Unleashing the BEAST

[7mmfreak]

For a couple of days now I have come home to a UPS sticker on the door letting me know I had to wait another day before I could get my hands on it. As I was leaving post I got an e-mail from UPS saying I could sign for my package at the distribution center 7:00PM and 7:30PM. I drove home, got out of my uniform, took a shower, then jumped back in the pickup to head into town. The clerk at UPS brought out a box that was about 1ft x 1ft x 2ft: Nightforce builds bombproof optics and ships them in bomb resistant packaging. I rushed home to set it free. This is the new Nightforce 5-25x56mm F1 B.E.A.S.T. and 34mm Ultralite MagMount.

Courtesy of our friends at Nightforce:




I immediately had to look it over. I owe you a complete review of this thing but my first impression (which made my wife laugh since she said I looked like a kid with a new toy) was, "d**n, these guys are smart." This weekend I will be done with a school that has prevented me from finishing up the Green Beanie rifle but will be able to paint the stock and do some shooting with it over the next week. The BEAST will get vetted this weekend on a match rifle and then will mount up on the Green Beanie to proof that rifle on the range.


Anyhow, for all the guys gearing up for the next Kentucky shoot out with Hankins this might be the site to look into.

[Deleted]

That's one heck of a scope. Price will keep me from ever looking down one but I appreciate the quality they produce for sure.

[Deleted]

yes they are a lot of scope and a good many coins BUT as he said they are bomb proof. I am looking into one myself but the new CF build already has the wife beating on me after I go to sleep so the 5x25 ATACR might have to wait for a while. Im looking forward to some testing by a guy that shoots much more than I will ever get to..

[Deleted]

Sept 15, 2014 19:50:44 GMT -5 @myers129 said:

That's one heck of a scope. Price will keep me from ever looking down one but I appreciate the quality they produce for sure.

X2, enjoy that beast!!

[7mmfreak]

Yeah, they are not cheap but I don't think they can be beat. This one is going to pull double duty: I have a big tactical match next month and then I have a new muzzle-loader bullet to develop and test as soon as the dies get here (which should be next month also).

[Deleted]

You definitely won't have to worry about the scope givin false groups with your new bullet. That one will hold no problem.

[rambler]

SWEETNESS!!

[Deleted]

Mongo like Purdy scope!
That thing is cool!

[Deleted]

One Day I'll have a nightforce something BEAST,ATACR....When they name their new creation maybe I'll have the funds to purchase it,lol....
Very Nice scope 7mm....Can't wait to see how your bullet project works out.....

[airborneike]

Keith,

Glad you got the scope, Nightforce takes care of their good shooters. Hoping to see you in the top line at your upcomming match...naw...expecting to see you there.

Good luck with the JMPI test, bet your finger tips are sore by now :-)

Best,

Mike

[7mmfreak]

Thanks fellas.

Mike,

Yeah, NF did me a solid on this one. I'd like to be in the top line too. It's just a small matter of doing it all really well, right (easier said than done)? And getting a little lucky. I know a couple teams that might have to fall down some stairs.

Yes, my fingers are sore. I needed a study break the other night so I grabbed my longbow and headed into the backyard. As soon as I began to draw my hands started screaming. I fought through it though. It was good stress relief.

[7mmfreak]

Got it all mounted up today. That scope and mount are rock solid.

Leveled and cleaned with denatured alcohol so as to be slip free:


Not sure how well you can see it but once I get the gun level I line up the bore, then the scope (rinse and repeat until everything lines up) with a square object. Today I used the water tower in the distance. This allows me to run the parallax to infinity and focus the reticle (prior to getting on the water tower), lock down the diopter ring, move onto the water tower, and keep everything plumb as I tighten things up:

[Deleted]

Not to alarm you but there's a deer in your backyard! Using something far off like that is absolutely the best way to level up. Can't wait till you get to put some rounds down range with it.

[7mmfreak]

Yeah, my wife calls that deer a unicorn because he only has one antler left. My dog loves antlers and snatched one only to discover it was plastic. I can get 33yds from the porch and that is a long poke for a longbow.

Here is the match rifle the scope is for to give you some scale. I can't go shoot it because I didn't realize my brother had the scope mount holes opened to 8x40 when he traded it to me so I bought a 6x48 base while it was off getting barreled:


And here it is on the Green Beanie which will be undertaking the bullet making project:

[Deleted]

What should you torque your rings down too? Actually what is the whole process of mounting a scope correctly? Torque and all?

Currently I have my rings torqued to 30 in/lbs but read I should have torqued 18-20 in/lbs.

If I'm wrong will it cause the scope tracking abilities to be off?

