We present an overview of recent results from nonresonant magnetic diffraction experiments on the antiferromagnetic compounds MnF 2 , FeF 2 , CoF 2 , and NiF 2 using high-energy synchrotron radiation of photon energies above 100 keV. New results are presented on the determination of the spin and of the L/S ratio for CoF 2 and NiF 2 . For CoF 2 , the saturation value of the long-range-ordered pure spin S z component S z ϭ1.11(1) is considerably lower than the value S z ϭ3/2 for the free Co 2ϩ ion. This is in contrast to our results for NiF 2 , where the full spin of the free transition-metal ion was found, S z ϭ0.98(1). The temperature dependence of the magnetization in the critical region as well as in the low-temperature region is also presented. For all compounds, Ising behavior is found in the critical regime, whereas the crossover to the low-temperature spin-wave behavior varies. We attribute this to different anisotropies in this series of compounds.