[Zak Smith]

Here's my analysis of the Shepherd scopes, which I posted over on AR15.com some months ago

Per their website, the Shepherd has the following features which give their scopes unique value:

1. one shot zero,
2. range finding & reticle BDC
3. two reticles (one FFP one 2FP), scope malfunction indicator
4. windage indication

Taken one by one:

1. one shot zero -- any scope which has some reticle features and dials can do this. In a mil-dot reticle (or MOA-based NPR2, or similar), you spot your hit with the reticle features and then dial the correction.

2. ranging finding & reticle BDC -- like most ranging finding reticles, the ranging "circles" are based on a specific-sized target, and will be difficult or impossible to use on different size targets. The granularity of distance "data" you get out of the range-finding features is coarse. For example, even if the target is the right physical size for the circles, how do you range it accurately if it's between 700 and 800 yards? You have to guess how close it is to the two different circles.

2a- reticle BDC-- BDC's are by nature calibrated to one load from one rifle in one set of environmental conditions. This is not unique to the Shepherd, but still worth noting as a disadvantage of BDCs. The second problem is similar to the arbitrary-distance ranging problem. If you have a target that you've lased at 765 yards, and your BDC has marks for 700 and 800 yards, you have to guess where in the reticle the datum for 765 would be. This means firstly you don't know exactly where it is, and secondly that you are holding "in space" with no specific reticle feature on the target.

3. two reticles & malfunction indicator-- While there may be some potential use for a FFP+2FP setup, to provide a fine main crosshair yet constant angular features in the observed reticle, the point that having two reticles being more reliable is a red herring. From good scope-makers such as Leupold, Nightforce, Trijicon, S&B, USO, (and I'm sure mot of the sub-Leupold-price options), reticles don't break very often anyway. The reliability thing is a non-issue. Furthermore, while their demo seems to indicate that a 2FP reticle is a potential reliability problem (with "up to 23 things between the reticle and the target")... WHY would they want to do this AND the other? Why not just make one well?

4. windage indication-- Leaving one or the other knob dialed is always something the shooter has to keep track of, when using knobs for windage and elevation adjustments. This is one reason I often prefer to leave my windage knob zeroed and use reticle-feature wind holdoff.

In summary, in my opinion, the ranging system is a gimmick and not practically useful. A basic mildot or MOA-scale reticle will be more flexible. The reticle BDC has the same limitation as any reticle BDC, namely that arbitrary-distance shots are difficult due to lack of a continuous scale, and even then, they lock you into one load/gun/set of conditions. I also see no practical value to the last two features, just that they make the scope more complicated mechanically (and prone to failure) and for the user, since his sight picture changes.