Thread: Need Scope Advise

What I suggest is that for shooting targets n the farm it will be fine not to spend thousands. They don't limp away and hide if you clip the edge of them. Everyone tries to challenge themselves and 600m might be a reasonable goal to work towards (and lots of fun on the way). You will probably need to spend thousands on ammo, petrol, rifle and scope before you're happy to shoot at an animal out 500m. 300m is a good long range for hunting and can be achieved reliably with mid price gear (if you do your part and aren't shy to use a few rounds in practice)

Looking back at scope requirements, the key factor for long range shooting is repeatable dialling. Also, holding zero. Start with good mounts/rings and action bedding. Don't carry your ammo in loops on the butt. Use a padded plastic box to keep then clean and straight. Tight groups on the day are little use if they aren't in just the same place after a lot of carrying and winding up and down. Extra high resolution, field of view and low light performance are nice and they are very good for bush hunting but not the most essential for long range shooting.

For under $2000, people have had good results with the weaver superslam. The Leupold VX3 with its new optional dial turrets is also designed for mostly hunting with occasional longer range capability. I haven't heard how people have found them in serious thrashing use; the original VX3 was a "set and leave" scope not intended for dialling back and forth over and over. I'd stay with a 3-10x to conserve weight and keep the 3x end of the magnification range. If you want parallax/image focus capability then you need to go to 4-14x. Once you go over 15x with a 44mm lens the exit pupil is small and can be hard to find; also field of view is restricted making it hard to pick up targets in a hurry and its often on high mag when you least need it. So don't go crazy spending up on a big zoom range like the Swaro Z5 or Leupold VX6 if you don't think you'll use it much.