Dial up scopes/capped turret scopes for hunting

I run a long range style Nikon Scope on my main hunting rifle. This has the exposed dial up type turrets so is easy to dial up for longer range shots (not that I often do). Was thinking of getting a second hunting rifle in .223 and was looking around at scopes for it. There are heaps of good options out there in the lower price range (I am not a glass connoisseur) but not many with the exposed turrets. My question is: with hunting scopes do people run the ones with the capped turrets and take off the caps if they need to dial up for range? I see some of the capped turret ones you can still zero the turret when the cap is removed. If you do run the scope with caps removed while hunting are there issues with weather tightness? There are also BDC reticles but I have never used those before and no doubt the load I would end up using would not coincide with the BDC dots. I barely need to take shots past 200m in the country I hunt so it might not be an issue. Always good to know you can make a longer shot if need be though.

Cheers

If I were to take caps off regularly, sooner or later I’d lose one. Just speaking for myself.

Do the maths carefully and you might find that within the working ranges of the 223, you only need to hold one or two cm high/ low. I found that I would need to dial the 22LR vigorously but for 17HMR its almost point and shoot out to 150m. 55gr bullets could be your friend for rabbits.

And of course a BDC reticle is very limited help unless you have first focal plane. So easy to use the wrong magnification and fully stuff it ip.

There are exposed turrets on Leupold VX-5 for big game and VX-3 4.5-14 for small animals and lighter and more affordable.

Agreed on losing turret caps. I guess rabbits would be ok as Id struggle to see them much past 200 id say anyway. Possibly wallaby/goat hunting shooting out to 3-4 hundred would be good to have some dial-ability

I used to run a scope that had target turrets and left the caps off so I could dial. It was just a rabbit rifle though, so I could easily avoid the rain.

VX5 - gotta push the wee button to dial, and its a zero stop so you just crank it back when youre done. I've had plenty of clients that used dial scopes with exposed turrets and every time I had to check that they were on zero, or returned to zero.

For a 223 just put a 3-9 or 2-10 on it. Should be fine out to 200m without dialing.

BDC reticle or mil dot on a 3-9 or similar is plenty good enough for hunting out to 400 or 500 so yards. If your ranging it you can work out holdover from a drop chart quicker than twiddling. It's not target shooting and your target area is still around 2 to 3 moa at that distance.

Leupold do a CDS.

https://www.leupold.com/custom-dial-system

Personally don't like the idea of not having a cap tho.
TBH don't think you need under 300yards.

I reakon the Leupold vx freedom, with the CDs will be great little scope for a 223 you can get a 3-9 or 4-12 at a reasonable price.

I reakon the Leupold vx freedom, with the CDs will be great little scope for a 223 you can get a 3-9 or 4-12 at a reasonable price.

Heya, I'm a newbie compared to most people here and I don't have a dial-up scope yet.

I have a Bushnell with their BDC style reticle for my 308. Got it off ScopeUOut for $290 and it works really well.

You can set up multiple different loads in the app, and switch between them.

It gives you the full drop chart for each as well as this nifty feature in the app. Here are the drops I have for my standard hunting load. I only got it a couple of months ago and it's helped me get a few deer and a few dozen wallabies. It's quick to use.

Attachment 259806
Attachment 259807

Also if anyone knows how to resize images on here so they aren't so big please let me know! Sorry about the massive images.

Thats a cool app, I haven’t seen that before seems like quite a good solution. Thanks for sharing. Yeah I got my Nikon off ScopeUout. They seem good. The tapatalk app makes it really easy to add and resize images. They look fine on my app though. Cheers

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Juicy

Thats a cool app, I haven’t seen that before seems like quite a good solution. Thanks for sharing. Yeah I got my Nikon off ScopeUout. They seem good. The tapatalk app makes it really easy to add and resize images. They look fine on my app though. Cheers

---

Ah thanks for the tip about Tapatalk. You can download the Bushnell app and try their different reticles and input load data. They have a bunch of factory ammo already in their database so that makes it quick to play around with. If you do that you can work out if you might like the system before buying.

Yeah I've found ScopeUout really good to deal with, personal service from a small compay.

since you have a nikon scope the Nikon App is still active.
This has all their scopes loaded into it with the BDC reticals.
You just pick your ammo from the list or put you load into it.
The app generats all your tables and curves etc and BDC ranges etc.

https://spoton.nikonsportoptics.com/...spoton.html#:4

Z

I've used capped turrets to dial for 10+ years. Never lost one... yet, haha.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ZQLewis

since you have a nikon scope the Nikon App is still active.
This has all their scopes loaded into it with the BDC reticals.
You just pick your ammo from the list or put you load into it.
The app generats all your tables and curves etc and BDC ranges etc.

https://spoton.nikonsportoptics.com/...spoton.html#:4

Z

---

Looks like that one lets you see where the different points compare at different magnifications too.