MTC Viper 8-32x60

[jon2008]

I had a very good expirience with this fairly new scope to the American market on Saturday. The scope looks alot like the big leapers scope, the turrets look similar to the leapers brand although not in function. Good solid audible clicks and the scope tracked well. I had turned it many times during the day during my nearly 10 hours of shooting and it hit right were I dialed every time.

I found the scope to be an exceptionally accurate rangefinder, but it takes a bit of technique. It ranges much like a Nikko in that the image snaps in and out but then the wheel must be turned quickly in opposite directions to get repeatability sort of like a leupold competition. But once you get it down it's very accurate.

Next is the super cool reticle, it has 4 long hash marks resembling a christmas tree, the first line is short and gradually gets longer as you go down the ladder. It also has small hash marks in between the longer ones. I assume the long ones are there for windage hold off. It also has a neat lit reticle that only lights up the holdover lines. And even neater when the reticle is lit it does not wash out the inside of the lense with red like some reticles do.

Now for the gripes, although the sidewheel is huge, the spacing between yardages is pretty tight for example, I only had enough room to make 50-53-55 yard ranging marks and even then they were right on top of eachother. I still was able to accurately range find between them, it was just a little tight for my liking. Basically only half the huge sidewheel is used, to me that is an in-efficient use of the wheels size.

If the the scope came with an 8 inch sidewheel as indicated by the U.S. dealer it was bought from I may have had more room for markings in between, 50-55 yards.

Next what everyone would like to know, how is the glass? I dont consider this a gripe but I have heard this scope compared to all sorts of glass such as the bushnell 4200, 3200, Big Nikko and bushnell legend. I personally have only had expirience with the big nikko and and the bushnell 4200. I can honestly say it's not as good as either the nikko or bushnell 4200 at 32X.

But I will say it is much better than the leapers at 32X even though it's seems to closely resemble the leapers. The only scope I can directly compare it to would be a very good hakko or a very good tasco custom shop scope.
So I guess I'm saying the glass is great but not excellent. The scope gets a little dim shooting in the shade at dark targets, but to be fair I havent seen many high power scopes be all that bright shooting in the same conditions.

With the power turned down a friend noted that it is very bright and clear, I personally didnt look but I trust this friends opinion. He is a hunter class shooter and noted that it would be a nice scope for that. MTC does have lower powered scopes and I would assume the brightness is there for them as well.

Weight.....this scope is huge and heavy, it's about the same size as the big nikko, so If you want compact this isnt the one for you.

I personally like to mount my scopes very high for my own personal comfort when shooting, and I often find most scopes cant give me enough elevation to click to cover the close targets. This scope works well for that if you use a combination of clicks and holdover points because the holdovers are basically extra crosshairs it makes my set-up work quite well. Plus you get the added benefit of a flat trajectory at further distances which helps for long range range finding errors.

So some of you may ask should I get the bushnell 4200 or the MTC Viper? I guess they get compared to eachother because they are in the same price range. Personally I would choose the MTC Viper. Why? Because it is absolutely loaded with features that FT shooters use and want. No it doesnt have the same quality of glass but I feel it makes up for that with it's great rangefinding, sidewheel, very cool lit half mil-dot aim points, and accurate clicking lockable turrets.

I also want to note I shot in a 20 degree temp difference on Saturday, it was from 70 in the morning reaching 90 by the late afternoon. It was almost impossible to keep the gun in the shade all day so my gun was subject to alot of heating and cooling throughout the day. I noticed no shifting at all. Does that mean it doesnt shift? Certainly not, I have not tested it in extreme cold so I cant say as of yet if it will shift. But it is good up to 90 degrees so far which to me is promising.

To me it's a very good value, especially if you dont want to spend nikko or leupold money, I dont think the scope is a handi-cap at all. I orginally got this scope as a temporary fix while I wait for my leupold competition, but from my expirience with it I may not take this scope off and replace it with the leupold.

But dont get me wrong the leupold is awesome and is certainly to me the best scope around right now. But the MTC fits my shooting style better and to me has more features that I find valuable.

To Gary, this is a great scope! American shooters havent seen much of these scopes yet, but when they do they are quite impressed with what you get for the price. I am in the process of proving this scope to be a viable alternative to the expensive leupolds and big nikko's. As I said up to this point in time ths scope this scope has proved that it can perform with the higher priced optics, and surpass them in many ways with the extra features.

Obviously alot of fore-thought went into these scopes before production, there are things on it that I never realized would be valuable before I used it. I especially love the locking ring that allows you to loosen the turret ring to change zero without tools.

[InvisibleAngler]

Thanks for that.

[C3PO_1]

Nice, balanced review. Thanks for sharing.

[swordfish]

I got a Viper 8-32x60 3 weeks ago on an HW97K and here are my first impressions:

Mounted it with the standard Viper/Accushot mount and so far it holds well. The large objective is right on top of the loading port - only 2mm clearance but it took me only about 10 pellets to get used to the loading, so that is not a problem at all.

However there are few issues to be aware of:

Sometimes after I shoot few pellets, from the recoil the big parallax wheel moves a little bit.
If I set my parallax at a fixed distance, let's say 30m and I fire one or more shots, even if the parallax wheel does not move at all, the target becomes slightly fuzzy (out of focus), then I have to turn the parallax wheel and return it again to the mark in order to see the target sharp in focus again.
Emailed Garry Cooper about the above issues but he couldn't suggest anything useful - there is no way to tighten the parallax.

The threads on the sunshade ring and scope are not very good and after every shot the sunshade starts rattling and becomes loose - Garry suggested using superglue or locktite.

On 32x mag, if I'm standing in a bright spot and look at a target in a very dark spot (the one I tried was just inside a building about 25m away from me) the image becomes very milky. However if you concentrate on a small detail of the target it's still possible to do accurate rangefinding.

I'm not a scope expert but I think MTC still needs to refine a bit their scopes for springers, even if they say it's springer rated.
Besides all that, I still think the scope is good value for money.

Those are my impressions with stock standard MTC scope/mounts and stock standard HW97K. If I put V-Glide, Dampa mount, etc the results will probably be better.