Last summer I decided that if the perfect hunting scope existed, I would find it. Of course “perfect” is subjective as everyone has a different opinion of what “perfect” is. My perfect bucket list is known to change depending on application. For a medium to long range hunting scope I think its important that it not be too big or heavy, have good glass, turrets that can be dialed accurately, enough eye relief to be used on a magnum rifle, have a good reticle with the ability to make fast holdover shots, enough magnification to make the long shot, waterproof, fogproof, durable, etc. It also needs a good manufacture warranty to back it up just in case your horse rolls down a mountain with it. Last, it shouldn’t require robbing a bank to buy one. I ruled out an unbelievable number of good scopes for one reason or another, including some very big name expensive scopes. A scope would seem like it was working but then would fall short in one of the categories I listed as being important. Things got so bad that I had an excel sheet with specs, eye relief, field of view, price, adjustment range, and any other data that I could get in an excel spreadsheet. I was analyzing reticles and comparing glass in scopes every opportunity I got. Eventually, I came up with the scope that is as close to perfect as I believe exists right now. The Zeiss Conquest 4.5-14X44mm with Rapid Z800 Reticle. I read every review I could find on the Internet and most people were very pleased and happy with their Conquests. I never did find an in depth review of the scope so here goes.
QUICK SPECS
| Magnification | 4.5-14x |
| Effective Lens Diameter | 44 mm |
| Exit Pupil Diameter | 9.7-3.1 mm |
| Twilight Factor | 12.7/24.8 |
| Field of View (ft/100 yards) | 24.9-8.4 ft |
| Diopter Range | +2/-3 dpt |
| Eye Relief | 3.5 in |
| Parallax-Free (yds) | 30 – ∞ |
| Square Adjustment Range (in/100 yds) | 42.8 |
| Adjustment per Click (in/100 yds) | 1/4 |
| Center Tube Diameter | 1 in |
| Eye Piece Tube Diameter | 41 mm |
| Objective Tube Diameter | 50 mm |
| Nitrogen Filled | yes |
| Reticle in Image Plane | 2 |
| Length | 13.9 in |
| Weight | 17.11 oz |
OPTICS
The optics are exceptional and everything you would expect from a high end optic manufacture. Color and clarity are excellent. The scope is bright and the glass is clear and without aberration to the edges. You won’t be disappointed in the glass. The optics are good enough to get you right down to the last seconds of legal shooting time and then some. Compared scope to scope with a new Leupold VX-3 4.5-14X50 LR the Zeiss Conquest was the obvious winner in the glass department.
EYE RELIEF
At 3.5 inches the Conquest is just better than average. However, I found it to be fine and enough for all of my shooting applications. I have never felt in danger from the scope and haven’t noticed the eye relief change much if at all through the power range.
TURRETS
The turrets are crisp, tight, positive, and are resettable to zero without tools by pulling up, turning, and pushing back down. They don’t have numbers and the ¼ lines don’t go all the way around the turret. Not sure what Zeiss was thinking on that one. I don’t like the the turret covers but they’re not deal breakers. Being plastic they don’t show scratches and if hit hard enough to cause damage would probably pop off instead of breaking. Overall the turrets work, I just wish the markings went all the way around and that the dust covers were higher quality.
The scope can be sent to Zeiss and have their target turrets installed for $50 per turret. Once you’ve had the target turrets installed you can replace their turret with a custom BDC style turret. The Zeiss target turrets are an option on the Zeiss Conquest 4.5-14X44 with duplex reticle and are excellent turrets.
SIDE FOCUS
The side focus is tight, stays put, and is easy to focus. For really accurate shooting past 100 yards a good side focus or adjustable objective is important as paralax can cause real problems if not adjusted out.
RETICLE – Rapid Z800
The Rapid Z800 reticle is one of the things you need to experience for yourself. The Rapid Z 800 reticle gives you the ability to shoot from 1 yards to out to or just past 800 yards without touching anything on your scope except the side focus. The reticle has yardage numbers down the side that correspond to range.
