Review: GPO Spectra 4x 2.5-10x44i rifle scope

It’s a bit of an eye-opener to realise you can buy German Precision Optics rifle scopes for under $1000, like this 2.5-10x44i Spectra 4x with an illuminated reticle — it shows how affordably you now buy excellent, well-engineered optics with a host of features.

But there’s a trick to it: German Precision Optics (GPO) are not necessarily German. Well, not entirely. The company is German, and it does all final assembly and quality control in its German headquarters before packing up the products for distribution around the world, but a large part of the optics are made in Japan, the Phillipines or China.

GPO Spectra 4x 2.5-10x44i review — GPO’s 2.5-10x44i is a good fit for almost any hunting rifle, both physically and in magnification

GPO’s aim is to make optics to German levels of quality without having to price them like most German products. The business model was hatched by former president and CEO of Zeiss, Richard Schmidt, who quit that position to start GPO in 2015, poaching executives and engineers from other German optics makers in the process. Ten years on, GPO designs its products in-house, and makes its reticles and electronic components in Germany. It designs and owns major tooling used in its overseas factories, rather than just contracting the work to third parties. And it produces an impressively large and growing range of sporting optics.

As we know from the experience of other optics brands, Asian glass and construction can be every bit as good as European or American. The technology and ability is there, without any doubt. What counts, particularly with Chinese optics, is that the brand demands and maintains quality from its factories. GPO is taking advantage of this.

The Spectra 4x 2.5-10x44i is actually one of its more humble scopes, the entry point for the Spectra range that includes 5x, 6x and 8x magnification ratios. There are only three scopes in the 4x line-up: this one, a non-illuminated 2.5-x10x44 and a 4-16x50i. The 6x line is the most well stocked, with nine models.

The 2.5-10x44i is an archetypal hunting rifle scope — not to big, not too small and specified to be a great match for just about any calibre and any rifle you’d carry into the field, short of varminters and long-rangers. With its 44mm objective lens, the exit pupil never shrinks to less than an adequate size of 4.4mm, claimed light transmission is a decent 87 percent, parallax is set at 100m, and the field of view varies between about 4m and 16m at 100m.

Eye relief is a very generous 95mm. Even at full magnification it provides good flexibility in eye position.

The glass gives you a distortion-free view at 2.5x through to 10x, except in the extreme edges of the circle where it is virtually undetectable. With no parallax adjustment, there’s some loss of focal clarity inside about 40m if you’re dialling all the way up to 10x magnification but it all comes clear within around 10m by the time you’ve wound it down to 2.5x.

Colour and contrast in the view are good. Performance really stood out aiming only a few degrees off a setting sun. Many scopes flare out once the sun enters at such a sharp angle but the GPO gave a clear view when the angle was so sharp that the only thing shading my eye was the scope body; I could still clearly see my crosshairs and aiming mark when the top part of the view was a white burst of light from the sun.

In low light, the 44mm objective provides a slight improvement in performance over a 40, and the GPO is quite satisfactory as the day fades and under a decent spotlight.

The G4i Drop reticle is what I consider to be about the best for almost all hunting: based on a duplex, it has a small dot in the middle to draw your eye. The dot shines red when you turn on the illumination, which varies in brightness on a continuous rheostat. The hashmarks on the lower vertical wires are evenly spaced, translating to 5cm apart if your target is 100m away and you’re on 10x magnification. If you know your trajectory, it gives you plenty of help working out longer shots beyond point blank range.

Aiming adjustments are achieved in 1cm clicks (at 100m) and the turrets are easily reset to zero after you’ve sighted in. The capped turrets are low, too, another point in favour of this scope for hunting.

Five- and six-times magnification is now common in rifle scopes, and even 8x is getting popular and a few scopes feature 10x. Part of the reason the Spectra 4x is cheaper is because it doesn’t have the range of the others but it’s not much of a sacrifice to make. A low end of 2.5x magnification is perfectly wide enough for the vast majority of close-in shooting we do, and 10x is the most you need unless you’re doing the kind of shooting this scope wasn’t designed for. To the typical hunter of medium and big game, more than 10x is sometimes a nice luxury but it’s never necessary.

It all makes the GPO Spectra 4x 2.5-10x44i a perfect example of what a hunting rifle scope should be. On a budget of under $1000, its design, performance and features should elevate it high on your wish list.