I've used several FFII's as well as a several other scopes from both his price range, and the next price range up. My personal opinion is that the FFII is by far the best scope I've looked through until you step up to a Zeiss Conquest for double the price. While I do find the glass in the Conquest better, the difference isn't huge by any means and is pretty minor. Only you can decide if it's worth double the price for you. To me it's not, and the FFII is the way I'd go. If you want finger adjustable turrets Burris will add them for $80 if you send the scopes into them. If you aren't making adjustments in the field the standard adjustments on them are pretty good. These scopes imo are one of the best buys out there. I've got a 3-9x40 and a 4.5-14x42 at this moment, but I've owned several more 3-9's over the last few years and I've been impressed by all of them. If you ever have to use Burris customer service, I have had great experiences with that part of the company too.
Originally Posted by
Palehorse
Sold mine 3-9 for half what I paid for it after one hunt. Performed terribly in low light and had zero contrast. Passed up 3 deer I could plainly see with the naked eye. Shot great from the bench. Got free binoculars with it that I kept.
Last two scopes I bought and loved were a Nikon Monarch and a Redfield.
You must have gotten a bad one, because all of the FFII's I've had have had very good glass, and it's one of the area's where they really excelled. They have had great contrast and the colors look very vivid, as well as excellent low light performance.
I own 2 Nikon Monarchs, and honestly I think the glass in the FFII's are much better. I see a lot of chromatic aberration with the Monarch's, and don't see any with the FFII's, and in low light the FFII is the clear winner.
That said, I don't own nor have I ever owned one of the newer Redfields, but I do have and have had a few VX-I's and the glass in the FFII's blew the VX-I's away. So did the turrets, and the durability, as I've had an extremely high failure rate with the VX-I's. I've also had a VX-I, and while the glass in it was closer to the FFII than the VX-I, I still found the FFII to have slightly better glass. While the turrets in the VX-II were a step up from the VX-I, I also give the nod to the Burris in this department.
The only thing I don't love on the FFII's is the eye piece that rotates as you change magnification. This makes it hard to use flip up caps, but the new E1 model fixes that. I've yet to test out one of the new E1's, but I would like to, and I love the original FFII's and like I said the only improvement I really would like to see is the change to the eye piece that the E1 fixes, so I want to try out one of those too.
As for the reticles, many of the Burris scopes have their ballistic plex reticle, and while I'm not really a fan of ballistic plex reticle's, or bdc style reticles or anything else, the Burris one is my favorite I've used. I much prefer to dial the turrets in for the range I'm shooting, and find it more accurate than hold over reticles, but if you don't want to do that and want a ballistic plex style reticle I find the Burris to be one of the less distracting ones with hash marks that are reasonable in size. To me the circles on the BDC reticle from Nikon are too large and too much of a distraction for me. They are large enough that it's hard to hit precisely at longer ranges for me. On the Burris, I don't have this problem. There are a few other decent ones that are similar to the Burris style too though. Like I said, I still prefer adjusting the turrets, but if you want this style reticle this is one of the better choices in my opinion.
If you have any specific questions about these scopes, please and I can try to answer them for you. If you end up going with one, I think you will most likely be happy you did. I know I was, and I've gone with several more since I got my first one.