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Sig MSR Tango 1-6x24 LPVO Review
Updated
25 months ago
Good morning everyone, hope you’re all having a wonderful day today. Today we’re gonna talk about the Sig Tango MSR 126 LPVO.
Price
Full disclosure on the Sig MSR 126 is that we paid our own money, I believe we paid 279 from Euro Optics so when it was initially released you could see them around 250 to 300 dollars, currently they’re just about out of stock everywhere and the prices are, of course, gonna go up just a little bit because they’re harder to get right now. The reason they’re out of stock everywhere is a combination of supply chain issues and the fact that this scope is incredibly popular and should be because it is a very, very good option if not the best option if you’re looking for a budget LPVO. So, with that, let’s go ahead and get into some of the boring specifications.
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Size and Weight
So, starting off with size and weight we, of course, have an optic that is about 19 ounces, which is fairly decent for LPVO, it’s not the lightest not the heaviest it is right in the middle of the pack that is just fine. It is about 11 inches long which is totally fine, definitely not a short micro style LPVO but it is not too bad either. We have all aluminum construction, 30 millimeter main tube, 24 millimeter objective lens, finished in a very nice matte black anodization. We do, of course, have capped windage and elevation knobs, it is quite nice, that’s what I like to see in LPVOs for the most part, very nicely knurled, the illumination is done quite well. On the left side of the optic we have an illumination knob that goes from 0 to 11. On 11 it’s fairly bright not quite daylight, but definitely daylight visible and it is, of course, powered by a 2034.
Eye Box and Eye Relief
When it comes to eye box and eye relief, it stated at around to 3.75 to 4 inches. However, this is kind of one of those weird PVOs where the eye relief is actually quite long and you’re actually gonna need to push it about as far forward as you can on your gun so most of y upper receivers, I have this mounted as far forward as I can without, of course, touching the rail or anything else like that so it’s just mounted on the upper receiver because it has a very long eye relief so at 1X the optimum place for me is like four and a half inches to get the best 1X image because this is a lot of panes of curved glass in here. So, where your eye position is will actually change the perceived magnification, even though it’s at 1X you can make the image look smaller or bigger by moving your head to different locations but by having it a little bit further forward. I‘m sort of making that image as natural as it can be at least again for my eyes so it does have very good eye relief, but that means you’re gonna pushing it as far forward as you can Now, talking about the eye box. The eye box itself, while good, is not necessarily the best I’ve seen at 1X. It’s still definitely usable, it’s still good, but it’s not quite as forgiving as some other LPVOs. Not really sure what causes that, but it is just something to note. When we flip it all up to 6X magnification, the eye relief is once again very similar, it does tighten up a little bit, but on 6X on this optics the eye box is very tight. So, while it’s a little bit tighter than I would like at 1X at 6X it is fairly tight so shooting from odd positions or from, you know, weird angles or something is gonna be a little more difficult at max magnification on the Sig MSR126. Still doable still easy, but it’s going to be a little bit more difficult than with other LPVOs that have better more forgiving eye box. So, while the eye relief is great the eye box itself leaves a little bit to be desired.
Field of View
Something that leaves nothing to be desired is the field of view, If you now my scale for field of view on a LPVO at 1X a good optics will have a100 feet of field of view, an excellent optic will have a 110 feet of field of view at 1X, a phenomenal optic will have a 120 feet of view at 1X. The Sig MSR Tango 126 has a field of view of 124 feet of field of view at 1X. That is not the best, but it is very darn close to it. It is in some very elite competition when it comes to field of view at 1X. Now, personally I really like field of view. Field of view means that you get more of that magnified image you get more what you want at every magnification level. When you’re at 6X you get a proportional increase in your field of view. I mentioned this in other videos, but when you have a tight 1X field of view it doesn’t really matter all that much at 1X sure it’s a little bit harder to use it’s a little bit less preferable but overall doesn’t make a big deal but when you start cranking up on that magnification you get less and less versus if you start out with a huge field of view even at 6X. I’m seeing more on this optic than I would with other optics at 4 or 5X so not only I do get more magnification I get more of it I get to see more of that magnified image more of what I want within the glass so while that might be a trade-off with eye box, for me personally I’ll take the field of view and the situational awareness whatever you want to call it all day, every day. So, eye relief very good, eye box ok, field of view excellent. Let’s go ahead and talk about the reticle.
