Konus Pro LZ-30 3-12x56

Konus optics have been around for some time now and are an Italian company sourcing its products from The People’s Republic of China (PRC). Big deal, you might think, more Chinses-made optics and I would have been inclined to agree in the beginning. But these days, the Chinese and other Far Eastern manufacturers have worked out how to make Western quality products that will appeal to specific markets in Europe and the USA. A good comparison are Turkish shotguns, as they offer a wide and diverse range of excellent guns at low prices and heaven help the European gun makers when the Turks decide to build something approaching a ‘best’ gun!

Advanced design

I have tested some of Konus’ new scopes over 2017 and been impressed, in fact I now have their compact/tactical 2-6x28 AS-34 on my 22 AR and it ticks all the boxes. Their latest product is more general use, in the form of the KonusPro LZ-30. This offers a spec of 3-12x56 with external dialing turrets and dual illumination, which would seem well-suited to most needs. Normally, on PRC scopes, fit and finish tends to be the give away but the LZ-30 looks and feels purposeful, with a semi-matte black skin with a solid heft to it.

The build is conventional and shows a 30mm, one-piece body tube and as I said it feels solid at 25.4oz, most of which seems to be concentrated around the larger, 56mm objective bell. At the rear is a fast-focus eyepiece with rubber rim and standard, slotted magnification ring, which is pleasingly firm in operation. Typically, the build is fog, shock and waterproof. We are told that the LZ-30 offers an extremely generous field of view, being 20% wider than some other comparable models. Comparing it to a similar spec model showed that to a degree this was true.

 

Glass-etched

All glass surfaces are fully multi-coated and the reticle, which is in the second focal plane (SFP) is glass-etched, which will make it able to resist recoil easier. It’s what I would describe as a hybrid 30/30 or Dual-X design, with four, thick outer bars at 12, 3, 6 and 9 o’clock with a fine inner cross that leaves the centre open, inside of which is a slightly heavier floating cross, which is the only part that’s illuminated. On the left of the saddle is the rotary rheostat, which offers 10-positions but divided into five red and five blue increments. Personally, I’m not a fan of dual colour illumination, but more scopes are coming with it these days, so it must be popular.

What I do like, however, are the lockable turrets, which if you are going to have external dialing types are the ones to have; as once set and locked on a range and windage, they cannot be moved accidently, as can easily happen with the older, unlocked types. Just don’t forget to reset when you’ve finished! Operation is simple; lift up to unlock and dial, then snap them down to lock.

 

Clickety click!

Click values are quoted as a ¼ MOA at 100 yards, drums are graduated in 15, 1” divisions and then sub-divided into ¼”, with 15” per turn and seven full rotations in elevation that adds up to 105” top to bottom. Unusually, windage was not the same, as you get four full turns, or 60”, side to side, so still more than enough! Pleasingly, windage is marked with seven MOA in each direction, with 0 in the middle, which makes dialing in a direction that bit easier, as it’s all to easy to get confused when twiddling turrets in the heat of the moment.

Unsurprisingly, the turrets can be set to 0 once zeroed and consist of the graduated, ¼ and 1 MOA sleeve that slides over the actual drum. This is locked by a collar that screws down, above this is a top cap that is retained by three small Allen screws, as well as a thread and acts as an anti-rotation stop as well as a dialing grip for the fingers. You will need a tiny Allen key for this job, which is not supplied- unusual, I thought.

 

All good

In use, the LZ-30 worked well, click values conformed to the numbers quoted and zeroing then dialing off up/down and left/ right then winding the correction back in came to the original zero position. Optics are bright, with good colour balance and no peripheral aberrations in the view. It looks like the scope is pre-parallaxed at 100 yards, but it kept its focus out much further. I think I was looking for faults and in truth I could not find anything that really wasn’t right, but then again that’s my job. My only niggle is the twin colour illumination. as you only get five increments, which on certain backgrounds is not enough for a good contrast, but apart from that, no complaints. Konus also offers a 2.5-10x50 spec too.