ZCO 527

“Why do we use a 36mm Main Tube? Only two words are re­quired to an­swer that ques­tion: “Un­com­pro­mised Per­for­mance”
Our pas­sion, ded­i­ca­tion, and com­plete focus is build­ing noth­ing but the high­est qual­ity rifle scopes. This is only ac­com­plished with the most mod­ern and tech­no­log­i­cally ad­vanced op­ti­cal and me­chan­i­cal de­signs. At 37.9 ounces, the ZC527 is still one of the light­est weight rifle scopes in its class.
Our 36mm main tube al­lows us to de­liver major per­for­mance gains both op­ti­cally and me­chan­i­cally. His­tor­i­cally, one of these sys­tems is com­pro­mised in favor of the other. This com­pro­mise is non-ex­is­tent in ZCO rifle scopes. Larger in­ter­nal lens el­e­ments in crit­i­cal po­si­tions yield the high­est level of op­ti­cal and me­chan­i­cal per­for­mance in the in­dus­try. An in­cred­i­ble 35 mils of us­able el­e­va­tion and 20 mils of windage ad­just­ment is avail­able while main­tain­ing con­sis­tent click value and ret­i­cle sub­ten­sion.

The 36mm main tube al­lows ad­di­tional in­ter­nal room to iso­late and pro­tect the op­ti­cal com­po­nents to with­stand ex­ter­nal dis­tor­tion, stress, and im­pacts. This re­sults in the most sta­ble and con­sis­tent op­ti­cal and me­chan­i­cal per­for­mance to main­tain point of im­pact under a wide va­ri­ety of en­vi­ron­men­tal ex­tremes. Our de­sign is also stronger in crit­i­cal junc­tions and me­chan­i­cal areas due to a thicker cross sec­tion in spe­cific areas. The scope body is es­sen­tially an ex­oskele­ton pro­vid­ing the foun­da­tion for the op­ti­cal and me­chan­i­cal com­po­nents to come to­gether, and ZCO goes to great lengths to build the strongest and most sta­ble scope bod­ies in the in­dus­try. Every ZCO rifle scope body starts as a solid alu­minum bil­let that is fully CNC ma­chined and stress re­lieved mul­ti­ple times through­out the ma­chin­ing process, vir­tu­ally elim­i­nat­ing stress or “mem­ory” in the scope body. Our ma­chin­ing process en­sures your point of im­pact re­mains un­changed from mod­er­ate to ex­treme tem­per­a­ture fluc­tu­a­tions.

“Op­tics – The rifle scope is the human in­ter­face to the tar­get, so the very best tar­get image is re­quired.”
Every scope is a com­pro­mise be­tween op­ti­cal per­for­mance and me­chan­i­cal ca­pa­bil­ity. ZCO´s 36mm main tube de­sign yields out­stand­ing op­ti­cal per­for­mance with no com­pro­mises to the me­chan­i­cal sys­tem.

ZCO uti­lizes Eu­ro­pean Schott lenses. Schott is renowned for su­pe­rior qual­ity lenses and they de­liver the high­est qual­ity on the most con­sis­tent basis with the lat­est lens tech­nol­ogy avail­able. We uti­lize their Ex­tra-low Dis­per­sion (ED) lenses for the ob­jec­tive el­e­ments to max­i­mize res­o­lu­tion, color cor­rec­tion, and con­trast. Larger lens el­e­ments in crit­i­cal po­si­tions achieve the best in res­o­lu­tion, light trans­mis­sion, and flat­ness of field. Like our lenses and op­ti­cal de­sign, our lens coat­ings uti­lize the lat­est ad­vance­ments for ul­ti­mate per­for­mance.

