Held annually in Nuremberg at the start of March, the IWA fair is a key event where major figures in firearms, sports optics, and related fields showcase their products. Our team attends every year, always ensuring we visit the booth of Schmidt & Bender, one of the leading European manufacturers of tactical riflescopes. This year, we found out they have been developing an F-class riflescope – the 10-60×56 CM II High Performance model. This article will delve into its features.
Designed for F-Class Competitions
In European F-class shooting, it’s crucial to use a riflescope that offers high top magnification, fine turret clicks with reliable tracking, and a thin reticle in the second focal plane to ensure minimal target coverage. The CM II High Performance model has been crafted with these specific requirements in mind.
CM Stands for Competition Marksman
Schmidt & Bender, primarily focusing on tactical riflescopes, often develop a tactical model first, later adapting it for sports shooting applications. This approach holds true for this riflescope as well. Last year, we discussed the First Focal Plane (FFP) variant of this scope, noting then that a Second Focal Plane (SFP) model was also in development. This year, they have officially unveiled it. The new 10-60×56 CM II High Performance model is specifically designed for the demands of F-class shooting, a fact subtly referenced in its name – CM stands for Competition Marksman.
Important Features for F-class
For F-class competitions, minimizing the weight of the riflescope is crucial. Accordingly, Schmidt & Bender have streamlined the design of their riflescope, omitting all non-essential features. Given the lack of need for illumination in F-class shooting, they have excluded this feature to further reduce weight. The riflescope offers a broad magnification range of 10x to 60x, along with a precision parallax adjustment knob that allows the user to set it from 20 m to infinity.
Schmidt & Bender’s turrets are renowned for their design quality, and the CM II’s turrets uphold this reputation. They generate distinct, crisp clicks with a click value of 1/8 MOA per click, boast exceptional tracking capabilities, and the elevation turret includes a numerical indicator to inform the shooter of their current turret rotation.
Additionally, the windage turret features a mechanical turn indicator. Equipped with a fine reticle in the second focal plane, the riflescope is optimized for precision in long-range competition shooting. At present, there is only one reticle option available, though hints suggest that Schmidt & Bender plans to introduce more reticle choices in the future. As expected from a premium Schmidt & Bender product, the riflescope excels both mechanically and optically.
Prices and Availability
It’s encouraging to see that Schmidt & Bender have taken their customers’ feedback into account and produced a riflescope precisely designed to meet the demands of today’s F-class shooters. The anticipated retail price for the new Schmidt & Bender 10-60×56 CM II High Performance riflescope is approximately 4900 €. Availability is expected around March or May 2024, and it will come with a 10-year warranty period.
