Originally Posted by falcon

i often hunt hogs at night. Most of my guns have fixed power 4X and 6x Zeiss and Leupold scopes. The Leupold FX III 6X42 is a very good low light scope; ditto for the Zeiss 4X32 Conquest and the Leupold FXII 4X33 . My best low light scope is the Zeiss 6X42 Diatal: i'm told that this scope is no longer available in the US.

The reticle has a lot to do with how the scope performs in low light. The German #4 reticle is the best that i have found for low light/night use.

Keep the power turned down on your variable power scope if you want to hunt in low light. The reason that the optics industry went to those huge 50mm and bigger objectives is to compensate for having the power turned way up. If you divide the size of the objective by the power you get the exit pupil diameter in millimeters. 50mm divide by ten = 5mm. An exit pupil of 5mm is very marginal in low light. 32mm divide by four = 8mm. 8mm is much better in low light.

Exit Pupil - Hunting Scopes, Hunting Optics, Rifle Scopes, Rifle Scope