Burris Eliminator Riflescope: First Impressions

Around 2:00 PM, all I could think about was Leghorn’s article about reading the mirage. At 300 yards, it was so bad, I couldn’t even see my targets. You just have to love summer in Texas. I normally wouldn’t be out shooting in that kind of heat, but RF gave me a gun and a mission. That mission is to shoot at stuff with a really nice gun and a cool gadget from Burris called the Eliminator. If you aren’t familiar, my preview should catch you up to speed . . .

My first thought on the way to my range was, “Having a rangefinder inside your scope is really cool!” I kept ranging things that I use as familiar landmarks and I was just blown away. From that perspective, this scope is really amazing. In fact, two does were grazing in front of my backstop and were easily ranged at 240 yards. I checked multiple times and had no issues. Burris seems to have really done a great job integrating a nice rangefinder with their scope.

I started off by sighting in at 100 yards, which was laughably easy given the accuracy of RF’s Remington. Windage and elevation knobs are ¼ MOA adjustable with a solid click that can be manipulated by hand once the dust covers are removed. In addition to your normal windage and elevation controls, there is also a 4-way keypad on the right side and a power button on the left. Included is a remote button that you can attach to the forward portion of the stock with a non-scuff elastic band. Parallax adjustment is not to be found on the Eliminator.

Once sighted in at 100 yards, I consulted the ammo data table available online, and programmed the scope with the recommended drop number of 62. The instructions for this process were clear, concise, and took less than 2 minutes to perform.

My next step was to test the scope’s claim to fame. If the Burris website is to be believed, I should be able to range my target, line up the illuminated dot, and eliminate the need to hold for elevation. And that kind of happened. I was shooting at 12 inch diameter Shoot N C targets at 250 yards.

As you can see we were definitely in the neighborhood of being on target. I consulted the owner’s manual and various online resources that recommended tuning the scope using those drop numbers to achieve the desired result. I moved it up to 72, but the by the time I had my targets reset, the heat had made shooting pretty impossible. I managed to take out full soda cans at 100, 180, and 225 yards. I tried out to 335, but the mirage and a wicked crosswind thwarted my progress. My groupings on paper were terrible and I don’t think they really gave good data on the effects of the drop number changes.

The other issue I had with the Eliminator was the optical quality. I have a similar magnification Leupold Rifleman on my AR. While the Remington was cooling down, I took the opportunity to do some shooting with the AR at the same 250 yard distance. I could not believe the difference in optical quality. The Rifleman is an entry-level scope from Leupold, but absolutely beats the Burris in light gathering and image clarity. I guess it is possible that Burris spent more money on the light up dots than good quality glass.

At the end of Day 1, I feel like the Eliminator is a really cool gadget. After a day of shooting, I wouldn’t be comfortable mounting it on my gun for deer season. Maybe spending more time will increase my confidence. Either way, I’ll be out early with targets at 100, 200, 300, and 400 yards. Hopefully I can get it tuned before the heat and wind pick up again.