Thread: Desirable features of an all round NZ hunting rifle

Originally Posted by 6x47

Some "interesting" preferences/opinions there that would vary markedly from many of us. Not sure how Swarovski is inferior to Leupold VX3 or Vortex.

BTW, parallax adjustment is nothing to do with ageing eyes

What are your preferences, @6x47 ?
A lot of the features I listed above are just my own opinions for almost any rifle, although some like weight, scope size and cartridge were meant to span the most common big game hunting scenarios for NZ.

Perhaps I was a bit harsh on the Swarovski. It's the wobbly ballistic turret on the Z5 I don't like, and the need to have a series of round number (200m, 300m, 400m) zero ranges to use the coloured ring system. The scope has superb optics and is nice and light and would perhaps be great with capped turrets. It was on my shortlist of scope for the allrounder a few years ago. Swaro is the recreational hunter (sport & jagd) line and Kahles is the professional heavy duty line from the same company. Either would be desirable on an all rounder hunting rifle.

For parallax, the need for geometrical correction is minimal in an all rounder hunting situation, more critical for long range >500m I understand. I was referring to the limited depth of focus in large objective, high power scopes (over 40mm and 10x). This is just annoying in a short / medium range situation. Young people can focus down without thinking about it and see close targets sharply (although the reticle goes a bit out of focus) but from age 50 onwards, the lens in your eye hardens up and it gets more and more difficult to focus up close. If you are starting to need reading glasses then you will benefit from being able to focus the target, using the parallax knob.