So the short answer is - A $400 spotting scope is not going to accomplish what I'm wanting and even a $1,000 scope could easily fall short if it was a hot day outside. ? [&:]

I was researching the under $500 scopes pretty hard yesterday and the Bushnell Spacemaster seemed like it was the best bang for your buck ($300ish for a 15-45x), but they only tested them out to 300 yards and said that the mirage was too bad to do any objective testing at 600 and 1,000 yards. I guess in the late fall in Montana I shouldn't have problems with a heat wave though.

As far as intended use, I think the way to do it would be to use the 10x binoculars to do the glassing and find the animals, and then use the spotting scope to figure out more details about the animals.

I've never owned a good pair of binoculars before. We always just had some variable power ones that were purchased for $50 at the local sporting goods store. I wonder how much nicer a good pair of binoculars will be. Reading on the Nikon Monarch binoculars they seem like they would be about the right ones for me. At the top of themedium price models before you make the huge jump up to the really nice ones.

Are good binoculars like good lenses? On Nikon Cameras you can spend $$ on a lens and be confident that if you don't end up using it or liking it as much as you thought you can sell it used on ebay quickly for just a small % loss. They say that "good glass" holds it's value really well.

Most of the stuff I'm researching right now I won't be using until October so I'm wondering if things are going to go up in price or down in price before then. Glass doesn't get cheaper, but electronics do so the Rangefinder is probably the last item on my purchase list as far as my time line goes.

Thanks again for the input!