America is a nation of riflemen, and I’m proud to see that tradition continue. The competitive shooting world has been thriving for more than a decade, and the hunting community has experienced the same. There has been a massive influx of rifleshooters spending their hard-­earned money to purchase good equipment. Manufacturers have noticed and are working overtime to turn out new and better products.

One scope in the “new and better” category that recently caught my attention is the Steiner H6Xi 2-­12x42mm. It is what I’d call a “medium-­powered variable,” but it’s built to rigid standards for premium hunting performance. After looking through one and handling it for a spell, I decided I needed to visit the factory and see how it was made. The only way to learn what makes any scope unique is to visit its manufacturing facility, talk to the engineers who designed it, and watch how the pieces come together. Doing so has allowed me a more thorough understanding of what’s going on inside the maintube.

Steiner is a strong German name, and the company headquarters is in Germany. However, the H6Xi is built in Greely, Colorado. I figured as much because hunting scopes built in Germany tend to have European reticles with limited appeal for most American shooters. The H6Xi has American details throughout.

The first indicator that this is an American scope is the first focal plane (FFP) reticle. The sample I tested was mil-­based. Steiner calls it the “STR-­MIL,” for “Steiner Tree Reticle-MIL.” It has a horizontal crosshair with a dot at the center, and it subtends in .2-­mil increments. The vertical stadia have a simple descending tree down the lower half of the reticle, subtending again in .2-­mil increments. The STR-MIL reticle is useful for holdovers, and subtension marks remain accurate at any magnification thanks to the FFP reticle.

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However, having such a wide magnification range means the reticle looks great in the top half of the magnification, but it could become hard to see in the magnification’s lower half. Steiner’s solution to that potential problem is addressed in two parts. The first is that only the center of the reticle has the fine subtension and descending tree for holdovers. It is clearly visible in the top half of magnification. As the magnification lowers, the tree shrinks and heavy stadia lines along the vertical and horizontal axis come into view. These stadia lines make fast aiming at 2X possible, for times when a critter jumps out at 50 yards and presents only seconds to make an accurate shot.

Steiner’s second part of the solution is as brilliant as it is simple. The engineers designed the illumination system to focus a specific color of light on just the center of the reticle to make it truly “daylight bright.” This gives the hunter a blood-­red glowing triangle as an aiming point at low power. It is wonderfully effective, even in bright daylight. Most scopes in this price range with illuminated reticles just have a red light-­emitting diode (LED) powered by a CR2032 battery. This type of system can wash the entire reticle in red light, and about 10 to 20 percent is reflected back to the shooter’s eye. This system isn’t powerful enough to be visible in bright daylight. By using the LED’s housing like a flashlight’s reflector, Steiner directs the beam only at the reticle’s center where more of it impacts the reflective material and moves towards the shooter’s eye. While focusing the beam is certainly beneficial in making the reticle visible, Stenier also chose a color that offered the best contrast. The red-­orange LED is usually the brightest, but contrast is what the eye sees best. The H6Xi’s illumination system uses a blood-­red LED for this reason.

Getting the magnification range, reticle, and illumination system right and working together for the optimal hunting solution is no small feat, but image quality is still king. Steiner uses a three-­lens objective lens group with all three lenses made from extra low dispersion glass. Two lenses are ground and permanently mated together — a cemented doublet — with a third single lens, all assembled in the objective lens group. The lens group plays the largest role in the scope’s image quality because it takes the incoming image and focuses all the light into a single focal plane that the rest of the scope manipulates. Since incoming light has different wavelengths based on the light’s color, and wavelength determines focal length, getting them corralled into a single focal plane is an engineering challenge. Spending money and using extra low dispersion glass is the time-­tested and most effective solution, so that’s what Steiner did. The result is excellent resolution with no chromatic aberration. Chromatic aberration is the odd colors that appear around high-­contrast edges in the scope’s field of view. Aberration fatigues the eye when viewed for prolonged time periods.

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Getting all of the above done was a challenge, but doing it in a large and heavy scope would have defeated Steiner’s primary objective of creating an ideal mid-­powered optic for hunters. Steiner kept the weight down to a svelte 23 ounces, and the length to a short 11.8 inches. Its light weight comes partially from using a 42mm objective lens. Objective lens groups are the heaviest group in any scope, so going with 42mm was a great decision. The maintube diameter is 30mm, also wise when trying to keep weight down because it reduces the diameter of every other lens in the optic when compared to 34mm maintubes. The 30mm tube keeps weight to a minimum, but it does carry the slight penalty of reducing the scope’s adjustment range to about 21 mils, or 70 minutes of angle (MOA). Still, this is plenty of adjustment to get a rifle chambered in 6.5 Creedmoor out to beyond 1,100 yards, a distance that I’d never hunt at but might ring some steel for fun. While the 2X to 12X magnification range is meant to be great for hunting, this is still a scope that allows for some fun at the range.

 Walking through the factory gave me an appreciation for Steiner’s commitment to building premium products in the United States. The maintubes are machined in Colorado from a single piece of billet aluminum, and most of the internals are made there as well. Only the glass lenses are made elsewhere, and those must pass stringent quality assurance standards before being put into a scope. All assembly and testing occur in Colorado.

The H6Xi is a premium scope built for premium rifles. I’d expect to see these more atop a high-end, adjustable hunting rifle rather than a more affordable Mossberg Patriot or Ruger American, for example. Whether or not the H6Xi is a good fit for you, it does represent the latest in scope technology that’s intended for hunters. 

Steiner 2-­12x42mm H6Xi

• Power: 2X-­12X
• Objective: 42mm
• Tube Diameter: 30mm
• Elevation Adjustment: .1 mil per click (21 mils)
• Windage: .1 mil per click (21 mils)
• Reticle: STR-­MIL
• Length: 11.8 in.
• Weight: 1 lb., 7.2 oz.
• Eye Relief: 3.52 in.
• MSRP: $2,184
• Manfacturer: Steiner, ­888-­550-­6255, steiner-­optics.com