Zeiss has a ballistic calculator on their website that shows you exactly where impact will be based on your load. You also have the ability to sight in a little high or low to make it be more exact at longer ranges. Zeiss also offers a Rapid Z600 and Rapid Z1000. The rapid Z600 is designed for cartridges that traditionally don’t have the velocity of the new magnums. The Rapid Z1000 is designed for the .308 Winchester. It’s worth it to spend some time on the Zeiss calculator (you can use it for free) and see which reticle matches your cartridge and load the best. Remember, elevation, temperature, and bullet B.C. make a big difference in trajectory so make sure your inputs are correct.
If you have a rifle or load that just doesn’t want to match up to the reticle, the calculator gives you the option of optimizing the power setting for your load. It then changes the power setting on the scope that you use the reticle at to make it more closely match your load. Instead of using 14x you might optimize at 12.5x. It’s not as complicated as it sounds. Also, I find it rare for targets in the field to be exactly at 700 yards. More likely 742 or 678. The reticle gives you a good enough reference point to make hits even if the stadia lines don’t exactly match the yardages.
I love the reticle. It can easily be adapted for different bullets, loads, elevations, etc. I carry a phone with a ballistic program installed on it in the field. This allows me to see exactly what my holdover will be as conditions change. I have made hits on clay pigeons using holdover out past 700 yards with this scope.
Zeiss has a great presentation that goes through features and theory of the Rapid Z. Click here.
For the Rapid Z Calculator click here
POWER RANGE
The 4.5-14 power range is nice. 14x is still plenty of power to shoot 1000 yards and 4.5 is low enough to make close shots and find your target in a hurry. No matter what power of scope you own there will always be a tradeoff involved. Higher powers can be nice for shooting extreme distances but usually require a larger scope and objective. High powered scopes don’t work well for quick fast shots. Low powered scopes usually leave you wanting more power at long range. The 4.5-14 Conquest is a good compromise between high and low power.
TRACKING/REPEATABILITY
The scope tracks perfectly. The adjustment range is 42.8 inches at 100 yards which for a hunting scope is a little above average. The other thing about the adjustment range is that it is square, a very unique feature. On most scopes, because of the round shape, if you bottom out one of the adjustments it usually bottoms out the other one quickly. So if you have 30 inches windage and elevation adjustment but have to adjust your elevation to 28, it might only leave you 5 for windage. In a nutshell, on most scopes the turret adjustments can adversely affect each other. The Zeiss, because of the square adjustments, doesn’t have this problem. The windage and elevation are independent of each other.
DURABILITY
On my mule deer hunt I took several pretty tough falls. We were up in shale slides that literally had mountain goats living in them. We also were in snow and ice and my rifle took some major abuse. Between the falls and riding in a saddle scabbard for close to 60 GPS measured miles plus the miles on my back, the scope came through shining like a star. It held zero and never once had any kind of problems. While riding in the saddle scabbard the scope eyepiece literally got packed with snow several times from trees dumping loads of snow. The scope never fogged and the eyepeice had no problems with the snow.
DIMENSIONS/FINISH
The finish is a nice matte black that has a look of quality. The tube is a 1 inch tube and saves you a little weight over the new 30mm tactical scopes. The scope fit into and pulled out of a saddle scabbard without hanging up which in my opinion is a good test for a scope being to big and bulky.
WARRANTY
Zeiss has one of the best warranties in the business. The warranty can be transferred to someone other than the original owner. In my opinion this really helps a scope keep its value. Zeiss has been in the optics business for over 150 years and knows how to stand behind their products.
CONCLUSION
The Zeiss Conquest 4.5-14×44 Rapid Z 800 is a winner. It is the scope that currently matches my “perfect hunting scope” bucket list the best. I love the reticle, the glass is phenomenal and I’ve proven the scope works in the field. I think anyone that tries one or owns one now would agree that the Zeiss Conquest 4.5-14×44 with Rapid Z is at the front of the line for being the “perfect” medium to long range hunting scope.