In re­cent years, sig­nif­i­cant ad­vance­ments in eye­piece lens de­sign have greatly ex­panded op­ti­cal per­for­mance. ZCO is em­ploy­ing these ad­vance­ments with a new in­dus­try lead­ing eye­piece de­sign that de­liv­ers max­i­mum field of view (FOV), a sub­stan­tial eye box, eye re­lief, and flat­ness of field. The over­all image per­cep­tion and ease of use pro­duce the high­est level of shooter com­fort and less eye strain to re­duce shooter fa­tigue dur­ing all day use. The 5X and 6x zoom ra­tios com­bined with an ex­cep­tion­ally large FOV and a wide par­al­lax ad­just­ment range from 25 me­ters to in­fin­ity make our rifle scopes the best suited for nu­mer­ous shoot­ing ap­pli­ca­tions. These de­sign traits give first-rate ver­sa­til­ity and flex­i­bil­ity for faster tar­get ac­qui­si­tion in de­mand­ing field shoot­ing po­si­tions, faster shot re­cov­ery, and over­all us­abil­ity no mat­ter the shot dis­tance. The FOV is 28.0’ – 6.0’ (4-20X) or 21.0’ – 4.5’ (5-27X) mak­ing these rifle scopes among the widest of­fered FOV avail­able from any sim­i­lar con­fig­u­ra­tion.

In ZCO rifle scopes, every sin­gle lens is care­fully scru­ti­nized to en­sure very strin­gent qual­ity con­trol is main­tained. Un­like many other com­pa­nies, extra care and at­ten­tion is given to the Re­frac­tive Index (RI) which is a crit­i­cal spec­i­fi­ca­tion. If the RI is not held to tight and spe­cific tol­er­ances, in­con­sis­tent click val­ues and ret­i­cle sub­ten­sion will man­i­fest in the scope as well as de­grade op­ti­cal per­for­mance. In order to achieve the finest in op­ti­cal qual­ity, we go through a painstak­ing process of op­ti­cally in­dex­ing our lenses on every rifle scope we build. Op­ti­cal In­dex­ing is a time con­sum­ing hands-on process that de­liv­ers the high­est level of per­for­mance and con­sis­tency from one scope to the next and ul­ti­mate prod­uct qual­ity con­trol.
We fur­ther se­cure our lenses with an in­no­v­a­tive Cen­ter Lock Sys­tem (CLS) for each lens el­e­ment and then per­ma­nently bond the lens in­side the me­chan­i­cal hous­ing with an ad­vanced epoxy UV bond­ing agent. The CLS au­to­mat­i­cally cen­ters the lens and holds it ab­solutely con­cen­tric and se­cure with neg­li­gi­ble stress. The re­sult is every op­ti­cal el­e­ment is re­tained by the most solid and sta­ble method with near zero stress thereby de­liv­er­ing max­i­mum dura­bil­ity. Our method is proven, this is sim­ply the most con­sis­tent and sta­ble way to mount the op­ti­cal el­e­ments.

A Mag­ni­fi­ca­tion Change Lever (MCL) is ma­chined into the mag­ni­fi­ca­tion ring where it is er­gonomic, snag free, will not hin­der bolt ma­nip­u­la­tion, and is fast to ma­nip­u­late even in cold weather. ZCO gives great con­sid­er­a­tion to ro­ta­tional torque of all con­trols, so rapid changes of any con­trol is pos­si­ble with smooth and con­sis­tent torque even in freez­ing cold weather. As an added ben­e­fit, the mag­ni­fi­ca­tion ring is slightly raised and an­gled to­ward the shooter. As with all of the en­grav­ing, the num­bers are en­larged for easy ref­er­ence of the mag­ni­fi­ca­tion set­ting from shoot­ing po­si­tion.
A fast focus lock­ing diopter ad­just­ment al­lows for pre­cise ret­i­cle focus and en­sures the diopter set­ting never changes un­in­ten­tion­ally. Most shoot­ers uti­lize flip up lens cov­ers which tend to in­ad­ver­tently get pushed around and change the diopter set­ting when they are open. Our diopter will pos­i­tively lock, is easy to se­cure yet dis­en­gage, and it ac­cepts top qual­ity Tene­braex® lens cov­ers with­out an ad­di­tional adapter.

