This is my primary competition spotting scope. It is about $1000 with eyepiece, this eyepiece is a 20-60X zoom. I recommend the angled eyepiece, you are less likely to topple the scope over with the angled eyepiece.
This is my back up. If I am going to drive hours or days to matches, I will have a back up. It is a really good scope, but 65 mm. Lots of National Champion ships were won with 65 mm spotting scopes, but for competition, the wider the front lens, the better. Seeing the mirage, and seeing it as far left and right as possible, is an advantage. But this will fit into a medium sized tool box, and so it is my backup.
Notice, each of these scopes has a rotating center ring, I do not recommend buying a scope without a rotating center ring.
As good optically as this Celestron is, it does not have a rotating center ring and I had to rely on a universal joint (was available from Champion Shooters) to make it work.
When it was attached to my Freeland stand.
Celestron also cheaps out on lens covers, what is in the picture came from a salad dressing bottle.
Optically this is a great scope, but totally ungainly. No center rotating ring, and the attachment point is way off from center. The manufacturer included a kludge extension bar, to balance the scope, and it never worked. Too many joints and attachment screws which came loose. I have used this scope at the Nationals and Regionals with this Ray Vin head. The scope is clear and it has a zoom eyepiece. But it is out of production due no doubt, to the poor balance. And cheap lens covers.
When I was shooting Across the Course this was my scope,
A 25X long eye relief scope was just fine for Highpower. I could roll over in the rapids, as I was changing magazines, and look through the scope and often I would see the bullet holes at 200 yards, less often at 300 yards. It all depended on the mirage. The Freeland stand has too many joints and screws and they come loose at the wrong time. But decades ago, it was about the only thing around. A Freeland stand can be dissembled and put into a two foot long bag or container.
No scope can see through mirage. One year at Camp Perry a guy brought out a Russian Naval scope. This thing was huge, I think the forward lens was two or three feet in diameter, you looked through it through two eyepieces and it was on some sort of a ring turret mount which mounted to the deck. I got to look at the Viale targets about 1300 yards away. The image was clear from edge to edge, but, the mirage washed out any details on the target. It was like looking at something at the bottom of the pool.
I did have a cheap $100 Bariska 20-60X scope and I took that to a 500 yard match. The image was green, and the coating did not go all the way out to the edge, which make the image blurry. I could tell the difference in color between the black pasters and the bullseye. With my Pentax I could see white on the edges of the pasters. Obviously the $100 scope was not as optically good, I doubt a "birder" would use the thing as the colors were not true, but still, for $100 bucks, you could see things.
Also, at some lens quality level, teenagers will see things through your scope that you won't.
