IOR Valdada 3x25mm CQB Scope

I posted recently about the Hakko 4x21 scope I have mounted on my Colt AR-15A3 Tactical Carbine. In that post I mentioned that I was considering replacing it with a Trijicon ACOG, in order to get a truly SHTF-worthy piece of glass. Well, I did get a new scope, but not an ACOG.

Two factors militated against the purchase of an ACOG. First was the price. The cheapest I'd be able to get a new TA-11F ACOG would be about $950 plus-or-minus. That's a lot of dough. Second, the ACOGs have short eye relief. The TA-11F has only 2.5" inches of eye relief. I wanted something with a bit more, because I wear glasses, and in case I can't quite get the rifle mounted properly.

After much research I purchased an IOR Valdada 3x25mm CQB scope from MidwayUSA. (If you were wondering why they're backordered at Midway, I got the last one. Heh.) The Big Brown Truck dropped it off yesterday and my first impressions are quite favorable.

IOR Valdada is a Romanian company which has been making scopes and binoculars since the 1930s. They use German-made Schott glass, which is very good.

The lenses are multi-coated to reduce glare, and the scope itself is sealed and filled with nitrogen. This should prevent any interior fogging.

The IOR scope is compact but weighs in at about a pound. It feels very solid. The adjustment clicks for windage and elevation are well-defined. The glass is very clear, definitely better than the Hakko's. The IOR CQB reticle is interesting and incorporates ranging features. The center dot subtends 2 minutes of angle (MOA, about 2" at 100 yards), so it'll be more precise than the ~4 MOA dot in the Hakko.

The scope's reticle is etched on glass and can be illuminated using a battery powered built-in light, which uses CR2032 lithium coin cells. Without illum, the reticle is black. When illuminated, it's red, except for the horseshoe-shaped thingy in the reticle, which remains black.

The scope has a removable Picatinny rail sleeve around the objective lens side, intended for mounting a backup red dot sight, a laser, or a light. I have no plans to use the rails, but intend to leave the sleeve on as protection for the main body of the scope. The scope itself mounts to a Picatinny rail using a built-in mount secured by two captive nuts. This is not a quick-release design. The scope feels very rugged, but in the hopefully unlikely event that it goes TU, I'll need pliers or a wrench to remove it so I can use a back up iron sight (which I need to acquire).

I mounted the IOR on my Colt last night, then bore sighted it at about 25 - 30 yards using a laser boresighter. (A toy house in my backyard stood in for a target.) Final zeroing will of course require actual shooting but this should get me pretty close.

In my post about the Hakko I referred to it as soft of a poor man's ACOG. The IOR doesn't quite fall into that category, since it retails for about $600. However, that's still A LOT cheaper than an ACOG.

I will post a follow up once I get the scope out to the range, which won't be for a couple of weeks.