Lpvo Optics

[Cary Polachek]

TheGuardian 1-8X FFP LPVO is the perfect addition to a rifle or carbine you plan on using for hunting, self-defense, competitive shooting, or as a ranch gun. Get the accuracy and precision you need to make the long shots hit home.

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Guest blog post written by Ilya Koshkin, who runs the OpticsThoughts website. He reviews countless optics, using his extensive career experience in electro-optics and digital imaging to provide reasoned objectivity in his reviews.

LPVO stands for Low Power Variable Optic which has come to define any riflescope with magnification range starting at 1x or close to it. Almost every manufacturer has one of these in the stable and sometimes more than one. For example, I took a brief glance at the Burris website and found five of them in about 12 seconds flat: MTAC 1-4x24, RT-6 1-6x24, XTR II 1-5x24, 1-8x24 and 1.5-8x28.

They vary tremendously in price, quality and performance. Given an incredibly variety of what is out there, it is very easy to fall into the trap of selecting a scope based on published specifications. While specs are important, they do not tell you the whole story, nor do they tell you if a given scope matches your application.

Modern red dot sights are quite reliable and have exceedingly long running batteries often lasting several years of moderate use. LPVOs become a better solution if you want to do more than that. Most importantly, the ability to get a little magnification is key if you want to extend the distance. Also, if you have astigmatism that makes a red dot look like a red blob of indeterminate shape, get an LPVO of some sort and thank me later.

1x means speed. No one uses a 1x riflescope because they are looking for precision. To get speed you have to have a scope with a large exit pupil on 1x, wide FOV, low distortion and an extremely easy to pick up aiming point.

Here is an example for you: if you really need to identify targets at 800 yards, that XTR II 1-8x24 should be looking pretty good. However, if 800 yards is more of a maybe and most of what you do will be inside of 300-400 yards, Steiner P4Xi 1-4x24 will save you some money and give you a very bright dot on 1x. (click here for Steiner Optics website)

As a general reminder: if the reticle is in the Front Focal Plane (FFP), it will grow or shrink in size as you increase or decrease magnification. That means reticle subtensions will be accurate regardless of the magnification, which is important for shooting a bit further out for both trajectory compensation and POI correction.

If the reticle is in the Second Focal Plane (SFP), it will look the same as you change magnification and as the image details get bigger or smaller. That means reticle subtensions will only be accurate at one magnification, usually the highest.

For LPVOs that top out at 6x or below, both FFP and SFP reticles work just as fine as long as they are well designed and well implemented. However, in the real world, most people use these LPVOs either on 1x or on the top magnification, so you will likely get more for your money with a SFP scope. They are a little easier to build and making sufficiently bright illumination is easier with SFP reticles.

The biggest reason for that is the exit pupil. At 8x with a 24mm objective, that exit pupil is 3mm which can be a little constricting if lighting conditions are sub-optimal. What that means in practical terms is that you want to be able to dial the magnification level to whatever looks reasonable for the conditions and have the reticle remain calibrated. That means FFP reticle. With FFP reticle you do not need to know what magnification you are on. You can keep looking through the scope as you adjust the magnification to whatever looks appropriate. Basically, if you will be engaging targets at distances that require holdover, you will likely be doing it somewhere in the 5x to 8x range and there FFP reticle offers an advantage.

Reticle design is trickier with FFP scopes as is reticle illumination. However, there has been a lot of development happening there. Still, if you are looking for a good quality FFP LPVO, it will cost you some money. As I write this, Burris XTR II 1-8x24 is about the lowest price high quality option out there. There are several excellent designs out there that will cost you a lot more and a couple in a similar price range. All the ones I have seen in lower price ranges that combine 1-8x magnification and FFP reticle are not good enough so far.

Burris XTR II 1-8x24 Reticle (8x on the top and 1x on the bottom). Note that due to its FFP design, the reticle contains additional features to make sure the reticle remains visible whether illumination is on or not and to make sure the eye is drawn to the primary aiming point.

And finally, figure out how much you are willing to spend. Not how much you want to spend. How much you are willing to spend. Those are usually different numbers. If you are on a budget, keep your requirements simple.