[7mmfreak]

I guess it depends on what your set-up is. I mount 2-piece base set-ups differently than I do 1-piece bases.

For 2-piece like Talley LW mounts I tighten them down snug and put my alignment bars in them to see how close to straight they are. If they are very far off at all I mount them to the alignment bars and bed them in place to get them where I want them. I do it by snugging one down and floating the other while both are affixed to the alignment bar. Then when the bedding has cured I pull the 1-piece bar and put the two pointed bars in and check alignment one more time. At that point I do any lapping that might be necessary.

With 1-piece bases I usually put them on to check for fit and tighten down the rear bridge. I level the base. Then I tighten down the front and check along the base with the level. Almost always I find the base is stressed and the levels won't show flat from rear to front. I decide which end I want tightened down and bed the base the same as above: one end tightened down the other sitting on a pad of Devcon. After the epoxy cures I check it again with the levels to ensure there is no bending/binding of the base.

With either base set-up I pull the base, clean the release agent from the action and base screws, apply silicone to the screws as I prefer it to Loc-tite, and tighten the base screws to 25 in-lbs. I then take denatured alcohol and clean the scope body and the ring halves to insure no slippery mating surfaces between optic and ring.

With a good one piece base and quality rings I do not lap them. The alignment bars almost always show they are very nearly perfect. I look at how close the points are with a 10x loupe. I then figure out my rough eye-relief position and adjust my rings accordingly (if 2-piece I do this before I bed them) so as to support as much of the scope tube as possible as it is the weakest and most vulnerable to bending. If you are using "tactical" style rings I torque them to 60 in-lbs at the base.

I then use the method shown above to level the gun with a distant object centered in the bore. I place my optic in the bottom half of the rings and estimate what straight looks like and see if it lines up with the plumb line I am using. If not I rotate my vise until the reticle is on the plumb line. I then pull the optic back off and re-check to ensure the gun is level since the vise does not rotate true and level. I fix what I need to fix to get it level and replace the scope in the bottom ring half. A time or two and you will have it all level and square. I then take one ring half and just snug it down to hold the scope in place and re-check to make sure I haven't bumped the reticle from level. If all is right I silicone the screws for the other ring half and begin to incrementally tighten them down making sure the gaps on both sides of the ring are even. I torque ring cap screws to 15-18 in-lbs depending on ring material. Once one ring is fully secure I do the same for the other ring.

After that I run my adjustments the length of the water tower (from one limit to the other to observe how the track) and achieve a bore sight. Then it's off to the range.

[Richard]

If its working ok now RR, there should not be a problem. The crux of the matter comes when you tighten too much and crush the outside tube against the erector tube!

BTW 7mm................that is a slick scope! But must say, my MK IV Leupold has been trouble free after some 3,000 + ML shots. And good luck in your up coming match. Our 600 yd. IBS season ended two weeks ago
Richard

[jims]

7mm: How did you get the City to put a water tower in your backyard so you could level your scope? You really must have influence in high places. Nice write-up.

[7mmfreak]

Rich,

Thanks, I'm looking forward to this match; I have some scores to settle. There are no flies on the Mk4 line. Some people act like they are not legit scopes for long range work but I have also shot many thousands of rounds with Mk4 scopes with good results. The newest ones we have look a lot like the BEAST (just don't have some of the convenience features of the BEAST).

jims,

I'm kind of a big deal and it's a small town.

[7mmfreak]

If I want to shoot this thing it will be on an AR or the SML for now. I didn't realize when my brother traded me the action he opened up the scope base mounting holes to 8x40. I ordered a scope base while the action was getting barreled on the match rifle. After I leveled the scope yesterday I was getting ready to bed the base to the match gun when I realized the 6x48 holes were like throwing wieners down a hallway. Nightforce gave me an RMA to send back the base today and have already shipped the appropriate base and screws. Maybe next weekend on that gun. Either way, I intend to get it zeroed on an AR this weekend to start testing. Then I will come home and paint the stock on the Green Beanie and range certify that one.

[cowhunter]

7mm: I forgot, what type of bullet are you making? I've never looked through a Nightforce. What do you like about that scope?

[7mmfreak]

Sept 20, 2014 23:12:27 GMT -5 cowhunter said:

7mm: I forgot, what type of bullet are you making? I've never looked through a Nightforce. What do you like about that scope?

