Mine was a Harrington/richards single shot 30/30 with open sights. My first year my dad told me to sit in this one spot over looking a coulee and he went up a couple hundred yards to sit. I didnt even have binoculars so im sitting there like dad said and about 3 deer walk by about 50 yards and about half hour later grandpa comes walking by and says did you see that spike with those bunch of deer and i said nope. thats when i wished i would of had some kind of optics. My first deer i shot was with a 30/06 over on the islands and i thought it was a doe when i shot it (either sex on islands) but when we found it it had 5 inch spikes so that was my first deer and buck.