Steiner T5Xi 3-15x50 Riflescope - SCR Reticle

As the owner of a dozen or more upper tier 2 and a few tier 1 optics, the T5-Xi in 5-25 x 56mm and (my hands down favorite of which I own two) the 3-15 x 50mm version are of ultimate quality and reliability. Glass is utterly amazing, but the accuracy of tracking is dead-on reliable 100% of be time. I have thousands of firing solutions through the three Steiners I mentioned. The 3-15 x 50mm has a ridiculous amount of elevation adjustment, with a 20 MOA base I have 23.3 usable mils as arranged on a .338 Lapua Magnum. The reticle is uncluttered and perfectly etched and clear, even at the lowest and highest magnification values and the illumination is plenty bright for mid-day use (if that’s even an issue for most...) and has ample range of adjustment to never flood out the tube at low light. They are heavy, but with the build quality and ruggedness of 34mm main tubes, I’ll take their weight with a smile. Overall, $1,500-$2,200 for an optic is a y’all order for most, but for the guy hesitant to dive in to this caliber equipment, you get what you pay for. Making the decision to spend and extra few hundred bucks will spare you the misery of a $1,000 mistake...or two! I want two more in fact.

I am disappointed! 1500 USD is not a cheap. It is premium optics scope. In box I found Throw Lever witch cost 80$ and Flip Caps it's good. But there is some incomprehensible scratch or defect in the sight on the upper side of the sight mark itself. I don’t know what it is and why I noticed such a defect (see screenshots), but it’s not a very pleasant. I am disapointed. I expected more good quality.

Bought this a year ago to top off a TRG42. It has taken the recoil well, never lost a zero, even after a couple hard hits and drops. The reticle is one of the best general use reticles there is, and my personal favorite (bought an XTR with the same for other rifles). The clarity is as good as any except maybe a PMII or 624i, and the construction is better than I expected. The turret zero reference seemed kind of gimmicky at first, but it works and removes one more variable to worry about, so it grew on me. The one I received was new and tracked correctly as well. I have since upgraded others to Steiners as well, and knowing their warranty is as good as it is means I'm not afraid to use it as I please. Best money I've spent on glass to date.

This scope has been interesting. The first one I ordered I could not get to focus, parallax was way off from the numbers. When I did get it to focus and fire a shot it went back out after the shot and I had to re focus again. This was not cool. I contacted the seller on Christmas Eve thinking I may hear something in a few days from them, wrong. With in 20 min I had an email with a return label to print and it said my replacement scope would be there in 3 days, and it was! Service was awesome!!! Second scope was fine and so far works perfectly, so I’m happy. 4 stars because the first one had issues and I wasted some time and ammo with it.

I don't know how I got so lucky, but I found this optic on Amazon for under $1400.00. It was marked as used and, when it arrived, you could tell the box had been opened, but the optic itself appeared as though it had never been mounted. It came with all the accessories, owner's manual, and even the sticker. The glass on this optic is amazing and visibly superior to the 4 other Vortex optics I own. The elevation turret is the best thing about this product. Makes it SUPER easy to get back to zero.

The Steiner T5xi 5-25 is an interesting scope to review so I'll certainly the critical points. I mounted this on to my Tikka T3X Tac A1 with the Steiner 34mm Extra High rings. Fit and finish is excellent. I did return this scope and the reason is simply because the reticle was canted a few degrees. When perfectly level, the reticle was a noticeable 3 or so degrees off center. This is simply not acceptable for a $2200 optic... Given this factory defect, you can't simply just rotate the scope in the rings to make the reticle straight. For those of you who are familiar with ballistics, if the reticle is not perfectly straight, any upward adjustments would also come with subtle changes to windage. Example, you are zero at 100 yards. At 200 yards you move up 3/10 of a Mil to be on target but now you are missing a half inch to the right.At 500+ yards this would result in a complete miss of your target. The Parallax adjustment is also wonky. I used a range finder and found my distance to be exactly 185 meters. Using the parallax, I could not get the target to clear up. I have a Leupold vxiii 6.5-20x which has better clarity at HALF the price. Another note to research is all the content I found online regarding the tracking issues that T5xi series has gone through. I was not aware of these issues upon my initial purchase, however after finding the reticle was canted and the parallax was off I began researching and found many other people had similar issues. On the positive side, the reticle itself was crystal clear and fantastic for ranging purposes. I ranged a few items and was within a yard or 2 on my estimation. Clicks on the turrets are excellent. This scope comes with the sun shade, lens covers, and throw lever which is unlike any other offering in this class. I will be returning this scope and looking towards the Nightforce NXS or Vortex Razor HD lines... I really wanted to like this optic but I just couldn't justify spending $2200 considering clarity was inferior to my $700 leupold and it came with 2 factory defects. I've heard Steiner's military line of optics is excellent however at this point I've made up my mind. My recommendation to potential buyers is this scope is an item to be purchased in person. Verify it works prior to taking it home. I'm sure if I had one that was 100% from the factory it would be an outstanding scope.