Aperture vs. Scope

[Tellinglikeitis]

I have read that someone at aged 60 would need three times the amount of light during the night to see as clearly as someone at aged 20.

For those of you with older eyes, would you say that a scope is worth the purchase for shooting at 300 yards during dawn or dusk?

The reason I ask, if anyone cares, is that I’d like to purchase two rifles now to keep for my entire life and not have to waste time and money screwing around with unnecessary parts.

Edit: TY for the responses.

 

[LoonWulf]

I have read that someone at aged 60 would need three times the amount of light during the night to see as clearly as someone at aged 20.

For those of you with older eyes, would you say that a scope is worth the purchase for shooting at 300 yards during dawn or dusk?

The reason I ask, if anyone cares, is that I’d like to purchase two rifles now to keep for my entire life and not have to waste time and money screwing around with unnecessary parts.

As always this is JUST my opinion.

Unless you have a personal preference for iron sights there is no reason to have them on a modern rifle. Especially when your considering shooting in low light, and or longer range.

 

[JohnKSa]

Moving this to Rifle Country:

Sounds like you want them for hunting, not just shooting.

A scope will be a much better option for hunting, especially if the light is low. For target shooting, with good light, a proper set of aperture sights will work about as well as a scope.

In your position, I'd be tempted to take the entire budget and split it between one rifle and one scope. If you're going to limit yourself to shooting this for the rest of your life, you might as well get the best one you can afford rather than getting two that are half as nice.

 

[stringnut]

At 59 I still have very good night vision, so, it does depend some on the person. However, even with a large aperture, I still lose about 10 to 20 minutes of shooting light over a scope. On very cloudy days there the scope is miles beyond the usefulness of any type of aperture sight.

 

[tarosean]

Not all scopes gather the last bit of light the same. Some can extend your shooting and some are absolutely worthless.

 

[earlthegoat2]

You should absolutely get a scope for potential 300 yd shooting in adverse lighting conditions.

You also need to research the heck out of what makes scopes work and how their light amplification abilities work.

At 300 yds on a dark evening hunt, magnifying your scope will decrease the exit pupil which lowers the amount of light that can reach your eye. IOW, lower magnification will need to be used the darker it gets to maximize light transmission to the eye.

All that said and generally speaking, a scope is much superior to even the best irons in low light conditions.

 

[stillquietvoice]

At 57 I've noticed a great deal of decline in my vision especially after 40. With that said, the size of targets I can shoot with peep sights has shrunk at 300 meters where a good scope allows me to hit the targets with relative ease. Peep sights force the eye to focus, after shooting g my peep sighted AR for an afternoon u can tell that there is a huge difference between my dominant eye and non dominant eye.

If this is truly for your lifetime, GET GOOF GLASS, that is the best advise I can give, as I spent most of my shooting career shooting bottom end optics due to having a family to support.

Your specific hunting areas will change, mine go from 20 yds to 550 yds so a high quality variable 2-10, 3-9, 4- 16, 5- 20 will cover most situations. The higher your low end magnification the harder to find your target at close range but allow better vision at longer ranges. I'm currently using Burris ff2 4.5-15×42's on my hunting rigs that allow me to see small 300 meter targets. The glass is good ror a scope that's priced under 200 dollars.

I'll say to you the same thing that I told my son in law, Don't Buy Cheap Optics.

 

[e rex]

I'm 80 and couldn't shoot without a scope. I noticed several years ago that each year the peep seemed to grow fuzz in it and I'd drill the hole bigger to see through it. Having said that, 3 years ago I shot a deer with an old 93 Marlin with a long barrel. Had to shine up the back of the front sight and get the sun to my back and still had a devil of a time seeing that thin front blade and fine buckhorn rear. Get a scope. We all think we won't get old but about day after tomorrow it happens anyway.

 

[jmorris]

For those of you with older eyes, would you say that a scope is worth the purchase for shooting at 300 yards during dawn or dusk?

With the right optic I can see in total darkness and can adjust brightness on the screen to suit me. That said, that technology is getting cheaper everyday. The “top shelf” stuff today will be antique in 40 years and worthless.

Aperture sights can be shot with precision but the target itself makes a significant difference too.

FWIW it’s not impossible to use different optics on the same rifle, I do this all the time. Even keep lasers on a few rifles so there is always a point I can confirm/zero all optics to. If I was getting one rifle forever, it would be capable to do just that.

One thing is certain, it would have been nice if I could have afforded great glass when I was 20. “Scope” covers a lot of ground.

 

[Charlie98]

At 57 I've noticed a great deal of decline in my vision especially after 40.

That is exactly my situation. Dad's eyes went downhill right at 40, as did mine. I'm 57 now, but I notice that I need light on something to be able to focus it (thank Heavens my iPhone has a flashlight...) and read it, etc.

I can still shoot peeps very well, but the light over the rear peep has become more of an issue. I find I shoot my AR's with the larger aperture vs the finer, smaller peep, more and more. I absolutely cannot shoot traditional open (buckhorn, etc) sights any longer... not with any anticipation of accuracy.

