Thread: Vari power thoughts

At the lower end i do want some magnification. 3x or 3.5x is low enough. You aee often wanting to identify target or place a shot carefully in head or neck through branches so short range shooting is the trickiest. 1x to 2x is specialist for bailed pigs, running shots or service rifle.

At the top end its hard to use over 12xor 18x. Specially if the exit pupil is too small <3mm . That is objective dia divided by magnificaton. 4x32 gives 8mm exit pupil.

Do test your scope when you first get it that zero does not change with power. Eg on a .22rf Also check size of any reticle hash marks at various powers. Apparent mag can change with parallax adjustment in cheaper scopes. If not optically accurate then sell it on before much use to someone with less rigorous application requirements.

50mm scopes can be hard to use because they need a higher cheekrest than you get on most hunting rifles. Then if you get it built up its hard to get the bolt out or cleaning rod in. In the bush in evening 50mm is an advantage so if you plan to do a lot of hunting under canopy its worth the weight and mounting hassle.

So for hunting a zoom range of > 4x sounds versatile but not actually much use. For paper higher is really better but only if the quality is top notch. Ive got a 3-12× and its good for hunting 10m to 300m and steel to 600m.

A close focus parallax adjustment down to 10m would be more useful than low power range below 3x (my opinion).

If you want to shoot targets beyond 600m then 25x would be helpful. Note that light is always good for target events so 40mm obj is enough.

Thats my take on varipowers.