Rifle Scopes : zeiss victory v8 rifle scope

What irritates me is that Zeiss decided to make these on a 36mm tube.

I presume these are based on the same 8x erector design that Hensoldt 3.5-26x56 uses.  I have only seen that scope at various tradeshows and it gets incrementally better, but still, to me that was easily the most underwhelming of the new fancy scopes, so I am going to approach the V8 scopes with a bit of caution.

Quite a few of the recently introduced Zeiss scopes did not look very good to me, as I am very curious whether that is an overall trend for Zeiss or just a few accidental missteps.

Chances are that the new V8 is going to be a superb scope.  I doubt Zeiss will gamble with their flagship designs, but it will still be interesting to see how it does.

I have gnawing suspicion that the 36mm tube is not exactly going to make all those Swaro Z6 owners go and trade their scopes in for the V8.

My overall observation is that it is very difficult to make something truly unique and new in the high end scope world.  Everyone claims their new scope is a "game changer", but that is just marketing.

I have a reasonable amount of hands on time with the Swaro Z3/Z5/Z6, Leica ER and ERi,  varios versions of Zeiss Victory, S&B, etc.  The difference between all of these largely comes down to personal preference: pick the one that has the reticle that agrees with you the most or some other feature you like.

Personally, I am partial to Leica riflescopes since the image agrees with me, the eyepiece is very forgiving and long mounting length is an aid in setting these up just right.  The overall magnification range for scope of these type is not a major concern to me with the 3.5-14x42 being my favourite configuration.  I like larger objective lenses for truly high magnification scopes that I would want to use at extended distances.  Other than that I really lean toward comparatively compact designs.

For that matter, if Zeiss made a version of their V8 in something along the lines of 1.25-10x32, they would have my undivided attention.  

Anyhow, as much as I like my Leica scopes, I suspect I could comfortably replace them with the similarly sized Swaro Z6 models and be just as satisfied (other than with paying a little more, I suppose).  Or to a Zeiss or S&B if they offer similar models.

A bigger problem for the higher end makers is to convince their customers that their latest and greatest are truly that much better than scopes next step down in terms of price. 

I have been playing with the Meopta Meostar R2 lately and that is one hell of a nice scope.  If the rest of the R2 line-up is as good, it will take a little market away from the more expensive brands.

Ditto for Minox who have made some recent organizational changes that will make them an even more serious competitor than they have been in the past.

ILya