Don't Buy Cheap Optics.

Amen. Spend the money on the glass.

 

[21H40]

At this point in life, I can shoot open sights at small paper targets great at 25 meters. Beyond that the target's too blurry to keep the same point of aim. The scope lets me see the target and keep the correct point of aim.

 

[zdc1775]

FWIW it’s not impossible to use different optics on the same rifle, I do this all the time. Even keep lasers on a few rifles so there is always a point I can confirm/zero all optics to. If I was getting one rifle forever, it would be capable to do just that.

I can't overstate this. I have a few rifles that normally wear lower powered optics for hunting and general purpose shooting but swap on a high power scope for load development and the occasional long range shooting.

Personally, I use a cartridge specific laser boresighter and a grid target with the spot the laser points once the optic is actually zeroed correctly marked to be able to quickly readjust the scopes back to zero and normally only need to fire a single group to verify zero after swapping, very rarely do I ever need to actually adjust the scope after using the boresight method.

 

[doubleh]

I started using a scope while I was still in high school on a 22 rifle that I had to drill and tap for a Weaver N mount to use a 3/4" 4 X Weaver scope. This was sightly after the dinosaurs became extinct and scopes on rifles were seldom seen in my part of the world. I have found it to be a huge advantage over the iron sights that rifle came with. I do own some rifles with peep sights but can not come close to the accuracy I can with a scope. Another advantage of using a scope on a hunting rifle is it's light gathering ability that allows you to see better at dusk and dawn. Hands down, I do better with scops.

 

[halfmoonclip]

I really don't seriously hunt anymore; take my rifle for a woodswalk opening day. I've taken my share of deer, the last with a peep sighted .45 Colt carbine. But I went to a scope on my serious hunting carbine, to better identify the target, and even to inventory points on a buck.
But I still love to shoot apertures, tang sights especially. Put an 'ivory' bead front sight on a Mirochester '92, and that is a bunch easier to pick up against a broken background.
BTW, you don't really focus on the aperture; your eye should center itself on the brightest spot, and only have to worry about the front sight.
Moon

 

[d2wing]

I am 75 but have preferred scopes for decades. They help so much to make accurate shots under all conditions. As others said, get good quality scopes. I have a Leupold that is at least 25 years old and still works great. I have working scopes much older as well. If you get a quality scope with a lifetime warrantee like Leupold that is not likely to go out of business, it should last your lifetime. I have regretted buying cheap scopes, but never good ones.

 

[Dr T]

Yes.
This is my simplistic, layman's understanding:

As you age, your vision begins to fade: Literally the lens of you eye becomes cloudy. When it gets bad enough, you are diagnosed with cataracts and they pop out the old lenses and put new ones in. With current technology that is reliable, you may get great distance vision, but lose the ability to focus on close things like iron sights (aperture sights are an exception because the aperture acts like a pinhole lens that will focus the front sight). But even that has its limits. (Replacement lenses that can focus are around, but 7 years ago I was told that they worked about 10% of the time).

In my case, cataract surgery took my right eye from 20/40 best corrected to 20/15 with no correction and my left eye from 20/70 (old eye injury) best corrected to 20/25 (there was also some corneal surgery). But I need reading glasses.

I can still see well enough to use irons on handguns, but it is mostly instinct and focusing on the front sight, and I can still use apertures. However, my accuracy is declining with age. There are good days and bad days.

I have preferred scopes for decades on my primary hunting rifles. However, if I am backing up my partner (read tracking a wounded animal) or hunting raccoons at night I prefer irons. The backup rifle I am building right now, however, is a TC Contender 30-30 with a 1- 4x VLPO sporting a German Post and red dot. Time goes on, and preferences and technologies change. The OP is just starting out and who knows what the future will bring.

Besides, when you get two rifles and store them together, they tend to multiply.

 

[Dave DeLaurant]

My personal observation is that it depends on the condition of your eyes and type of corrective lens used (or not).

I just learned this morning that I'm on the path toward cataract surgery, and that my right eye is losing vision way faster than my left. The practical upshot is that I have trouble getting scope reticles in focus in low light conditions when shooting right-handed.

I still shoot tighter groups with an optic than with any form of iron sight, but a good aperture is no longer as far behind as it used to be.

 

[Varminterror]

My eyes began aging prematurely, so if I’m not REQUIRED to use irons, it’s really not something I would do, and frankly, I moved away from anything which REQUIRED me to use them. Unless the target is specifically designed to accommodate aperture sights, and sized accordingly with the target distance, then I have no interest in aperture sights rather than telescopic optics.

Hunting in low light, out to 300yrds? No brainer - scope.

 

[jmr40]

I'm 65 and just started wearing glasses within the last year. I can shoot iron sights well enough with glasses on. Without them it is hard to see both the sights and target. I have to pick one or the other. With a handgun I'm still OK without glasses.

But optics do everything better regardless of your age. The military has moved away from iron sights and is now using optics on all of their rifles even for 18 year old recruits. This is especially true in low light.

