SigTac CP1 Prismatic Optical Scope (3X)

I'd had my eye on this optic for some time now, and so when PSA dropped their price, I was eager to get a hold of one. The optic is made by ITac (apparently their products are Chinese made, and they are commonly rebranded. Sun Optics sells the exact same scope, but you save about $75 on your Sig Tax) The adjustment turrets are capped, and offer .25 MOA adjustments. The body is aluminium and is anodized black.

View from the right. Note the SigTac branding on the mount.

The integrated mount is secured to a 1913/Picatinny rail by tightening two nuts. This can be accomplished with either a wrench of the appropriate size, or a flat-headed screw-driver.

The ranging tics are intended for 5.56 x 45mm NATO M193 Spec (Federal XM193). The zero is meant to be set at 50 meters if you intend to use the ranging marks. From the 600 meter to the bottom of the thick portion of the reticle is roughly five feet and six inches at 100 yards (168cm @ 100m)

The reticle illuminated red on its lowest setting (so that my camera could capture it in all its glory).

While experimenting with the illumination, I found that none (black) was best during the daytime hours. I spend three hours peering through the glass down the street and observed that the glass is clear enough that no adverse affects were felt aside from the fagigue of holding my left eye closed for such an extended period of time.

For some reason the picture of the green illumination turned out better. Forgive the glare.

During the late evening/nightime hours (late dusk to early dawn), I found that the red reticle was the easiest to make out without obscuring the target too badly. I spent most of the time on the lowest of the five settings.The green illumination I found most useful on its highest setting when I was having trouble making out the reticle against dark backgrounds during daylight hours. This color was too overwhelming for me at night and seemed to overpower whatever I was looking at. If you look at the left of the image of the green illuminated reticle, you will notice a rather pronounced artifact. That is not a trick of the camera, and is present in both this, and the red illumination modes. The severity of the effect is directly related to the brightness of the reticle.

I noticed when looking at the reticle through the scope the wrong way (through the objective lens) that the reticle was visible while illuminated. I had intended to perform an experiment to determine how far away the was visible, but time was prohibitive these past few weeks, so I will have to get back with you in the upcoming weeks, with pictures if at all possible.

Practical technical specs are as follows.

Magnification: 3X

The red and green illumination modes feature five settings each.

The field of view is six degrees or 10.5 meters at 100 meters.

The eye relief is 14.9cm/5.9in..

The exit pupil is 1.02cm/.4in..

Parallax is set at 100m.109.36yd.

For those of you who care, the scope weights 13.9 oz.

Something interesting: The scope includes two crush washers. If anyone knows why, leave a comment.