Reticle
The reticle is gonna be a very interesting conversation, I think a lot of people are going to like it. Personally, it leaves a tiny, tiny bit for me personally to be desired. It is basically very similar to the Strike Eagle Gen 2 reticle which is very similar to the Burris RT6 reticle which are all basically based off of the ACSS reticle. It’s a very simple BDC reticle out to, I believe 800 yards, however the one downside with the MSR126 is that they didn’t label the distances like they did on every other LPVO in this price range. Not sure why they didn’t but for me when I’m shooting at say 500 yards I actually have to count down to 500 yards instead of just seeing a 5 and knowing that’s at 500 yards. It’s a minor annoyance but it’s I’m not sure why they wouldn’t just put the 4 and the 5 and the6 and the 7 and the 8 at the appropriate lines so that you know exactly what that hash mark is that you’re lining up on your target at again any given distance. That’s really my only complaint with the article, other than that you have about two-thirds horseshoe reticle around 1 MOA center dot. One MOA center dot is plenty fast plenty precise and the only thing that lights up on this reticle is the horseshoe and the center dot. Now, as I mentioned it doesn’t quite get daylight bright like Fire Hot like the Vortex Viper but it does definitely get daylight visible. So, getting in the rest of the reticle because, of course, this is a BDC reticle a ballistic drop calculator reticle or calculation reticle however it is that you want to say it. There is a lot of stuff and a lot of capabilities within this reticle.
So, starting off, you have a semi-auto ranging feature so at 6X magnification at 100 yards you should be able to fit a human shoulders between the circle portion around your center 1MOA dot, at 200 yards they will fill up half of that and then at 300 yards their shoulders should match up with the first 300-yard bar and then 400, 500, 600, 700 so on and so forth. Now, that’s for the average male at a given distance but again it can kind of ballpark you into the right distance, which will in theory provide you a first round impact should the stars align basically. On top of that, you also have windage holes. You have five so half value and you have full value 10 mile an hour wind holds. Again, those aren’t necessarily going to line up perfectly in every given situation, it’s not a true Christmas tree reticle but it does give you the ability to gauge where you should be aiming at the given distance if you know or kind of guess the approximate wind value across that distance.
Another nice feature in this reticle that you don’t necessarily see in a lot of them is it also has the arrows pointing either direction, those are actually for movers so again this isn’t the first focal plane reticle so this is going to be very greatly depending on your magnification and your distance but I believe at 100 yards the first one is 10 miles an hour and then 20, 30 and 40 so for instance if you were tracking a car say traveling parallel to you at 100 yards depending if you had a general idea of its speed you would have a general idea of where to hold. A pretty nifty little feature if you’re sitting on a hilltop watching JFK go by, for the average person probably all not all that much useful. So, personally as far as a BDC goes on a LPVO on the MSR126, I don’t think I could fit any more acronyms in there, as far as all that goes it’s very good. The only thing it’s missing for me personally so that I just don’t have to count down how many I’m at depending if I’m shooting at long range or not is I would like them all to be numbered so I know that this is 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 so on and so forth. That would be a little bit faster for my monkey brain to be able to pick up which one I should be using. Now, that being said, with all that out of the way let’s go and talk about the glass quality itself.
Glass Quality
This is using overseas manufacturing, this is basic Chinese glass. I will say that the optical quality is very good for Chinese glass. It’s going to be o par with basically every other Chinese UM scope on the market. In terms of a glass quality you’re gonna get good clarity, you’re gonna get good transmission, you’re gonna get, in this scope there’s a little bit of edge aberration a little bit of distortion towards the end maybe not what I would consider a fish eye effect but you do get a little bit of warping towards the edge probably a byproduct of that very large field of view. Overall it is still 99% usable and so I don’t consider that to be a drawback in any way and again if you’re used to looking through budget glass this is gonna be very good. There’s not a lot of chromatic aberration, there’s not a lot of issues with the optical quality itself, it’s just kind of standard for the price point which is good. It’s not going to blow away any of the competition and it’s not going to be blown away by any of the competition in this price point, it is just very good. So, to quickly reiterate on everything that we’ve gone over so far, we, of course, have a very good eye relief and ok eye box, phenomenal field of view, decent glass and a near perfect reticle so overall we’re very, very good maybe eight and a half maybe nine out of ten. A couple very small fixes and we could be at a perfect budget LPVO.
External Features
Getting into some of the nice external features and this is something on this optic that does go above and beyond basically every other budget LPVO on the market so this does come with their alpha MSR mount. The thing I like about their mount and the thing I believe that they did right was first off, it’s a very nice Cantilever mount 6061 aluminum, very standard, has good material removed, good weight cuts, I believe it weights four and a half or 5 ounces so a total package here is 24 ounces which for the 126LPVO with this feature set, it’s not bad whatsoever. Again, it’s not heavy it’s not light it’s pretty much in between but it does, of course, come with this very nice mount. So, on top they print exactly what your torque needs to be for these screws, that is awesome, I wish every mount has those exact sort of things printed on them so dummies like me don’t strip something out. So, on top, 25 inch pounds for all of your ring screws on your cross bolts a whopping 65 inch pounds, that is excellent, if I can get 65 inch pounds on all of my scope mounts I will be very, very happy.