I am going to make a .458" bullet that is an open-tipped (like a Berger or Sierra Matchking) with a VLD profile (like the MH line). The dykem shows the bullet profile:



The dies allow me to adjust for weight so I can't say exactly what the bullet is going to weigh. My goal is to have two flat base bullets: one between 285gn and 300gn and another between 300gn and 330gn. I am also going to attempt to make a high BC rebated boattail bullet for the Full Form guys who want to go long but we'll see how the first two do and what the need from there is. I am going to use a .030" tapered to .019" jacket and a .030" nontapered jacket until I figure out what works best. Once I have bullets that will shoot I will look into changing one variable at a time in order to make them better hunting bullets; i.e. lead alloy, bonding, etc.

The bullets can be drawn down about .008" without damage to the bullet so I can ship them at .458" for guys who want to full from them in .450/.458" barrels. I can draw them down to .451 for guys who want to shoot them smooth formed from .450/.458" barrels. Or guys who shoot .442/.451" barrels can order them at .451" for full from.

If and only if this does well, I am considering building a pair of .416s (one SML and one metallic) and making an OTM VLD for the .416" crowd. That is more than a year away though based on lead time for dies alone.

As for Nightforce, there is quite a lot I like. My first one was back in the 90s when I was a teenager and I got it second hand through the gunshop I worked for. It was a 3.5-15x56mmAO with the NP-1RR reticle. It was a good scope and compared to the Leupolds I was using offered a lot of things that seemed really advanced. Back then I was not an advanced shooter but I was wowed by .125 MOA adjustments, the complex reticle, the look of it, and the fact that I could see and shoot through it across our back pasture at night with the illuminated reticle and a little bit of ambient light. About a year later it and the rifle it was on were stolen from me. It left a hole in my life that only another Nightforce would fill.

Over the next few years I moved away from heavy guns (and still avoid them when I can) and started building bantam weight guns with reasonable optics. I shot a few varmint guns here and there and a few had the (then new) NXS line of scopes. I liked them because they looked rugged, had sharp glass, and most of all when you dialed on adjustments that is where the bullet went. The scopes were just too big for the guns I was using at the time so I never bought another.

The Nightforce NXS Compact is what brought me back to Nighforce. I saw my first one in Ramadi, Iraq in 2009. It was one of the 2.5-10x24mm sites that NSW was using on some SPRs. I decided I needed to take a look at what Nighforce was making. That particular scope has never been easy to get hold of (I got my first one this year) but when they came out with the 32mm version I jumped on it. As mentioned before their glass is good, they now have two really good reticles (MOAR and MIL-R), and their dials are dead nuts reliable. I would like to have had the 2.5-10x with a 42-44mm objective lens but they didn't offer them at the time; they announced the 42mm a week after I bought my 32mm. Either way it is a totally sufficient optic for just about any hunting situation. The 24mm does not do as well in low light but I use it on a .223 Wylde rifle for DMR matches and it is a tough little scope that allows me to keep length and weight down, remain fast, and make quick hits to 700m with either the reticle or dials.

What I keep coming back to is good glass, intuitive and useful reticles, and absolutely flawless adjustments. What I kept wanting was Front Focal Plane and Horus reticles. Nightforce did offer an NXS F1 and I was fine with the power range, glass, etc but at that time I was shooting a Leupold Mk4 ER/T 6.5-20x50mm M5A2 on work guns. Things it had (which I had grown to love) were a locking elevation turret, a capped windage turret (my NF 2.5-10x24mm has this and I love it since I hold wind with a reticle), brilliant HD glass, and a Horus H-59 reticle. The F1 didn't have these things and I was still deciding whether or not I wanted to get back into heavy, long range guns with my personal time and money.

I had never wanted a "tactical rifle" of my own before but finally caved in and bought one with the intention of shooting practical matches. I borrowed a Vortex for my first match and then started shooting my NXS Compact. During that time I worked on a number of guns for friends (doing mostly bedding jobs, trigger jobs, mounting optics, and some load development along with teaching guys how to properly load their own ammo and make it perform). As a result I got to shoot nearly every version of the Vortex Viper PST line, Bushnell HDMR and ERS with H-59 and TReMoR reticles, my Leupold Mk4 scopes saw use at work, and all were compared to my Nightforce Compacts. I also kept a close eye on what guys were shooting at matches; winners shot Nightforce and Schmidt and Bender. I didn't have the coin for the S&B and couldn't see what made them $1K (or more) better anyhow.

I met Bill Bracken (Nighforce MIL/GOV/LE Manager) at a big LE/MIL Sniper match last year and he had one of everything they make with him on display. I also asked him about the possibility of changing my 2.5-10x32mm MOA adjustments and MOAR reticle to MRAD adjustments and MIL-R reticle. I had the ill timing of buying that scope just before they offered it in both MRAD and with a 42mm objective. He offered to pay for the more expensive option (the reticle) if I would pay for the adjustments. Leupold has never made that offer, they just ask me for a credit card number and if my Custom Shop order is correct. Bill was also able to sell me a 2.5-10x24mm from a leftover government contract. As I mentioned earlier these are not available for general purchase so I jumped on it for my DMR rifle. All of this is to say that Bill and Nightforce do a stellar job of taking care of customers.

