Minox is one of the oldest names in the optic business. At SHOT 2015, Minox USA introduced an entirely new tactical line of scopes, binoculars and spotting scopes. The Minox tactical scopes are built by Optronica in Germany. Optronica was the actual manufacturer of the scopes for the now defunct Primer Reticles. Their 3-15x56mm design was selected for the Marine Corps version of the KAC M110 semi-auto 7.62x51mm sniper rifle.

The Minox ZP8 1-8x24mm tactical scope looks somewhat similar to the unfinished Primer Reticles 1-8x24mm that were displayed at SHOT two years ago. The Minox ZP8 is a finished product and it has completely different turrets and reticle than the Primer Reticles version. The ZP8 uses a 34mm tube size.

The Minox ZP8 1-8x24mm is a dual focal plane scope. The dot reticle is located on the 2nd focal plane and its size stays the same from 1x to 8x. The dot illumination is daylight visible. If the reticle illumination is on, when zooming from a high magnification to the low magnification, that will also switch on the center dot illumination automatically. The ZP8 offers a true 1x at the low end.

At the top 8x magnification. The reticle is on the first focal plane and changes its size according to the magnification range. If the reticle illumination is on, when zooming from a low magnification to high magnification, the system will switch off the daylight visible center dot illumination and turn on the whole reticle illumination. There’s also a MR10+ reticle version with a lot more hash marks and a simple stadiametric range finder on the lower left.

The Minox ZP8 1-8x24mm will be available for $2800 MSRP. Even at that price, it looks like a worthy challenger to the Leupold Mk8 1.1-8x and the Schmit & Bender 1.1-8×24 models. The Minox ZP8 is a bit cheaper and it offers true 1x magnification.