Thread: Price points in centrefire hunting scopes

Good work.
My experience:

NF NSX - sturdy, reliable dialling, far to heavy for hill hunting.
Swarovski Z6i - my main scope for over 10 years, great glass, light, relatively fragile, very expensive.
Leupold VX6 - fairly new addition, good glass (but not as good as Swarovski), light, expensive(ish), superb warranty.

I think we generally look at lightness, cost and warranty more in NZ than many do in Europe and the US. Our type of hunting calls for light rifles and scopes for the hills and light, wieldy set ups with low magnification for bush hobbits. Our terrain is rough and breakages reasonably common, so a great warranty (Leupold) is a must for many of us.

Cheers

Originally Posted by Hurricane

Good work.
My experience:

NF NSX - sturdy, reliable dialling, far to heavy for hill hunting.
Swarovski Z6i - my main scope for over 10 years, great glass, light, relatively fragile, very expensive.
Leupold VX6 - fairly new addition, good glass (but not as good as Swarovski), light, expensive(ish), superb warranty.

I think we generally look at lightness, cost and warranty more in NZ than many do in Europe and the US. Our type of hunting calls for light rifles and scopes for the hills and light, wieldy set ups with low magnification for bush hobbits. Our terrain is rough and breakages reasonably common, so a great warranty (Leupold) is a must for many of us.

Cheers

Really good point, about what we tend to look for. In a bush hunting rifle, I would add slimness and minimum projections off the scope and also cheapness as at the moment it is such a pain in the arse sending scopes away for repair even through warranty - it's almost easier buying cheap second hand and just replacing if it gets killed. Not really what a retailer wants to hear, but one Leupold I had that arrived with a reticle 45deg off vertical was away for 8 weeks for repair (this in 2001). I'm lead to believe one that went back to Europe recently was away for almost 6 months, and that was considered quick.

The points about light gathering and exit pupil in terms of light utilisation by the eye are really relevant - my current 'all round' scope is a Minox ZX5 I think which is a 5x mag at 2-10x42mm. Never used one before, but it was the brightest at bottom mag and seemed the best option out of what was available that I handled in the store at the time I brought it. At 2x it has a massive field of view and is one of the brightest I've personally used at that price point, some dislike the muzzle appearing in the scopes field of view but at close bush ranges it is very clear and excellent at that role. Zooming it up to 10x is perfect for anything I'll shoot out to with that rifle as a .308 and it is light enough not to make the lightweight rifle it's on unbalanced. I've got it on a rail with very solid sintered rings so as solid a mounting as I can get - time will tell how it holds up (the one real reported weakness with this brand and model of scope). Has a ballistic drop marked reticle which seems to be accurate enough for the .308 and means that there isn't the requirement to dial out to 300m.

Originally Posted by No.3

Really good point, about what we tend to look for. In a bush hunting rifle, I would add slimness and minimum projections off the scope and also cheapness as at the moment it is such a pain in the arse sending scopes away for repair even through warranty - it's almost easier buying cheap second hand and just replacing if it gets killed. Not really what a retailer wants to hear, but one Leupold I had that arrived with a reticle 45deg off vertical was away for 8 weeks for repair (this in 2001). I'm lead to believe one that went back to Europe recently was away for almost 6 months, and that was considered quick.

The points about light gathering and exit pupil in terms of light utilisation by the eye are really relevant - my current 'all round' scope is a Minox ZX5 I think which is a 5x mag at 2-10x42mm. Never used one before, but it was the brightest at bottom mag and seemed the best option out of what was available that I handled in the store at the time I brought it. At 2x it has a massive field of view and is one of the brightest I've personally used at that price point, some dislike the muzzle appearing in the scopes field of view but at close bush ranges it is very clear and excellent at that role. Zooming it up to 10x is perfect for anything I'll shoot out to with that rifle as a .308 and it is light enough not to make the lightweight rifle it's on unbalanced. I've got it on a rail with very solid sintered rings so as solid a mounting as I can get - time will tell how it holds up (the one real reported weakness with this brand and model of scope). Has a ballistic drop marked reticle which seems to be accurate enough for the .308 and means that there isn't the requirement to dial out to 300m.

This is why the Leupold Mk4/5 military series are a better buy.

Send them direct to the USA, not importer. My Mk4 was secondhand (dusty reticle, parallax not working properly, illumination dodgy). Whole thing rebuilt to new specs (better reticle and illumination) and back in my hands within 2 weeks of sending.

@mcche171 where are the Steiner Predators made?

Originally Posted by Sasquatch

@mcche171 where are the Steiner Predators made?

Germany

Hunters have quite different requirements from a scope than target shooters and typical differences are light gathering and reticle thickness for hunting along with weight.
It is a bit of a conundrum these days for a hunter selecting a scope; viz:- do I need to dial up and adjust for parallax and windage? Many of the marketing and magazine gurus and retailers push tjose barrows very convincingly and of cpurse the more bells and whistles attached equate to more $$ (and more to go wrong)
Here's the thing; in my experience, even if you have a sub 1moa hunting rifle, while you may be able to put a group inside 1moa at 300 or even 500 metres (150 mm group) field precision is vastly more challenging and that group would likely expand to 2+ moa (@500 m = 30 cm)
In reality a 300 m shot at an animals vitals is a very long way to achieve ethically with certainty.
Following that premise the question then becomes ; "what scope will do the job well at 300 m well?
The fact is, that for all commonly used deer hunting cartidges like 303, 308, 270, 3006, 243,7mm etc a 200m zero will allow easy holdovrr and hold under out to 300m and beyond without the need for dialing. At 300 m a simple hold on top of shoulder will drop one into the vitals and a hold point at lower chest from 100 m will do the same.
When it come to wind , a pretty strong crosswind even at 300m will .ove your bullet about 15cm so easy to hold off without dialing.
At the end of the day the light gathering comes down to objective lens diametrr in mm divided by magnification power. Viz: 42mm ÷ 7X = a light factor of 7, which is the maximum a human eye van utilise. If that 42mm scope is screwed up to 14X the light factor drops to only 3, and you wont see much of a deer in the twilight.
Next question is to consider how much magnification you really need in order to hit a 150mm target at 500 m? The fact is that 3X would be enough but 10 X would make it very easy but in twilight with a 42 mm objective anything more than 6X would didadvantage your visibility. Hence the popularity of fixed 6x by 42 and 8x by 56 scopes in europe for decades.
Thus a good quality 3-10*40 scope with capped turrets will meet almost every hunting requirement in NZ. A small firedot of adjustable light intensity is a useful addition. All the other bells and whistles along with the extra$$ costs are likely not needed by most hunters.

I have killed,bent or fogged many cheap scopes over the years...then I could afford 2nd hand leupolds..and so far,touch wood..havent killed another since.
so far...havent had a single issue with them at all. as has been said above...there might be a scope with a feature you want that loopy doesnt have...but other than that...just go with it...I dont dial so its a non issue.

That's more like it, how did you get the thing back to them? DHL courier direct?