Here you go:



It's the same overall length as the 1-4. Notable differences are the eyepiece is slightly longer and the turret housing is larger and farther forward.



It is a couple ounces heavier but not too bad at 22 oz.

The covered turrets cover "real exposed" turrets so there's no need to keep them covered if you don't want too:






So if you want exposed turrets, just toss the covers, if you want them covered keep them covered. There's about 40 Mils of total elevation so it should reach as far as anything you'd put a 6X scope on without a sloped mount.

Now to the reticles. These came with two prototype reticles to see what works and what doesn't, neither of which is exactly what the production scope will have. But you can get a good idea of their capability:

Here's a couple 10yd comparisons:






For the sake of comparison, here's what a Leupold CQ/T 1-3X circle dot looks on the same target:






Here are some pics from the range. The day I took all these pics was really dark, gloomy and rainy so all the pics look like crap--please realize that was due to the light conditions, not the optical quality of the scopes:

Post at 100:

Those targets at 300 are 8" grey bulls with 2" white centers.

For comparison, here are pics from the 1-4HD SS and the 1-3 CQ/T at 300:




Again I apologize for the lousy pics, all the scopes looked much better than that in real life.

In actual use, at 300 yds I found there was naturally a pretty big difference between the 1-3 CQ/T and the 1-4 SS, bigger than I would have thought. But there is yet another really big step up from the 1-4 to the 1-6's. That's enough more magnification to make a real difference in how easy it is to use. I haven't had them beyond 300 yet, but with that much difference at 300 there's no doubt the 1-6X is a much better tool for longer distances.

Optics-wise, the 1-6X24HD's are very good. At 1X they almost as good as the 1-4X as far as eye placement, "looking through an empty tube effect," etc. Though I didn't have them handy for a side by side from memory I'd say they're as good as the 1-4 S&B shortdot and better than the 1-4 NF I used to have in that respect, but the 1-4 SS does hold a slight edge.

I didn't have any other 1-6's to compare optics on 6X, but when set to 4X and compared with the 1-4 SS the glass is definitely better in the 1-6X at that power and everybody knows how good the 1-4HD's glass is. I'll have to wait until I get my hands on some other 1-6X's to see how they compare there.