Shepherd Scope 6-18x40 Varmint

[Kes]

Background

I've never been overly keen on splashing out much money on glass. Having only used airgun and rim fire (including HMR) previously and obviously having not shot at anything beyond those comparatively short ranges, my attitude (rightly or wrongly) has always been - "so long as I can clearly see whatever it is to accurately shoot it - why bother shelling out shit loads of cash on a scope?" Lower end and middle-range standard scopes have gone on and off the various air rifles and rimfires I've had over the years. Nikko Sterling, Simmons, Hawke, MTC and Bushnell - all the usual suspects, and all doing the job I required of them just fine.

Moving up to centre fire however, brings with it the obvious capability to take quarry at far longer ranges (200 yards and beyond). For this reason more than anything else, I figured that my optics had best be a little more "up market" and that I should be looking to put something on top of my .223 rem that the calibre deserved. Every shooter has shooting friends who are happy and willing to share their experience and opinion and advise you of which in their opinion is the best to go for (within your budget obviously). S&B, Swarovski, Zeiss. Have a look at Meopta and don't forget Leupold as well Kes...... etc. All very nice, and all very pricey brand new.

Shepherd Scopes

Decided to give something different a try.
Long story short - mate of mine offers me the scope (which retails for $899 in the US) for a lot less and invites me to come down and have a look through it. I did just that and decided well, at that price I might as well go for it. I took it home, and secured it to my Tikka T3. He rang me a few days later. "What d'ya think Steve?" he asked. "It's okay mate" I replied. "The glass is good - better than Bushnell". "Try it in low light mate" came the response". "You'll see it's FAR better than Bushnell". ( )

These scopes are lauded in the US as the famous "one shot zero" scopes. I wont go into details on how it works, it's straight forward enough and it's all on their website.

The quality of the glass/optics/sight picture is truly amazing. I've looked through top-end glass in various gun shops before and this baby is right up there. Far better than any Bushnell etc. Think Zeiss or Meopta. Really. I was chuffed to be zeroing my new rifle looking through an £700 scope (although I only paid a fraction of that myself ) and seeing £1200+ optical clarity.
The scope itself has front end adjustable parallax and is very sleek with a one inch tube. It has the usual 2 main turret adjustors top and side, but also two extra tiny ones in order to manually adjust the FFP reticle for the one shot zero facility. The acid test of this scope's quality came at around 8.40pm that evening when on x 12 magnification, peering into the gloom of the rapidly failing light, I was still able to clearly make out the rabbits skittishly moving around at about 200 yards away. Ten minutes later, with the light almost gone, I wound the mag down to x 6 and looked at the same rabbits as clear as day. Astonishing. I used to have a Simmons Whitetail Expedition a few years back that was superb in low light, but it truly couldn't hold a candle to this Shepherd Scope.
The one-shot-zero facilty is a clever idea and I'm guessing would be very effective and accurate on rifles with little or no-recoil like pre-charged airguns and rim fire. After aiming at your target and firing a shot, you then basically have to move the reticle onto the point of impact (whilst keeping the rifle still pointing at your original point of aim. Your scope is then of course "collimated" to the exact spot your round hit. This to my mind, is fine in theory, but firing just one shot from a centre fire rifle or any recoiling calibre has a lot of additional "what if" and random factors built into where that particular shot might fall. How well did the shooter deal with the recoil for that shot? Was he as comfortable as he could be? Was there a sudden gust of wind down-range that he didn't anticipate? Nothing tells a story like a five shot group. End of.

Why have I done this review?
Well, the fact is, I'd never even heard of these scopes until a couple of months ago. I don't know anyone that uses one or has even owned one yet. The Shepherd company has been around for quite a while and clearly has a niche following in the US. Since I have one myself and rate it very highly, I thought I'd give it it's very first UK BBS review.

Well done Shepherd. Fantastic glass, great innovation and not at German glass prices either. The best scope I've ever had by a country mile.