How well a scope works in low light is controlled by 3 things. Magnification and front objective size determine the size of the beam of light exiting the scope and into your eye. For most people the objective size needs to be 5X greater than the magnification to work in low light.

For example, if you have a 40mm front objective then anything 8X or less will let enough light through for most people. Anything over 8X and you might have some problems. A 50mm objective will allow you to go up to 10X and still get enough light, and if you have a 20mm objective you need to keep magnification to 4X or less. A 40mm scope set at 8X, a 50mm scope set at 10X, and a 20mm scope set at 4X all let exactly the same amount of light through. You don't need a huge front objective unless you also want to go up in magnification.

During the day when light is good then objective size and magnification don't really matter. A 40mm scope set on 16X would perform poorly in low light, but shooting at targets during the day is fine.

In most states legal shooting times start at 30 minutes prior to sunrise until 30 minutes after sunset. Any decent scope that meets the above criteria should be good during those times. I think South Carolina, and maybe others allow shooting times as much as an hour before and after sunrise/sunset.

The 3rd factor is scope quality. It is simple mechanics as to how large the beam of light is. But how bright that light is, is determined by quality. If you want to start shooting an hour before sunrise, then quality starts to matter.

 

[Dr T]

On reticle focus: I had worn glasses since starting first grade. My corrected vision was so fuzzy that I LITERALLY did not know you could focus the reticle until after I had cataract surgery. I knew intellectually that turning the lens would adjust the focus of something...I just could not see it,

 

[doubleh]

I was blessed with excellent eyesight and kept it until my early 50's when my arms became too short to read the newspaper. I even had a foreman call me a liar when I told him I could see the KBIM TV broadcast tower from where we were working and he couldn't. We built power to it so he knew where it was. I told him it wasn't my fault that he was going blind and I wasn't which ended the conversation. I was in my mid-twenties and he was in his mid- forties. With cataract surgery I am back to seeing very good but not quite as well as before. The tower is about 25 miles due west of where I live. Back in the day before glasses became necessary I could see it but can't find it now. I don't care. I can use iron sight on both pistols and rifles if I want, can read my Kindle Fire just fine and lights no longer bother me at night. I can put up with cheap readers for small print and close up work. I didn't even have to reset the focus on any of my scopes but they do appear brighter than they were. In fact the whole world is much brighter now, even at night.

 

[nettlle]

I have always used quick detach rings on most of my scoped guns. If the light too low for the scope I can take it off and use the iron (or fiber optic) sights.

 

[Slamfire]

These were great irons back in 1948



The scopes of 1948 were not great, but they still were better than eye balls.




I had an El Paso Weaver 4X scope, put it on top of this 1939 M70



took the rig to CMP Talledega. Now the target I was shooting on was a big black circle, no rings, just featureless. All I could do was quarter the target, but still, with a 4X scope, I could easily hold the "ten ring". I am sure those vintage scopes did not have fully multicoated lenses. Towards the late afternoon the image was gray, modern scope, things were much brighter. But the scope still worked. I was afraid to touch the windage and elevation as the internal reticle will jump, or move irregularly, on these old scopes. Once you get a zero, it is better not to touch things.







I am not going to say you cannot do well, given adequate light, with a Lyman 48, and an iron sighted rifle is compact.






Still, shooting period stuff, I was still able to see better, hold better, than I can with irons. And that was as true in 1948 as now.

 

[e rex]

I still use a El Paso Weaver 6xw on my Remington 760 30-06. That combo has been putting deer down for years and still will.

 

[35 Whelen]

I'll be 60 in a few weeks, but so far my distance vision is still bueno, but I know that's not going to last forever. Front sights are beginning to get fuzzy.

Part of the key to shooting with aperture sights is to have targets that contrasts with ones front sights. I see threads where someone puts a black 8" Shoot-N-C target up at 100 yds. and tries to shoot it with their iron-sighted rifle, that just doesn't work. My 100 yd. steel is 12" and white in color and my 200 yd. target is 24" and white with a 12" black inner circle and a 4" white circle in the center. So far, my eyes can still just make out the 4" circle at that range.

As always this is JUST my opinion.

Unless you have a personal preference for iron sights there is no reason to have them on a modern rifle. Especially when your considering shooting in low light, and or longer range.

I've been on three different elk hunts in which my rifles were passengers on either a bucking horse or mule or otherwise had their scopes damaged by riding stock. So when I built a dedicated elk hunting rifle I mounted a Williams 5D receiver sight, sighted it in at 200 yds. with my hunting load, marked the arm and base and put the arm in my fanny pack.



So far I've had no more incidents of the equine variety, but if it happens again, it's just a matter of removing the scope and installing the sight arm, aligning the marks on the base and arm.

Another reason for iron or aperture sights is that they're extremely rugged and add almost no weight to a long gun, unlike a scope.

In general scopes are definitely better, but a good aperture sight still has its place. In one wants to be humbled, attend an X-Course High Power match and watch those dudes shoot amazing groups at 600 yds. with aperture sights.

35W