ORIGINAL: stalkingbear

In the years I've been in this business,I've noticed a trend in LOTS more magnafication in riflescopes. In the past,a good solid 4x scope was all that they needed to shoot deer out to even 300-400 yards. Scopes have improved so now a 4x scope is even better than they used to be,and certainly the deer havn't shrunk. Most of the sob stories I've heard about missing or even not being able to take a shot,besides not using a solid rest,is due to inexperienced hunters using 3x-9x scopes(or even more powerful) and leaving them set on the highest power. It DON'T take a lot of magnafication to cleanly shoot a deer within any reasonable range-if you can't see it clearly with a GOOD 4x-6x scope,or set on those powers,you're just too darn far away or you havn't yet learned what the oldtimers found out the hard way. Since a cheap scope can IN NO WAY offer the quality of glass lenses that a good scope offers,sometimes it is neccesary to turn them up more while attempting to get clarity. As a general rule,everybody knows to always keep variable scopes turned down to lowest setting except when hunting strictly at long range ONLY. When you see a deer at close range or they jump up from bedding,it's a LOT easier to find them in scope in order to take a shot when scope is set at low setting. If you see a deer at longer range,you'll usually have time to turn it up. It makes NO sense whatsoever to deliberately handicap yourself by hunting with a scope set too high-ESPECIALLY at close range.