Just want to say thanks for the most in depth review I’ve seen I bought the scope for my 300 wsm works just like you said great scope look forward to using on elk in Montana this fall
Good research and valuable info published, that one can use to understand a precision product. Good job on the advanced features, as besides quality, that one may want to pay the extra bucks for these advanced / precision gaining features.
Now, I am convinced about my investment on Zeiss!
Many Thanks,
Joy
Recently bought several Zeiss scopes for my sons and myself to replace low budget scopes I’ve had for many years. Wasn’t certain if they were the ones to go with but with a close look at the Zeiss website and web reviews Zeiss seemed like a winner. But I really did not understand the technology they contain until I read this article. Thanks for making practical sense of the engineering behind the Zeiss design. Now it will be more fun to shoot and I realize that I did put my money into the right scopes. Great job!
Their ranging feature is nice and their video talks about the “18 inch brisket height” to do the math to range a deer. Being from the west and hunt elk, they do not indicate the estimated brisket height for the math to range an elk. Anyone figured that estimation out? Sometimes the deer and elk seasons overlap and flexibility is important. Thanks
Topic: Zeiss Conquest 3 -15 x 42 NEW Rapid Z 600 Reticle FLAW
I just received my Conquest 3-15 x42 New Rapid Z 600 scope and I am very disappointed in its quality. I would not recommend this scope to anyone who wants to shoot between 300 yards and 500 yards.
Once I started looking at the detail I noticed that the Magnification Ring marker does not line up with the actual numbers. It is 1/16 of an inch past the 3x and 1/16 of an inch past the 15x.. Zeiss America says it is correct for all other magnifications, but I wonder. Not what I expect for a $1100 scope.
A second and more important FLAW I noticed is that the reticle seems to be etched incorrectly for the 350 and 450 yards. It would appear that the 350 mark is closer to the 4 than the 3, indicating that there is more of a drop in the bullet between 300 and 350 than between 350 and 400. The same appears to be true for the 450 mark. Now I know as do most of you that the bullet drops more between 350 and 400 than between 300 and 350 . Also more between 450 and 500 than 400 and 450.
Zeiss America says they have placed those marks there to allow for the average of all the calibers tested for this range of scope as well as their computer generated results for those calibers. I was under the impression that their Ballistic Calculator determined the Magnification Ring setting for each caliber taking into account some of the field conditions. It would appear to me that this is just a cover up story and that in fact the etching is incorrect at the 350 and 450 mark.
The distance between the etching for the 3, 4, 5 and 6 all seem to be a little larger which is what I would expect. The 550 mark also appears to be correct. So why just the 350 and 450. I believe It is a FLAWED reticle and I think Zeiss should recall all their scopes and replace the flawed reticle with a corrected one.
Maybe someone on the list can have a look at their Rapid Z 600 and post their comments.
I had to chuckle when I read your opening sentences. A bit OCD? I say that because that’s EXACTLY how I approach ALL my hunting gear and I mean ALL – boots, socks, long underwear, shirts, jackets, hats, gloves, rain gear, knives, back packs, spotting scopes, powders, bullets, etc, etc, etc. I thought this truly was an objective, outstanding review with tremendous value for those like myself who are considering this scope. I can’t say thank you enough for this review. Well done Sir!
Let me be the first to say, this is a great scope. I contacted Kenton Industries about turrets for this scope and provided all the info they required. I placed this scope on a 7mm ultra mag for a Montana elk hunt and practiced shooting out to 5oo yds. We I finally arrived in Montana, the scope took abuse and handled it. After my guide spotted a bull elk at 585 yards, I dialed in the scope, and put the bullet in the sweet spot. The clarity and power of this scope is above other brands. I am a Zeiss believer.