The Minox ZV3 4.5-14.x44 is the big brother to the popular ZV3 3-9x40 and newly released ZV3 3-9x50. Building upon the success of the original Minox ZV3 3-9x40, the 4.5-14x44 goes several steps further and offers the same great shooting experience with some serious tweaks and upgrades for serious hunters and target shooters.
he Minox ZV3 4.5-14x44 has several similarities to the original 3-9x40, and the larger 50mm objective model. First of all, it still has a waterproof and fogproof nitrogen-purged body made from one piece anodized aluminum, with a 1 inch main body tube. It still utilizes the same design for the quick focus eyepiece and magnification rings, and high quality glass. But the differences are immediately noticeable.
The 4.5-14x44 utilizes an uncommon magnification range. It's a standard 3:1 ratio, one that you'll find on most consumer-level scopes, which should actually be 4.5-13.5x if you apply the mathematical formula. We have no way of telling whether or not it's actually 13.5 or 14x, but that's a minor concern that doesn't make much difference in practical real-world use. The 4x minimum magnification is low enough to allow for short to medium range shots, and the 14x maximum magnification will allow you to reach out to 400+ yards more comfortably than the 9x models. If we had to compare the versatility of this magnification to another scope, we'd choose the Minox 3-15x models.
The 44mm objective lens is a good middle ground between the 40mm and 50mm objective lenses found on the other Minox ZV3 models, and should offer a good combination of increased light gathering over the 40mm models while allowing a lower mount than the full size 50mm objective. It's feasible that the 44mm objective will offer a few more minutes of hunting time at the beginning and end of the day over the 40mm, falling just short of the 50mm.
Another difference between the 4.5-14x44 and its siblings is the presence of side focus (SF) parallax adjustment, which is commonly found on longer range rifle scopes of this caliber. Additionally, the Minox ZV3 4.5-14x44 includes high profile tactical turrets for easier visibility and adjustment when looking through the scope. These turrets also utilize a similar allen-key reindexing system that allows them to be reset to zero once the scope is sighted in.
On paper, the 4.5-14x44 has a much more limited field of view than the other two models - 21.7 feet @ 100 yards on 4.5x magnification, and 7 feet @ 100 yards on 14x magnification. In addition, the windage and elevation are limited to 40 MOA of internal adjustment each, which may be short of an expected 60 MOA, but still should not present any problems when utilizing the BDC 400 reticle to its maximum range. As far as weight, this scope manages to stay under one pound (15 ounces), which is very impressive when you consider the extra weight of the side focus mechanism and larger turrets. Overall length is slightly larger, at 13.1 inches. Still a pretty compact scope, all considered.