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Jack Dunross

Just giving everyone a heads up that I recently purchased a Zerotech Trace 3-18x50 with the R3 reticle. (Second focal plane)

The price was right and the 3-18 zoom range would have been perfect for my 308 hack. My current vortex viper 5-25x50 is nice, but has a bit too much power on the low end for bush hunting. Also I don't like that the turrets are exposed. Especially the windage one.

Anyway, the Zerotech seemed like a great option as they're an Aussie company with a lifetime warranty and having had dramas with sending scopes overseas before I figured that if there were any issues I'd only have to send it over to the east coast.
It also has some great features like locking turrets that have nice positive clicks. The build quality felt great and the dioptre, parallax and zoom ring were nice and smooth. Not too loose and not too tight. The included metal scope flip caps that fold flat are a really nice touch too.

The glass is great for how much it costs. I watched plenty of videos about people raving about the glass (I purchased online), but it definitely doesn't compare to either the vortex viper that it was going to replace, or my leupold vx5, or trijicon accupoint. Nor should it, as it's about $800 cheaper than all of those, but I just wanted to put that in perspective. I think it is very good for the money though. Compared to the other scopes the sight picture felt very drain pipey too, which bugged me after having used quite nice scopes.

The major issues for me though and the reason for this post and why im returning the scope, is that the reticle is too thin. It gets washed out in dark bush and dark animals and anything a but dark really. I was pretty bummed actually because I quite liked the reticle design/layout.
So anyone on the fence about buying one, keep this in mind.

I actually spoke to the guy at zerotech that designs the reticle, as he wanted to have a chat before I returned it. He is a really nice dude and seems to love and really care about what he does, which is nice. He gave me some great info and told me that, that particular reticle was never intended for hunting and it was designed as an F-class scope. He suggested that I try the FFP trace advanced that he designed more for hunting, with a thicker reticle.
I found a video which showed the reticle and it was exactly how he said, but I decided not to go with it, as I don't really like FFP scopes. I don't like that it relies on illumination to see the reticle on the lowest setting. Some people probably won't mind, but it bothers me. I like illumination, but I don't want to have to use it in my scope for the cross hairs to function.

All in all, my experience with the company was great! The customer service is excellent and I think they really care about putting out good products. I actually purchased one of their red dots at the same time and it is awesome! It's currently sitting on top of my Marlin 1895 SBL 45-70. So far it has handled the recoil just fine. It has motion sensing on/off and a side loading battery compartment and comes with a nice rubber cover and is just a nice looking red dot compared to some of the others on the market. It has the same features as the leupold, but is half the price. If the sun is at a certain angle though, the dot does bleed a bit, but I'm not bother by it.

I hope this helps some people 🍻