When every other as­pect of your rifle and am­mu­ni­tion is held to the high­est of stan­dards, shouldn’t your scope’s me­chan­i­cal sys­tem do the same?
ZCO uses all new con­struc­tion tech­niques and method­olo­gies. We test our de­signs under the most de­mand­ing con­di­tions while hold­ing the most strin­gent stan­dards in the in­dus­try. We hold our­selves to the high­est stan­dard so our cus­tomers don’t have to.
At the heart of our me­chan­i­cal sys­tem is an ex­tremely ro­bust erec­tor re­turn spring. Ex­haus­tive test­ing was per­formed on mul­ti­ple spring styles and ma­te­ri­als and we have found the ab­solute best and most con­sis­tent spring to de­liver un­matched re­li­a­bil­ity. Our main spring is sig­nif­i­cantly larger, more durable, and pro­duces the best con­sis­tency through­out and be­yond its op­er­a­tional range than has ever been in­cluded in any other scope on the mar­ket.
Our el­e­va­tion and windage tur­rets are de­lib­er­ately de­signed and en­gi­neered with ad­vanced com­po­nent spe­cific ma­te­ri­als to pro­vide ul­ti­mate con­sis­tency and ac­cu­racy for a life­time of un­fail­ing per­for­mance. The el­e­va­tion and windage click spline mech­a­nisms use hard­ened steel that is eroded cut for the ut­most in pre­ci­sion. Using the hard­est ma­te­ri­als in these crit­i­cal com­po­nents is vital. The eroded cut process al­lows us to main­tain the high­est lev­els of pre­ci­sion and pre­cise tol­er­ances that broach­ing, cast­ing, or ex­tru­sions of softer and in­fe­rior ma­te­ri­als just don’t de­liver. The end re­sult is the most ac­cu­rate method for pro­duc­ing pre­cise click value ac­cu­racy, longevity, con­sis­tency, click feel and vi­sual align­ment for the user that will not wear out under se­vere and con­stant cy­cling.

All other areas of our rifle scopes use ei­ther hard­ened steel, alu­minum al­loys, or a sil­i­con bronze alloy spe­cially se­lected for its wear re­sis­tance and nat­ural lu­bric­ity cre­at­ing the per­fect com­bi­na­tion for crit­i­cal in­ter­faces. Every com­po­nent ma­te­r­ial was an­a­lyzed for its spe­cific ap­pli­ca­tion and se­lected to pro­vide our end goal of Un­com­pro­mised Per­for­mance!

ZCO threaded com­po­nents of the el­e­va­tion and windage ad­just­ments are hand as­sem­bled through a swag­ing and bur­nish­ing process which re­sults in the tight­est pos­si­ble hand mated fit of the thread en­gage­ment. This tech­nique has been ex­haus­tively tested for thou­sands of ro­ta­tions and proven to de­liver the pin­na­cle of per­for­mance and ac­cu­racy in this crit­i­cal in­ter­face.

An un­prece­dented 35 mils of in­ter­nal el­e­va­tion travel in 2.25 turns along with 20 mils of windage ad­just­ment sets an all new high in this class of rifle scope. An in­ter­nal Re­turn 2 Zero (R2Z) fea­ture is built into the el­e­va­tion tur­ret and al­lows 0.5 mils below the zero point. A ro­ta­tion in­di­ca­tor sits flush with the top of the el­e­va­tion tur­ret and au­to­mat­i­cally ex­tends up­ward as the tur­ret goes into the sec­ond ro­ta­tion. A sin­gle white band is vis­i­ble on the in­di­ca­tor giv­ing a vi­sual as well as tac­tile con­fir­ma­tion of the sec­ond ro­ta­tion of the tur­ret. The in­di­ca­tor ex­tends up fur­ther on the third ro­ta­tion and dis­plays a sep­a­rate dou­ble white band. Our in­di­ca­tor is eas­ily seen and felt keep­ing you sit­u­a­tion­ally aware of your cur­rent el­e­va­tion set­ting.

