Osprey International TA41650MDG Scope Review

Osprey International TA41650MDG Scope Review

I was fortunate to have 702Shooter.com loan me this Osprey International TA41650MDG Scope for testing, I promptly mounted it on my Remington 788. The scope came with picatinny rings, but I replaced them with my own as the accompanying rings were a bit high for my bolt gun.  I have no doubt they would work well on a flat top AR style rifle.

My first impressions of the Osprey were positive from the moment I picked it up.  The scope has the heft a well made variable power scope should have and feels solid in the hand.  Running the magnification from four through sixteen powers, the image was crisp and well lit, with no haloing or dark areas in the glass.  The elevation and windage controls are easy to reach and manipulate, providing positive clicks and a re-zeroing feature once you have the rifle sighted in for your round.  The adjustments are in 1/8 MOA, which makes for a lot of clicks, but enables you to dial right in where you want to be.

A nifty feature, gaining prominence, is the illuminated reticle.  The TA41650MDG reticle has two colors, red and green and varying levels of illumination, all obtained by manipulating the control located atop of the eye piece.

I packed the rig up and headed out to the Clark County Shooting Park in North Las Vegas to sight the scope in (Nice place to shoot).   I set up at the bench and braced the rifle up good on the bipod and bags for the rear, pulled to bolt and did a “poor man’s” bore sight downrange to the target, then lined the crosshairs up on the Osprey.   Three rounds and a bit of correction later, the rifle and scope are speaking to each other.

I hand loaded 50 .243 rounds and headed out at o’dark thirty to the desert to meet my son and check the zero on the scope after zeroing the turrets, perform a box test, actually I use a triangle, more on that later, and do some distance shooting.

First to check zero, my son and I started at 100 yards and fired three rounds.   The scope held zero just fine after zeroing the turrets and transporting in a hard case.  Sometimes I get tighter groups.

And no, that’s not blood, a sharpie got crushed and bleed through the targets.

With zero verified, it’s time for the triangle test.   The windage was adjusted 6 MOA to the right and back  3 MOA, giving me 3 MOA right, then fired at the same point of impact as the zeroing target above. As you can see, dialing 3 MOA right netted closer to 4 MOA.

Now to test the elevation.  I dialed in 6 MOA down, then 3 MOA up, giving me 3 MOA down and got the group below labeled “3 MOA down elevation”.   As you can see, it also registered 4 MOA vice the 3 MOA dialed in when shot at the zero group point of impact.

The good news is the turrets are moving the reticle, just a tad too much.  Now it’s time to take the turrets back to zero, and check the return ability.  The photo below shows a lousy group, not my best moment, and the scope returning approximately an inch right at zero.

I didn’t like trying to determine the scope function based on the Return to Zero group, so we posted another target, fired three rounds holding on center, and then adjusted the scope 1 MOA left to put point of impact on point of aim and re-zeroed the turrets.  Here are the results of both groups.

From here, we moved back to 500 meters and shot at steel plate.  For my rifle and ammo I dialed in 13 MOA elevation and laid it right in on the IPSIC sized plate.  For windage adjustments, I used the mil-dot reticle to hold off.  It worked well.   From 500 meters, we moved back to 700 meters, I dialed in 10 more MOA for a total of 23 and was on steel.   The next series of shots were taken at 970 meters, taking the elevation to its max of 31 MOA put me close, but with no more room on the turret I held over using the mil-dots.

I mounted the Osprey on a 20 MOA picatinny rail.   The enclosed documentation does not reveal the maximum elevation and windage movement available on this scope, and I could not locate this info on Osprey’s web site. 3 1 MOA of elevation is just enough to put me at 970 meters, with a bit of hold over.

Overall, I am impressed with the Osprey 4-16x50AO.   It has all the features needed for long range shooting, great glass clarity, solid construction, target turrets, parallax adjustment at the turrets and clear images throughout the 4-16 zoom range.

When compared against the high dollar scopes, such as Nightforce, USO, etc. it comes up lacking, but then you are not paying over $2000 for the Osprey, it comes in at under $200.00, and for the price, the features, and the performance, I would say it is a bargain for the entry level long range shooter or occasional shooter.   I’ll own one.

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