Member @oregon45 asked me in another thread how I liked my Nightforce NX8 1-8. Rather than derail that thread, I figured I'd create a separate post about it. I did a search and it looked like the most recent discussion was a few years old and mostly hype from when it was first released. So, this is my attempt to provide some feedback on it.
This is actually the second NX8 1-8 I've had. I got the first one in October of 2018 a few months after they were released. I used that one a fair amount in various environments from flat range drills to hunting. I ended up selling it in May of 2019 as part of my overall withdrawal from pursuing shooting and guns at that time. Even so, I had considered moving away from it. There were things I didn't like about it, but in retrospect, most of those had to do with what I now deem to be unrealistic expectations of what that scope is good at.
1. It is not a replacement for a red dot outside of static range drills. This is my opinion and others may disagree. That's fine. For me, in static positions or even with one-dimensional movement, it does work like a red dot. Fairly flat image, nice bright illumination. However, in multi-dimensional movement and, more importantly, less than ideal shooting positions, it certainly suffers compared to a red dot. Frankly, in my experience, every LPVO including the renowned Vortex Razor 1-6 struggles here. It's just what happens when you have tubes and lenses like that.
2. It is not a long range precision optic. Yes, it's FFP. Yes it has Mil stadia. However, the reticle design does not lend itself well to shooting groups or small things far away.
Initially this led me to dismissing the optic altogether as overpriced and a "worst of both worlds compromise." My line became, "If you have to add a red dot, why not put it on a real scope like a 2.5-10 or something with even more top end magnification?"
I've seen many others go down this path as well. On paper, the logic seems to make sense. If all you ever do is shoot from static positions, it will also seems to make sense.
So why did a buy another NX8 and how do I like it?
Short answer: I love it! I've been messing with AR's very heavily since 2002 and have had more configurations than you can shake a stick at; including several high-end optic setups. The NX8 with a piggybacked RMR does everything I want an AR15 to do and does it better than anything else I've tried.
The piggyback RMR is a lot of the magic here. Once you don't have to try to get the "scope" to work like an "Aimpoint," you can do a lot of different things. In several situations mostly revolving around nighttime armadillo hunting, I found myself wanting a more heads-up searching posture with the AR rather than the traditional cheek weld. The piggyback RMR does this perfectly. I think a lot of guys get hung up on the cheek weld vs "chin weld" thing and end up going with an offset RDS mount because they feel like they can transition to the scope faster and maintain cheek weld. To me, that's backwards. The scope is the secondary optic. The RMR is the primary optic and I only use the scope when I need more magnification for ID, Precision, etc. At that point, it's a simple dropping of the cheek into the cheek weld to use the scope.
Ok, but why the NX8? The NX8 is not the worst of both worlds compromise I once thought it was, but rather the best of both, but it is still a compromise. It's size and weight are huge gains compared to most magnified optics. The glass quality is superb as well. I was able to better observe and shoot better groups as well with the NX8 compared to a 10X Leupold Mark 4. In a pinch if the RMR were to fail somehow, the NX8 also works much better at 1X than that 3.5-10 Leupold with Mil-Dot reticle.
Is it the answer for everyone? Of course not. People will have preferences, biases, and budgets. However, if you go into it with the right expectations, I believe you will be well pleased.
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Originally Posted by ASH556
