Burris Veracity PH Scope: Ballistic Problem Solving Made Easy

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There’s a lot of tech out there to help shooters increase their effectiveness at longer distances. Some of these require a full-blown IT department, or at least a seventh-grader, to understand and use to their fullest potential. The Burris Veracity PH riflescope is not one of those. It’s easy to set up and even easier to use.

The Veracity PH line is available in the 4-20x50mm I tested, plus 2.5-12x42mm and 3-15x44mm. To complete the system, you need to put the Burris Connect app, a free download, on your smartphone.

Setup is a snap, and here are the basics. First install the two CR2450 batteries back to back, stacked + to +. Turn the illumination/power knob, which is located outside the parallax adjustment knob, to the Bluetooth symbol. Be sure Bluetooth is active on your phone, open the app, and click the plus under “Manage Optics.”

The app will show you three options: Thermals, Veracity PH and Eliminator 6. Click on Veracity PH and then “Next” to select your scope. There are a number of settings to address with the scope via the app: elevation units (m.o.a. or mil), inclination compensation (on or off), digital level (0, 0.5 or one degree), display timeout (never to two minutes), scope auto-off (never to several hours).

Settings

One setting I want to address before moving on. If your rangefinder already has inclination compensation and you use it in that mode, turn off compensation on the Veracity PH. Especially on severe angles at longer distances, doubling down on this variable will skew your results.

Once you’re done, tap “Upload Settings,” and your choices transmit to the scope. Next, click on “Upload ballistics data” at the top. Here you’re creating a gun/ammo profile, and you can choose from an extensive library of factory rounds or build a custom load as you would in any ballistic calculator or app. You can input environmentals by hand or have the app gather this info for you. When you’ve completed the profile, click on “Upload Data” to transmit the load to your scope.

At the range, zero the scope. The very first thing you’ll notice is that the PEK (programmable elevation knob) turret does not click. It rotates like a rheostat, and it’s paired with a digital sensor and is capable of accuracy down to 0.1 m.o.a. I found this clickless turret disconcerting at first—how can I figure out how much to adjust the scope if I can’t count clicks!—but the turret is well-marked. The windage adjustment does have clicks, and they are 1/4 m.o.a.

The Veracity PH incorporates a zero stop, and here Burris has added a most welcome feature. If you need to move your point of impact down past the stop while zeroing, instead of having to remove the turret cap and wrestle with the turret itself, just loosen the hexhead screw located between m.o.a. marks 26 and 28. This allows you to rotate clockwise past the stop.

Calibration

Once you’re finished zeroing, be sure to retighten that screw if you’ve loosened it. Next, loosen the three top turret cap screws and rotate the cap to the 0 position and tighten.

With scope and app paired, click on “Zero elevation turret” on the app. That’s it. Unless you want to change settings or ammo—or perhaps environmentals—you never have to touch the app again or even take it with you. All the data you need is stored inside the scope. Aside from the heads-up display I’ll discuss in a second, this is my favorite feature. I hate messing with apps in the field, and any tech that doesn’t force me to dig out my phone is a godsend.

I zeroed the Veracity PH at 100 yards on a Browning X-Bolt Target 6.5 Creedmoor with Hornady ELD Match 140-grainers. I let the rifle cool, then reconfirmed the cold point of impact. I zeroed the elevation turret via the app and headed to the steel range.

Our steel starts at 400, so I turned the elevation turret until the heads-up display read “400” and squeezed the trigger. First-round hit. Then on to 500, 600, and 700 yards, with first-round hits on each. All I had to do was range the target and dial the turret until the heads-up display number matched the yardage and fire. No consulting a dope card or a ballistic app. No counting clicks or trying to make out small turret markings.

Smart Display

In addition to the yardage readout in the heads-up display, you also get battery level, a confirmation of your units of measure, and any wind correction you might have input in the app. My test scope was an early media sample, and the two gripes I had with it—a sometimes balky Bluetooth connection and not displaying the selected load—have been addressed with new internals. So in Bluetooth mode, you will also see what ballistic profile is currently uploaded to the scope.

Certainly you’ll want to confirm by shooting at actual yardages to the extent possible, and remember the “garbage in, garbage out” principle: It’s not going to work correctly if you’ve input bad data or didn’t get a precise zero. Similarly, it would be ideal to chronograph your chosen load through your rifle to double-check the velocity.

The reticle in my sample has been discontinued, so I can’t speak to the current reticle, but all Veracity PHs are first focal plane and feature index-matched, multicoated lenses. They’re built on 30mm main tubes. Overall length on this one is 13.8 inches, and weight is 29.1 ounces. That’s heavier than I would prefer for hunting, but this particular model is a large-objective scope. The best apples-to-apples comp I can give you is the non-PH Veracity, which weighs 27.2 ounces—so the tech in the PH version is adding almost nothing to scope weight.

With the Veracity PH, you get what’s basically a plug-and-play optic that, once properly set up, will simplify long-range shooting. It’s a high-tech solution that will work great for even tech-challenged folks like me.

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