Thread: Shepherd scopes

Has anyone had experience with Sheperd scopes? Apparently they're used by the British SAS. I have a contact who is able to bring these in and he swears by them.

https://shepherdscopes.com/

I’ve got a view on these - positive and negative. Going to bed now but will try and remember to comment tomorrow. Might get my cuz to comment as he’s owned a couple of them. Very techy scopes, totally rad twin reticle design.

No idea of they are anygood or not.

But I highly doubt British SAS use this scope, or any scope that isn't made by S&B or similar.

If it were my money I wouldn't be spending it on a lesser known make, you may strike a bargain but more often than not you won't.
Stick to the known brands and you can't go too far wrong.

Athlon is a relatively new manufacturer on the scene and offer multiple lines of scope for that seem to get a lot of praise in the USA. Should find something from them in your price bracket.

@hotsoup

I messaged my cuz but haven’t heard back yet. I played with one of these Shepherds on my last trip to the US, 2011. Colorado Cuz had one, he’s a tech nerd hopeless sucker for wizardry, and went for it due to the innovative double reticle one shot zero cleverness. The quality of the scope was good, the glass and much of the unit is made by Light Optical Works or at least used to be. It was heavy.

I could never in a million years be bothered to try and range using the reticles, that’s what a rangefinder is for. Also using the simple MRAD equation mentally is much simpler if you want to use a reticle. The one shot zero principle seemed to work but was a bit hard to get my head around, I’d just mount my scope properly to begin with and take it from there, its rare that a good scope loses zero, for me at least. I’m a bit of a simpleton when it comes to optics. No need to complicate matters to shoot a deer, that’s my view.

Last I heard cuz had reverted back to whatever he was using before. I think he got a bit bored of the cleverness. His stepbrother who is here now mentioned a while back that Shepherd hadn’t gone anywhere commercially. I’m pretty sure it was them, we were playing with an early Burris Eliminator at the time and struggling to get it to work properly and talking about gimmicky scopes. I looked into Shepherd this morning and saw a crap website, 348 subscribers to their YouTube channel, and bugger all reviews by recognised and respected mags, YouTubers, etc.

My sense at the time was that the scope was very smart but unnecessarily so, and that it would only appeal to a very narrow segment of the market. I have found no mention of the SAS but rather some oblique references from 10 years ago that a “tier 1” specials ops group were interested in looking at it. I think a small number of shooters will absolutely love it, the rest will glance, go “meh” and turn away.

That said, why not get one! Might be amazing!

Interesting, thanks all for the comments.

I typically run Swarovski scopes however my contact is raving about these scopes, he is bring them in for his own rifles, will have a play and see.

Right, well, if I could delete my earlier post, I would. Completely wrong. Have now spoken to cuz and heard a very interesting opinion about his Shepherd and what he got initially got wrong (when I saw it) and what he did to fix it. Loves it.

They've been around for a while. 6 or so years ago I stayed in a hut with a gentleman that had one on his .270

The Shepherd scopes are originallt around since the late eighties, old technolgy. Most of the scopes back then were caliber specific. They were reinvented by a florida company called salvo I believe. In all honesty, I dont know anyone using one, theres a lot of reliable scopes out there with a proven track record.

It was the “calibre specific” bit that my cuz told me about yesterday. (He read my post above and gave me a bit of a serve ha ha I deserved it too) He got a Shepherd V1 scope given to him in about 2008 without any instructions and after 2-3 years of it sitting in a draw he mounted it on a .308. Couldn’t get the ballistic compensation reticle to work with his loads but didn’t try very hard either. Took it off the rifle and put it back in the draw. I would have seen it just before he took it off the rifle in 2011.

Then last year cuz went to the SHOT show and saw the Shepherd stand. Asked a few questions, they asked him to send the scope back to them with the data for the specific rifle and cartridge he wanted to use. Nothing ventured, nothing gained he thought so he did, with data for a 7mmRM Sendero and 162gr ELD-X. The scope came back very quickly with a different reticle, for free, just like that. Hey presto is was 100% spot on for his load out well past 1000yds. He was so impressed with the attitude of the Shepherd people that he bought one of the “rugged” scopes for his guide gun and he loves that too.

So yeah, I was a bit surprised and ate my slice of humble pie. Cuz told me to have another go at the website, which is a bit temperamental on a tablet, and I did yesterday and now I get the reticle selection part.
@hotsoup I would be very interested to hear about your contact and how to maybe assess these scopes hands one in NZ. From what I heard yesterday if you get it right with the reticle the speed with which the shooter can adjust ballistic compensation will blow any other method out of the water, e.g. rangefinder and dialling.

@Flyblown that rugged series 1-8x24 would be a cranky little scope on my 303 project.