Thread: What Scope are People Using for Medium Range

Greetings All,
I have been thinking of buying a new scope for one of my rifles. This would be for a maximum range of 500 metres or a bit less. Being a simple type of chap I would prefer a mil based holdover reticle in a FFP scope. Talking to a friend last night he was wondering about the same thing. Any thoughts?
Regards and thanks Grandpamac.

What are you shooting at?

Originally Posted by vulcannz

What are you shooting at?

These are deer rifles so it will be sika and the odd red.

2-8 vx3i boone and crocket
Tried the whole high magnification / dial up thing....im just not clever enough!
Just get closer now and learn reticle.

is the question what mil ffp peiple use or specifically medium range? for my part i cannot see the significance of medium range since you are going for ffp. Isn't the whole point of ffp is that you have accurate hold at any magnification implying for any distance?

a 2-10 or 2 or 3 -12 or 3-15x - plenty to choose from. What's the budget ?

Originally Posted by chainsaw

a 2-10 or 2 or 3 -12 or 3-15x - plenty to choose from. What's the budget ?

Have not thought about budget but thanks for your input on scope power. My bolt action hunting rifles all have fixed power scopes currently.
Regards GPM.

A 2 1/2-8*36 leupold with b&c reticle is ideal out to 600. However, if you intend shooting in near dark dawn dusk then you tend toward 44-56 front lens with good coatings. 2-10*50 good for that but bulky.

Each to their own i guess, but for me when shooting deer at 500 yards or more i like to have every bit of precision I can, that means a reasonable amount of magnification, and I like to dial the elevation turret to allow for the drop.

Trying to use holdover subtentions at 500 yards is just too vague for me. You are always guessing trying to hold halfway between two hash marks etc, then you have the confusion in the heat of the moment about which hash mark you are supposed to be holding on, it's just too messy for my liking. Dialing for distance really isnt that hard to setup and perform, when shooting at that distance you normally have well enough time to range, check dope chart or Ballistic app and dial the correction onto the turret and then hold the cross hair where you want to hit, either holding or dialing on a wind correction as well.

Trying to hold over for elevation and hold off for wind at the same time is just double messy.

The red yearling I shot at 597 yards on Friday evening, i had my scope wound up to the max of 20x and even thou the ret has a lovely little fine floating dot in the centre, i tell ya what the animal is still fairly small in the scope. I use to use a 16x scope on the 7mm Saum, and that extra mag up to 20x sure helps place that crosshair where you want it when out around 500 yd plus.

This is what I have found to work very well for me anyway.

I quite like the Sightron S-Tac 4-20 that im running on my 7mm SAUM, fantastic value/performance for the money. So much so that i have another two of them in transit. CameraLand NY have them on special currently for USD $299.99 each. Crazy cheap.

My father inlaw runs a couple of these on his rifles that he's competing in 1000 Target shooting with and hes right up there with the top shooters with gear that's worth WAY more.

If you think 4-20x50 is too much scope, they are also doing the 4-16x42 S-tac at the same price. It has the MOA-3 ret, so subtentions in moa which you can use to hold over with on the closer stuff and maybe dial for the longer stuff. These scope dial rock solid.

https://cameralandny.com/shop/sightr...iation=3072538

They also do a FFP S-Tac in 4-16 with mil ret, but its a little more $, but not much more.

Not mil or FFP, but my favorite scope is my Leupold VX3i 2.5-8x36 with S1 dial.
It's zeroed at 200m, and iirc the single turn dial limits out at 500-550m for my standard load (308win, 178 ELD-X leaving at 2560fps).

Originally Posted by Woody

A 2 1/2-8*36 leupold with b&c reticle is ideal out to 600. However, if you intend shooting in near dark dawn dusk then you tend toward 44-56 front lens with good coatings. 2-10*50 good for that but bulky.

Good info, Thanks for that @Woody.
GPM.

@grandpamac A lot of the selection will come down to how good your eyes are ,I hate over scoped top heavy guns, my current 2 favorite scopes on my all round guns are the Loopy VX3i 2.5-8x36 with S1 & one l have kept for years & swapped on to various rifles l like that much is my old NF 2.5-10 32 compact ,that now sits on the 284W l just had built, on the rifles maiden hunts it took a Chammy at 635mtrs after a mate thought his shot had passed through & hit it & a Red Stag at 45mts running at us through the bush during the roar.

There is one for a good price on the forum now -

https://www.nzhuntingandshooting.co....-scopes-77866/

If the intention is mostly Sika and the odd red I'd select towards a Sika environment suitable option ie excellent light gathering, good field of view.
My choice would be something like a Swaro Z3 3-10 x 42. Certainly something Swaro.
3x for murky thick bush, 10x for longer but realistic legging it.

Like you GPM I came into the game where a lot of shooters were still using irons. 4x were my first scopes (Pecar, Nickel and a K4 Weaver).
I had no issues even shooting Thar at reasonable ranges with them. Eyes were a lot better back then of course.

I too hate behomath large objective lensed scopes on a sneak around the bush type rifle. Leave those scopes for my F Class stuff.

It might be worth considering the Vixens for optical value, weight and compactness? 1" tube, the 3-12 is what I chose recently. Amazingly light and compact by current standards. Japanese manufacture. Yup, not a Swaro but good value..

VX5-HD 3-15x44