-Another step up in price is Burris XTR II 1-8x24. Here you can get an FFP reticle and a broader mag range, but you will pay more. This is more of a general purpose scope for a precision carbine where you expect to extend the range of the gun.

The rise of AR platforms has driven innovation and market share of the LPVO, sized-down riflescopes that feature low magnification, small objective lenses, and reticles designed for fast shooting in relatively dark conditions.

But a funny thing happened along the way to designing a purpose-built optic: The LPVO became our new versatile riflescope, as useful atop a rimfire plinker as on an AR you might keep in the closet, and extremely well-suited to turkey shotguns and dangerous-game rifles. This category is maturing quickly, with the significant evolution of dual-purpose first-plane reticles, and this year we saw appealing growth in illumination systems, turret operation, and reticles designed for close-quarters engagement and far-off precision.

Just as our test has evolved to evaluate rifle scopes on a different basis than we judge spotting scopes and binoculars because their job as projectile-placement instruments is categorically different from image magnifying and clarifying optics, we test LPVOs differently than precision scopes.

Just as with our other Optics Test categories, we put all submissions through the same criteria. First, we measure optical resolution, using the diminishing black-and-white lines of a 1951 Air Force Resolution Target to score the optical performance of each submission. We also measure the low-light performance of each LPVO scope by mounting them to tripods and focusing them as a group at 200 yards at a black-and-white resolution target at twilight, all in order to measure the brightness of the glass. As we discussed, neither resolution nor low-light performance are deal-breakers for this category, but both criteria provide valuable insights into the optical performance of the scope.

Then we take each submission to the shooting range. We put each LPVO through the same regimen of accuracy testing on bullseye targets, tracking, and return-to-zero assessment on a 10-minute grid, but we spent relatively more time on shooting drills to assess their combination of instinctive aiming, precision, and versatility. These included rapid target transition drills from standing, seated, and prone positions, followed by a big-bore instinctive shooting drill in which we walked a target course of steel plates positioned anywhere from 20 to 70 yards, and when a referee blew a whistle, the shooter had to find and hit a target within 5 seconds.

Optical performance includes the resolution and low-light tests plus the more subjective assessments of image quality and brightness. Aiming-system performance assesses interior (reticle design, visibility, and utility as well as illumination) and exterior aiming system (turret positivity and indexing, parallax adjustment, zero stop), precision, and shootability. Design considers the exterior finish, interior blacking, mounting dimensions, and durability.

Our 100-point evaluation adds up to a total numeric score, but we translate those to grades for each submission. Our optical performance grade combines the scores from resolution, low-light, and image quality. Our aiming system performance grade aggregates the interior/exterior aiming system, precision, and shootability scores. The design grade considers construction, innovation, versatility, and durability. And then the price/value grade is our good-deal grade.

The class of Japanese glass that Sig uses in this scope is good, which made us wonder why the TANGO6 received lower-than-expected resolution and low-light scores. The scope made up ground with high construction, durability, and design scores. We recognize that the TANGO6T is the civilian version of a scope that has served the U.S. military branches as their preferred Direct View Optic. That category requires a minimum magnification of 1X with no rounding (or fisheye distortion) and a maximum magnification of 6X.

The inverted horseshoe Hellfire DWLR performs as an illuminated red-dot sight from 1-3.5X, when the first-plane references are too fine to see clearly. But from 4 to 6X, the bullet drops and windage dots are easy to deploy. With a 100-yard zero, the scope gives 5.56 shooters drop values out to 800 yards, with corresponding windage marks for a 10 mph crosswind. Our favorite combination of instinctive shooting and precision is about 4.5X, when the center aiming point provides fast target engagement, the field of view is wide enough to receive peripheral information, and you can still see those precision references.

This scope will get the job done, especially if the job is ringing steel out to about 300 yards with your AR, and then cleaning plates inside about 100 yards. The second-plane BDC reticle has just enough references to be useful without being distracting, and the illumination blazes at a nicely visible daylight brightness, though its lowest intensity is still too bright for low-light conditions.

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