ask.

Thanks for reading,
Match

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Thanks folks for the kind welcome!

I got to put another 300 rounds downrange using the scope, and I'm still happy (other than that mushy illum. dial). I've only played with a few aimpoints, but find it neat that I can use this in a similar manner.  Also, I used it (unsuccessfully) deer hunting a few days ago.  Not the scopes fault, just 92F, muggy, and nothing moving... However, I did see 3 red headed woodpeckers and one aggravating squirrel in marvelous detail!

-Match

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