Thread: Price points in centrefire hunting scopes

Originally Posted by Hurricane

Good work.
My experience:

NF NSX - sturdy, reliable dialling, far to heavy for hill hunting.
Swarovski Z6i - my main scope for over 10 years, great glass, light, relatively fragile, very expensive.
Leupold VX6 - fairly new addition, good glass (but not as good as Swarovski), light, expensive(ish), superb warranty.

I think we generally look at lightness, cost and warranty more in NZ than many do in Europe and the US. Our type of hunting calls for light rifles and scopes for the hills and light, wieldy set ups with low magnification for bush hobbits. Our terrain is rough and breakages reasonably common, so a great warranty (Leupold) is a must for many of us.

Cheers

Really good point, about what we tend to look for. In a bush hunting rifle, I would add slimness and minimum projections off the scope and also cheapness as at the moment it is such a pain in the arse sending scopes away for repair even through warranty - it's almost easier buying cheap second hand and just replacing if it gets killed. Not really what a retailer wants to hear, but one Leupold I had that arrived with a reticle 45deg off vertical was away for 8 weeks for repair (this in 2001). I'm lead to believe one that went back to Europe recently was away for almost 6 months, and that was considered quick.

The points about light gathering and exit pupil in terms of light utilisation by the eye are really relevant - my current 'all round' scope is a Minox ZX5 I think which is a 5x mag at 2-10x42mm. Never used one before, but it was the brightest at bottom mag and seemed the best option out of what was available that I handled in the store at the time I brought it. At 2x it has a massive field of view and is one of the brightest I've personally used at that price point, some dislike the muzzle appearing in the scopes field of view but at close bush ranges it is very clear and excellent at that role. Zooming it up to 10x is perfect for anything I'll shoot out to with that rifle as a .308 and it is light enough not to make the lightweight rifle it's on unbalanced. I've got it on a rail with very solid sintered rings so as solid a mounting as I can get - time will tell how it holds up (the one real reported weakness with this brand and model of scope). Has a ballistic drop marked reticle which seems to be accurate enough for the .308 and means that there isn't the requirement to dial out to 300m.