What I like about the BEAST so far is initial impression. I have not had the opportunity to shoot it yet, just mount it up, do some dry firing, and observe with it at last light to see how it does. This is my fault because I ordered a base for the rifle the BEAST goes on while it was off getting re-barreled and didn't realize the action was tapped for 8x40. I should have it all remedied by next weekend. Anyhow, my first impression was, "Wow, these dudes are smart." The optic is not really all that much larger than anything else out there but has everything I want in a practical long range scope. The first thing I noticed was how crisp and bright the optics look. The reticle is FFP so I can shoot it at any power I choose (which is rarely over 12x). I love the Nightforce Zero-Stop on my compacts and I am sure it will be no different on this one. I like that the windage and elevation knobs lock so that they don't get bumped. My favorite design feature is i4F elevation control: 20 MRAD per revolution, Zero-Stop, the fine adjustment lever which allows me to switch from from .2MRAD to .1MRAD, and the 360° brake. The clicks are audible and positively tactile.

I know that was long winded and I don't want to say more until I have used it. I guess what I mean is I have used a lot of optics, Nightforce has always stood out to me, and the BEAST is the first NF offering in a while I have gotten excited about. It has big shoes to fill based on the claims made about it but my initial impression is it will not fall short. Starting next week I will be shooting it a lot in evalauation and preparation for a big match next month.

[rambler]

I think your mission is clear 7mm

[7mmfreak]

Sorry, I'm one of those people who wake up at full power. My hyper-active inner child has been penned up while I slept and I just unleashed him with a cup of coffee and a keyboard. I know I have described the concept for the bullets a few times now but I hate to tell people to just look up what I already said because the search feature on this site because it is annoying to use. Plus, I'm not charging anyone for my time. Maybe if I type enough people will pay me to stop. I haven't really gotten started on the BEAST but it is coming. My wife said I was like a little kid opening that box. I have to go outside and paint some gunstocks now.

[Dave W]

Take it you are aware that a tapered jacket will have different spring back rates like the FTX line does. The base area of the bearing surface ends up .003-.005 smaller than the top of the bearing surface.

[7mmfreak]

Yes, I am aware. Given that the vast majority of the taper will be in the nose I am not sure how much of an issue the taper will be. That said, reversed tapered bullets have been used for a long time in muzzleloaders. I am not willing to dismiss anything until I have proven it won't work. If it won't work and a .030" jacket is not working I may start drawing my own jackets but I don't want to if I don't have to.

[jims]

A good read all around.

[7mmfreak]

The BEAST made it's last range trip yesterday after three months of T&E on everything from match rifles to the Green Beanie.



The glass is very good in regards to color, contrast, and resolution. Also, the eye-relief is generous and non-critical (or has big eye-box as is now trendy to call it).


The illumination is good for an FFP scope (more difficult to do than with SFP) and has an innovative push-button selector that changes from green to red and varies intensity. It is located in the parallax knob which also quickly eliminates that issue with no backlash.


The adjustments were accurate and repeatable though after initial testing I stopped using them since I had the H-59 reticle. The concept behind the fine and course elevation knobs is a neat and innovative solution to a problem that doesn't really exist. The guys this scope was designed for almost all hold for the vast majority of their shots. I would rather just have a .1 MRAD dial but the locking feature is one of the better designs in my opinion. Having a locking windage knob is also a plus if you are going to have an exposed turret. I couldn't turn the windage knob through its full range from the prone but who really needs to dial that much wind? I would rather just have a capped turret.


In all, it is a very good optic which will take a beating and keep performing. In a truly high class optic I am not sure it has many peers. The downside is that it is very heavy, long, more complicated than it needs to be and is competing in a market where guys want smaller, lighter, and a dollar value similar to what they are used to getting from Bushnell and Vortex. That will keep it out of most people's hands. If you are looking for a star from Nightforce I would hang on a little longer and wait to see the new FFP ATACR since it should have the necessary features, ditch the unnecessary, and be a little cheaper.

[Deleted]

Nice report and detailed feedback.

[deadeye]

one heck of a scope & nice write-up. I always liked illum green ret's which is not a option usually. when I first looked @ nf web I thought they had made a mistake..

.1 mrad is not .25moa//but I see the model difference's