KHYBER OPTICS 1-10×28: A Scope for the Modern Rifleman

“What in the hell made you want to start an optics company?” – someone in the marketing end of the shooting industry asked me.
“That’s simple. I don’t think anyone in the world has a finger on the pulse of what the American Rifleman needs more than me.”

This year on 11 SEP will mark exactly 10 years of Brushbeater with just over nine of them in business training folks. It wasn’t anything that I intended to do but here we are. For me back then, and I remember the evening well, it was simply about standing in the gap and filling a need. That’s what it’s always been about. Get well-meaning everyday folks to abandon the unrealistic, erroneous and stupid for what’s actually combat proven. That methodology eventually extended to bestselling books which I turned into a store, which then allowed us to do things nobody previously thought possible.

I was asked the above question nearly a year ago when a project formed: build a scope that actually met the demands of what you told me you want. Build it in every way – durability, intuitiveness, simplicity, quality, and at a price point that is realistic for most. That’s a tall task. Between Fighting Carbine and the original incarnation of the Scout Course (and a course we’ve got the POI laid out for in 2026) there’s been a lot of shooters trained here. What I’ve noted over the years is that among the civilian populace the top rifle is the AR-15 in 5.56 and the top optic is an Low Power Variable Optic (LPVO). Recognizing those parameters we need to maximize the capability that this setup affords. I’ve had everyone from plumbers and brick masons to heart surgeons as clients and literally everyone in between. Former Combat Arms guys, current Special Operators, and kids seeking knowledge before they raise their right hand. Free, armed Americans. I took feedback from everyone and anyone, asked them what they wanted and how they’d do it. The Khyber Optics 1-10×28 is one of the results.

So – that brought us to the first optic. It had to be first focal plane, meaning the reticle gets larger and smaller with the change in magnification. No matter what, the reticle gradients are true. Speaking of, it had to be in Minute of Angle (MOA) rather than the metric Mils. This is something I’ve learned from you – while the Army trained me to use Mils, civilians would rather use MOAs. Why no bullet drop compensator reticle in lieu of an MOA grid? That’s simple too – BDCs limit you to specific bullet weights and barrel lengths, which for a long time was common in the US (16in, 1/7 twist, 62gr 5.56) but that’s no longer so and even then they produced marginal real world results on the range. With MOAs, you pick your load, plot your data, and give ’em hell. Zero stop turrets are a must and they must be the most rugged design possible – we did that with the push n’ pull – pull up, dial, push down. No more movement. Reset the turret barrel to zero and no more guess work. And oh yeah, one more little thing I came to appreciate from the old Soviet PSO reticle – have an integrated passive rangefinder. Done deal.

Over the years I’ve also seen the drawbacks of the LPVO – namely poor light gathering at higher magnification and a tight eye box. The way you fix that is either to go lower in magnification or go larger on the tube. We did the latter. A 34mm is a big ol’ chungus of a tube but that leads to having a 28mm objective lens that pairs nicely with the 10x magnification on the top end. No more poor light gathering, a far more forgiving eye box, but also a larger contact area in the rings. No movement. Again, absolute most rugged setup possible.

It exists to give you what I see lacking in the optics world. And I think you’re going to like it.

The 1-10×28 launches today along with the 34mm Mount, 3-18×50 Medium Power Variable Optic (MPVO) and the big boy 5-25×56.