On top of that, we do have two steel cross bolts, they are true steel on steel action so they’re compressing a large aluminum locking block basically into the side of your upper receiver. Very, very good, you are able to get a huge amount of pressure over a wide surface area providing good clamping force that’s what I like to see with steel hardware. On top of that both of the cross bolts are squared off actually I can show you that right now, I can just take it off of here I think because this is just mocked up on one of my Mark 4 upper receivers it hasn’t actually been shot on the Mark 4 it’s just been sitting there for quite some time. So, on the bottom here we, of course, have both of our cross bolts that are squared off which makes them act like recoil lugs. What recoil lugs do is they will create additional contact surface between your optic and your upper receiver so when you’re mounting it you wanna push down and forward then tighten down and that’s going to create the most possible contact surface, locking surface between your upper receiver and your mount causing the greatest potential for it to hold zero.
With this optic, I used it a lot on my Recce Pro, I did take it out to 500 yards without much issue whatsoever and just a 13.7. On top of that I’ve used it on every other gun that I’ve tested for Gun.deals so I believe the Durkin 16 the Lead Star Arms and, was there another one in there, might have been another one in there so I’ve tested this on at least four or five different guns, it’s performed flawlessly in all of them, no shift in zero whatsoever and the reason I used it so much is because it’s just very pleasurable, very nice optic to use. The mount itself I think they did a very good job. I don’t have any complaints about the mount whatsoever and remember for that price tag of around 250 to 300-ish dollars. It comes with the mount. The other mounts that’s, sorry, the other optics that’s kind of in a same price point is going to be the Vortex Strike Eagle Gen 2s, both of which I’ve reviewed on my personal channel which have done excellent both of which I recommend. They’re gonna be in that same price category however they’re not quite as nice very, very close, not quite as nice, this one here has a little bit better field of view, has a better mount in my opinion.
There is a couple nice other features on here. We actually a dedicated line and alignment line that will help you to get your optic balance properly so it’s not canted left or right so that’s balanced properly in your mount and so again you can line up that BDC much easier and it’s not canted one way or the other. I wish they would have this feature on basically every optic on the market however a lot of the times without realizing it a lot of optics are going to be slightly canted one way or the other so you’ll balance it off of the optic body and then you’ll look through it and you’ll be like, hey, wait a second, it’s canted at like 5 or 10 degrees this way. It is something that is nice to see and something about this MSR as well is that this one here is slightly canted so for where it is on the rings it actually needs to be like towards the top end of balance to be perfectly flat within the glass so there is like one degree, half degree, one degree off of the reticle from being perfectly straight up and down. Not a big issue, just something to mention.
A really nice thing on the magnification ring is that it does come with a built-in throw lever, it is removable if you don’t like throw levers for whatever reason. Personally, I do, so I lock, tightened it down and forgot about it and another incredible feature a nice little touch that they did with this is that it ha s a fiber optic insert in your magnification lever that points to whatever magnification that you’re at so when you’re behind this say this is mounted up on your gun especially outdoors where it’s, of course, you have the sunlight, direct sunlight, that glows fire bright in your periphery so you know what magnification you’re at, at all times. Not necessarily needed but it is just a very nice touch. On top of that it does come with probably the best scope caps in the price category, again, not really needed but it’s just a really nice touch. So, in terms of price to performance, like I said this may be the best new budget scope on the market. It’s performed very, very well for me, I like the reticle, I like the glass, I love the huge field of view. The other features and niceties about this optic mount combo are really just icing on the cake.
Overall, it is very, very good and again if we’re really gonna limit our budget range to let’s say really narrow that down to the 250 to 300 dollar price range, We have this optic combo, we have the Strike Eagle Gen 2, optic and mount combo again around maybe you can get them under 300 dollars with a mount, I know you can get them under 250 dollars without a mount but with a mount I think you’re still gonna be in that 250 to 300 dollar price category and probably the Burris RT6 as well. I believe these are the only three that I can think of that are sub 300 dollars with a mount with all of these features as well. There’s probably a couple of others that I’m not thinking about, there might be a Retan in there however you say that plus an Attaball or something. Those I have not been tested but from the ones that I have tested this is really close to being the best. I’m not sure if it’s gonna be the best for everyone because some people might prefer having more forgiving eye box and they’ll sacrifice that field of view to get that. For me the trade-off is I’d probably prefer that field of view and sacrifice a little bit on the eye box so again that’s going to be up to every individual person. Personally, you can’t go wrong with this or the Strike Eagle Gen2s, they’re both going to serve you very, very well. The warranty on both is lifetime no questions asked. I have dealt with Sig customer service one time and it was a very pleasurable experience, they’re actually just south of me in Oregon so they’re actually only a couple hours down the road. But, overall, it’s an excellent scope if you’re looking at it. If it’s back in stock by the time this video posts or sometime in the future, it’s definitely worth to buy mat that 300 and under price category. If it comes back and they raise up the price and it’s like 400 bucks then I would start looking at other options but again when we’re really narrowed down to that 300 dollar and under price category it’s really, really hard to beat.