The tur­rets on ZCO rifle scopes are a low-pro­file wide-di­am­e­ter de­sign mak­ing them highly stream­lined with wide click spac­ing for faster vi­sual iden­ti­fi­ca­tion as well as being easy to grasp with wet or cold hands or under stress. All of the ex­ter­nal com­po­nents are ma­chined on 5 axis CNC ma­chin­ing cen­ters. These state-of-the-art ma­chines only pro­duce one part at a time which may in­crease time and cost, but but also in­creases over­all qual­ity. The click and num­ber en­grav­ings have been max­i­mized to offer rapid vis­i­bil­ity and iden­ti­fi­ca­tion specif­i­cally for aging eyes which also makes it ex­tremely easy for the younger eyes. For ex­am­ple, the 0.1 mil click mark­ings along with the en­graved num­bers are among the largest in the in­dus­try and specif­i­cally de­signed for fast and easy dis­tinc­tion. Our el­e­va­tion and windage ad­just­ments also in­te­grate an in­tu­itive and sim­ple push/pull lock­ing mech­a­nism. This mech­a­nism has ex­plicit en­gi­neer­ing for smooth and pos­i­tive op­er­a­tion through­out the range of travel, giv­ing the user peace of mind that the ad­just­ments never move when not in­ten­tion­ally doing so.

Par­al­lax com­pen­sa­tion ad­justs to 25 me­ters and out to in­fin­ity. This means our rifle scopes are per­fectly suited for every­thing from in­door small bore rifle com­pe­ti­tion or Ex­treme Long Range ap­pli­ca­tions. Our par­al­lax ad­just­ment has an ex­cel­lent bal­ance of speed and pre­ci­sion mak­ing it quick, ac­cu­rate, and nat­u­rally easy to es­tab­lish a par­al­lax free image even under heavy mi­rage or other chal­leng­ing con­di­tions. ZCO de­liv­ers an un­matched com­bi­na­tion be­tween me­chan­i­cal and op­ti­cal shooter in­ter­face, quickly and eas­ily elim­i­nat­ing par­al­lax.

A ZCO ex­clu­sive Au­to­matic Il­lu­mi­na­tion Man­age­ment™ (AIM™) is lo­cated with the par­al­lax tur­ret where it is easy to ac­ti­vate yet main­tains a stream­lined de­sign. Our il­lu­mi­na­tion con­trol doesn’t hin­der view­ing of the tur­rets or take up pre­cious ring mount­ing space on the main tube. The AIM of­fers ad­vanced fea­tures never be­fore brought to­gether in this style of rifle scope. A dig­i­tal Il­lu­mi­na­tion rheo­stat sys­tem is uti­lized and color is user se­lec­table for red or green. A standby mode is ac­ti­vated when no mo­tion of the rifle scope is de­tected for three min­utes but im­me­di­ately comes back on when the rifle scope is moved. An auto-off mode is ac­ti­vated when no mo­tion is de­tected for two hours thereby sav­ing your bat­tery life. Sim­ply turn the il­lu­mi­na­tion dial back to the OFF po­si­tion to reset the elec­tron­ics and then ad­just il­lu­mi­na­tion in­ten­sity to the de­sired level. Ad­di­tion­ally, il­lu­mi­na­tion is de­ac­ti­vated by the AIM when the scope ex­ceeds 75 de­grees in up or down angle tilt or when ex­ceed­ing 45 de­grees in roll to ei­ther side. All of these fea­tures re­sult in sig­nif­i­cant con­ser­va­tion of bat­tery life mean­ing fewer bat­tery re­place­ments and an optic you can count on when ret­i­cle il­lu­mi­na­tion is re­quired.