Schmidt & Bender Short Tactical

The PMII range from Schmidt & Bender needs little introduction as when it comes to premium optics that offer all the long range performance you can wish for, they have few peers. The Ultra Short is a very specific model, primarily designed - as you would expect - to save space, and with forward mounted NV being very popular in the military and increasingly the pest control world for civilians, it is a worthy contender.

PURPOSEFUL DESIGN

There is no mistaking the design cues of this scope, a one piece, 34mm main tube with modest proportions offers a 50mm objective and low profile turrets. The main tube diameter allows generous internal mechanical adjustment whilst maintaining a decent lens size which let’s not forget, aren’t much bigger than your little fingertip right in the centre of any scope’s tube set. In front of the saddle there is just 36mm of tube to fit a ring onto and only 26mm behind! Given the larger ring designs of 34mm mounts we see in this market they are very likely to fill this space entirely.

Behind the rear ring S&B fit the left side illumination saddle with an 11 position rheostat controlling intensity on the reticle. Behind this we see a beautifully deep knurled yet exquisitely finished zoom ring running 5-20x magnification towards a straight 47mm ocular body for the fast focus eyepiece. Tenebraex lens caps are supplied with the scope and there is no doubt these are far more durable than ‘Butler Creeks’! But I dislike their bulk, the front one occasionally requiring higher scope mounting position than necessary, the rear prone to rotation and unexpectedly jamming the rifle’s bolt stroke!

TURRET PERFECTION

Schmidt’s turrets are second to none and the 40mm elevation offered suits this compact scope perfectly. This is the double turn option and calibrated in 0.1 mRad clicks (10mm at 100m). A knurled locking collar lifts to allow the Counter Clockwise Turret (CCW) to rotate, giving 18 mRad per turn, two turns stopping at 35 mRad for serious long range availability although some may be pre-used for zeroing. An inclined rail is best suited to optimise this for maximum `in-field` performance.

On the second turn a small brass stud pops up just off centre of the turret’s surface to show mRad 19-35, both visual and tactile! In the very Metric mRad fashion, there are ten clicks of 0.1 mil or 10mm at 100 metres per division and each tenth click is slightly heavier to allow a certain amount of tactile adjustment. On the right hand side, the windage knob is actually beneath a turret cap but is full hand rather than fingertip sized to ease manipulation. It is marked left and right of centre for 6 full mils. I do like the fact the actual datum marker is set 45° upward from the normal horizontal axis, cleverly designed to allow its visual recognition even with the rear scope ring tight up close.

It didn’t look out of place to leave the cap off but it’s guaranteed you would lose it long term. All clicks were well weighted but 180 of them in elevation needed care between the harder full mils as it was easy to over-run by one or two if you were careless, which is the price you pay for such massive adjustment in a compact unit!

BUSY, BUSY, BUSY

Parallax ran from 25m to infinity with approximate stages marked on the lightly knurled 40mm aluminium drum on the left side. No backlash showing up over the full range was good; the numbers even nearly matched the actual distances which is a pleasant if unnecessary feature! Sharp focus was also achieved at infinity and full 20x magnification, something I have noticed incorrect on occasion with very high mag scopes but 20x isn’t really that much anymore. Most critically though, with the gun locked down, there was no parallax error noticeable!

The scope had the TReMoR2 reticule fitted, which is a combination of hash marks and dots designating holdover and windage in mils that being in the 1st focal plane (FSP), correspond precisely with the turret’s click values. It’s indescribable without seeing a picture (that would be worth a thousand words) as it is VERY complex. Also rather unusual is that the 11-stage illumination merely lights up tiny dots at the centre of the reticule then at the 2, 4, 6 and 8 mil marks below centre. It isn’t auto off at any angle but the CR2032 battery is easily replaced under the left hand control knob. Again, there are no intermediate `off` detents between settings for quick and easy re-lighting although it does extinguish between them.

Although very fine and in sharp focus, the reticule is much too busy for my liking and I actually found it tricky to hold precisely on a 1” dot for zeroing at 100 metres. The central dot floats and you tend to find yourself looking at the reticule rather than knowing where it is subliminally. When engaging steel plates at longer ranges, where recoil has passed and you can spot your own `splash`, I found myself having to deliberately shift the aim low so I could hopefully see splash in the upper image regions above the reticle.

There are drop and windage dots all down the central region of the lower quadrants and they blot out not only splash but when shooting paper, other shot holes too. If sand backstops were tricky, less obvious hits on grassy backgrounds would be virtually impossible.

There are three other reticule patterns to choose from and to me they all seem far preferable but beauty is in the eye of the beholder, this one ranks very low for me! Over disruptive patterned backgrounds or into cover, maximum illumination is mandatory, yet still a little weak in full daylight.

FIT UP JOB

As a compact tactical scope of fantastic image quality and excellent mechanics, this Schmidt is all you could hope for. Although some hunters might be tempted to convert this compact build into a hunting optic, be wary of trying to mount it on a gun with twin ring/scope bases on the action bridges, there is virtually zero flexibility in mount spacing on the tube so a one piece rail is 99% mandatory unless you are very lucky. I used a set of 34mm Tier-One Tac rings to mount it on Picatinny rails although that company’s Unimount would have fitted too. An inclined rail for any long range rifle is mandatory really to optimise the available travel. The turrets are set to zero by loosening two Allen bolts under the locking ring. When you rotate it, the turret will still click but there is no internal movement! Although this works just fine, I do always double check everything and tend to remove the bolts entirely just to be 100% sure they are unlocked. Half in/out, they obstruct the lockring which of course needs to be set free so it’s just easier to remove them entirely.

HORSES FOR COURSES

Eye relief at 90mm is nigh on perfect and it didn’t move at all in use across the magnification range. The scope didn’t actually look out of place on a hunting rifle but that compact build compresses everything and the 90% light transmission did reveal a slightly less bright image than true hunting scopes, which this model really isn’t. I didn’t have the opportunity to test this optic with FLIR or forward-mounted NV but one must assume that really, it has been designed and well researched for Schmidt’s huge military customers. I will bet a few of those transmission percentages are to do with coatings more optimised for this functionality than the human eyeball at dusk so the scope does what it is designed to do, very well! The 2 year warranty is based upon these police and military markets and that I think really shows where it is primarily aimed.

PRICE: £1900+VAT depending on specification
CONTACT: Schmidt & Bender, +49 (0) 6 40 9 / 81 15 – 0 www.schmidtundbender.de for your nearest of 14 approved UK dealers