Scope Quandary: Here I Go AGAIN!
And I thought choosing a rifle was confusing!
I've got 3 guns & 2 scopes, since I decided to tossthe cheap-a$$ed BSA Red Dot that was on my AR15 and replace it with a Nikon Prostaff from another gun in the safe. That leaves me with a Leupold VX-II toallocate to either a Remington 788 in .243ora 700 CDL in .30-06.Since I'm heading back to BC this Fall to chase elk (atno smallexpense), I'm wanting to send the VX-II to the 788, and outfit the CDL with some new glass.
The one thing I found about hunting in BC was that the Black Timber was freakin' BLACK! On stalks, I'd dial my 3-9 down to 3, & that was fine for the < 10yds of visibility I had. On the other hand, we spotted some bulls across the canyons, & the extra magnification was handy to have. I'm thinking I want to go variable rather than fixed.
I also found that the dumb-a$$ed see through rings I had on my rifle were completely at odds with sticking the gun into a scabbard. (Those rings had been with the scope on another rifle, & the "service" folks saw fit to plug the whole rig onto my CDL.) I won't be using such a setup for this scope. I have noticed, however, that I seem to pay precious little attention to mounts and rings. I wonder if that's something that will come back to bite me...
It seems that the scope mfgrs want to get us all up to 50mm objectives & bigger, with 14X magnification or even more. However,most of the research I've done to date suggests that <40mm objectives give better exit pupil numbers, adequate brightness, not to mention lower cost, and that most game isn't shot above 6X, anyway. I'm thinking a 2-7 x 30-something, or a 3-9x40 (which I've used so far).
So that pretty much leaves brands, right? Holy CRAP! Can the mfgrs really justify having such huge product lines? Do they sell enough of each model to justify keeping them around? Suffice it to say, I'm confused. I tried to do the logical thing, by picking up several scopes & looking through them. This was complicated by the fact that I brought my 4 boys, ages 3-11, with me into a crowded store on a Saturday afternoon. In any case, my eyes seemed to tell me some different things compared to what I've read around these forums. And I know in the end, thatmy eyes that are ones that are going to have to make this decision.
The Zeiss Conquest didn't "wow" me like I thought it would. The Bushnell 4200 didn't overwhelm me, either. The Leupold VX-III seemed much clearer than I've been lead to believe. The Nikon Monarch seemed fairly pedestrian when compared to the others - I was expecting more. (I'm more than pleased with the ProStaff I have, but I didn't check one of those against the others in this trip.) I did take a look through a $900+ Swarovski AV, & it was awfully nice! Then, of course, I started wondering what was wrong with it, since most of their other scopes were $1200 - $1800. I certainly wouldn't want the red-headed stepchild of a high-end scope line!
Honestly, I was most surprised by the Burris Fullfield II: it seemed just as clear as any of the others, and amazingly bright. Having heard mixed reviews about Burris, I wasn't expecting much.I was originally thinking that it wasn't really fair to compare the FF-II toscopes ina higherprice range, but I kept going back to it after looking through the others. I didn't get a chance to check the Signature Select, but I'm certainly going to do so in my next outing. My next trip will be sans children, & I'll be going on a clear day just prior to dusk. Hopefully, that will afford me the time to put the models through their paces in some meaningful conditions.
Price isn't a huge object: I own a pair of Zeiss 8x42 FL binocs, & I'm thrilled with 'em. However, it'sbeen my experience that I've spent all damned day looking through my binocs, whereas Ilook throughmyriflescope for a considerably shorter amount o' time. Most of the scopes I looked through were < $400, then I jumped to the Swarovski. I think I'd probably top out with the Swarovski, if I felt it was really that much better than anything else.
Once again, it all comes down to me having too many products to choose from,and my then trying to solicit too much advice fromtoo many people who have too many opinions! So, to try to keep this manageable, am I at least on the right track with my inclinations regarding magnification & objective size? Am I missing anything critically important? Do I need to take a more critical look at rings & mounts, or will Weaver/Leupold get me by just fine?
And have any of you made it through this stressful process with your sanity intact, and at peace with your final decision? I guess that's all I REALLY want out of all this!
Many Thanks,
FC