So wifey hit me with an awesome surprise this week and bought me the Primary Arms ACSS HUD .308/.223 I've been wanting to put on my 308 (the 308 I'm saving for, that is) but I've got a carbine so I figured what the heck!
Primary Arms advertises that it will work with SOME 223 loads. The ones listed in the instruction book are as follows: 75 gr HNDY @ 2750 fps, 75 gr AMAX @ 2750, 77 gr SMK @ 2800, 55gr FMJ @ 2950 and 62 gr FMJ @ 2900.
Today I was shooting 75 gr Hornady Match and Norma Tac 223 in 55gr.
First impressions- The reticle is incredibly user friendly. I love the chevron inside the horseshoe, it didn't obstruct my vision at all and I was able to establish a consistent POA to work from. Parallax left little to be desired. My biggest issue was that the numbers on the dial were more like suggested indexes. They got me in the ballpark, but I had to move my head each time I adjusted my range in order to get rid of the parallax. Dialing in the turrets to zero was pretty easy, though I'll admit I pretty much used SWAG to get within 3 moa of center, then walked it in from there a couple 1/10's at a time. When it came time to slip my turrets, it was easy enough, getting them off took a bit more force than I expected but they came off and went back on without incident. The only issue I had is that the teeth that seat the turret did not line up in a way that allowed my zero to be directly on the line, so I've noted that my "zero" is actually .05.
Now for the WTF moment... I zeroed at 100yds with the 75gr because I can get a better deal on it. So assuming that they're both pretty flat shooting, I took a couple shots at 50yds with the Norma 55gr to see the difference in elevation. Hell if the 55gr wasn't sighted in too! (It lined up perfectly with the 400yd graduation on the BDC) I mean, it was center punching 2" diamonds. I don't know what kind of math I'd have to do to calculate that but sometimes dumb luck is amazing. Now I can shoot bullseyes at 50 and practice marksmanship at 100 with a simple ammo swap. I'll be damned...
I have been tossing the idea of using this scope and a luth carbine stock on a 18" 308 AR and setting it up for kind of a DMR/lr hybrid role. How is the eye relief and reticle on 4 power?
I didn't toy with the 4x all that much at the range since I was self spotting. I had it around 10-14. I will say that when I was focusing the reticle, 4x has the reticle pretty small. Nice field of vision, but personally I would not feel comfortable making a critical shot below 8. (And I'm 20/15 in my right eye)
I'll get back to ya on the eye relief. I want to say the instructions peg it around 9cm but I'll comment the official number later. Rookie mistake I guess but I mounted about an inch and a half too far forward so I really had to hunch shooting from a bench. Maybe prone will correct that?
At any rate, if parallax is set right, you have a bit of wiggle room with sight picture regarding whether you can see the reticle so that can compensate a little for poor posture. Still, I'd recommend checking it sitting, standing and prone when you mount it before zeroing. My mistake was that I only checked it standing and I usually choke up more standing than I do at a bench.
Just checked the specs and primary arms lists 80mm to 82mm for eye relief.
I have one and very similar to my SWFA for eye relief. I must say stupid easy to use. Just shot it again today out to 300 and I love it for my 308 versus the SWFA which now proudly resides on my Win Mag. My ammo matches very well to the scope.