Spotting scope

[Jeff H]

Looking to get a decent spotting scope for NRA highpower. Budget is $3-400. What is the best scope for the price? Should I be more concerned with magnification or glass quality when making the decision?

I would like to see bullet holes at 300 yards and the little bullet hole marker at 600 yards. Is this realistic given the price range?

 

[MutinousDoug]

20-25x is plenty to see .22 bullet holes at 200yds and spotters out to 600yds. (in other words: across the course). Good glass/coatings is paramount rather than magnification. Eye relief is critical so you can see through your scope with eye protection on. .75" is about minimum.
Many days it is impossible to see bullet holes at even 2-300yds because of mirage; the air is just too turbulent to see that well.
Your budget of $3-400 can buy you adequate glass. You should also consider an angled eyepiece which you'll pay a premium for but allows scoping your target without breaking position as much during the slow fire stages.
I cannot recommend a scope for you since the one I am most familiar with is a 25 year old 20x 50mm Leupold and no longer available except on the used market.
When you shop for a scope, take them outside to look through. Focusing on anything closer than 100 yds or looking through plate glass defeats the purpose of what you are trying to see. HTH

 

[taliv]

agree that eye relief and the angled eyepiece are important

about half the time, i can see the disks at 1000 yards with a 8x swaro laser range finder. i'd think anything in the 10-12 range would be good enough. at 20x you won't have any problems at all. don't get silly and go 40x-60x

 

[Jeff H]

don't get silly and go 40x-60x

Really? I was not expecting a comment like that, I would have assumed 40X would have been the minimum for seeing those spotters at 600 yards. Learn something new every day.

Anyway, in looking at the scopes in my price range, most of the ones I see have 20 to 40-60 power, but I guess you don't have to use all the power.

Am I on the right track with something like these two, or there other better choices you seasoned shooters can recommend?

The eye relief on these two is about an inch.

http://www.spottingscopes.com/spott.../leupold1545x60sx1ventanaspottingscopekit.cfm

http://www.opticsplanet.com/leupold-20-60-x-80-sx1-ventana-angled-spotting-scope.html

 

[Big_E]

When I stop spending extra money on ammo and accessories, I plan on picking up a Vortex Nomad.

 

[taliv]

let me rephrase...

the higher the magnification, the better glass you will need. if you buy cheap glass, and get high magnification, you won't see crap. cheap glass and low mag, is usually fine. if you buy decent glass, 40x will look pretty cool.

at 42x i can aim at individual legs on the letter "X" in the center of the NRA 1000 yard target. (edit: well, i can see them... my wobble was never that small... haha)

for NRA HP, xtc or mid/long-range, the angle eyepiece and eye relief are way more important than magnification. you don't need to see holes. just the 3" spotter at 600 yards and a 5" spotter at 1000. both of those are easy with double-digit magnification.

i used the kowa 821m with a 25x long eye relief fixed eyepiece (i think, it's been a while.)

now that i'm shooting practical matches, i'm using a leupold mk4 12-40x and i almost always use it around 20-30x.

 

[X-Rap]

I have not been to impressed with the zoom features on most spotting scopes (even those big name brands)
I like 20-25 fixed power with 50-60 mm objectives and the largest lens and eye relief possible on the other end.
If you go for the angled style tube make sure it will rotate inside the tripod yoke/housing so if you decide you want to use a window mount in your truck or view in the field while hunting you have some options. I have an old Redfield 25X that adjusts from 90 degrees to straight and also rotates in its mount 360 degrees and a couple older Leupolds that are straight tube both 20X.

 

[Reloadron]

I also have the Kowa but a TSN 821 using a 27X eye piece and it works great. The merit beyond a 82mm objective lens id the magnification factor is changed with eyepieces. Here is an example of the no longer made Kowa TSN 821 and this is an example of the eyepieces. Anyway I like it and it works.

So you may want to consider fixed or variable eyepieces with a spotting scope. As mentioned, if you go cheap or cut corners you will likely regret it.

Ron

 

[taliv]

oh one other thing... you NEED one for scoring, but the main thing you will use it for when shooting is making wind calls based on mirage. so while any scope will do for scoring (or even a pair of binos), try to get something that will let you read mirage without moving your head too far out of position. for that, you want as little distortion in the glass as possible.

 

[Jeff H]

oh one other thing... you NEED one for scoring, but the main thing you will use it for when shooting is making wind calls based on mirage. so while any scope will do for scoring (or even a pair of binos), try to get something that will let you read mirage without moving your head too far out of position. for that, you want as little distortion in the glass as possible.

I understand all that, but what I am really trying to figure out is which scope is the best in the price range. How do I define better glass? Who has better glass? which one will be good at eliminating distortion? Eye relief I can quantify so no issue with that.

Keep in mind that I am probably buying over the net. There are no stores around here that stock more than one or two scopes of decent quality that I could look through and compare. Tons of $89.00 ones though......

 

[taliv]

i'm just saying, in the price range you stated, i'd look for a 20-30x mag. and fixed if it's less $.

 

[finnwolf64]

I bought a Bushnell Trophy 20-60x65mm spotting scope about 12 months ago, that costed around $200. I've used it successfully on a range at 200 yards with no problems seeing .308 & 22-250 bullet holes. At 300 yards I can see .308 holes, but it helps if you have a white target & dark background.
Redfield put out a similar spotting scope for about the same price & I looked through one at the range & would say the Redfield was marginally clearer in my opinion.
You are certainly not getting European quality & clarity with either of these spotting scopes, but for what you want either would work.

 

[X-Rap]

Your 3-4 hundred dollar budget will get you some pretty good used glass if you can find it. Look at some on line classifieds and read some reviews before you spend your money.

 

[chaser_2332]

If you can find a bushnell excursion, it's probley the best spotter you can find for the money. it has a ffp mildot retical and doesn't give up much to glass to the loopy mk4

 

[SwampWolf]

Last year, I purchased a Leupold "Sequoia" 20-60X80 spotting scope with an angled eyepiece from Sinclair International for $336.45. Yes, there is better glass out there but, for the money, I like my Leupold (with its lifetime warranty) a lot.

I think it's important to note that a good, sturdy, stable stand is vital for satisfactory spotting duties. There is a host of very good brands available (including stands made by Ray-Vin, Ewing, Giraud, First Strike, Creedmore, Schnell, Freeland, Schnell and Satern) and I've tried more than a couple of them. My first choice is the First Strike unit for its quality of construction and material; ease of use and unique features at an affordable price.

 

[TargetTerror]

I have a very unconventional recommendation for you. You can pick up this scope for $150:

http://www.adorama.com/CNC90N.html (also at http://www.amazon.com/Celestron-52268-C90-Mak-Spotting/dp/B0038QYRDO)

The eyepiece it comes with gives you 38x power. You can then buy this eyepiece for $40 and have just over 31x: http://www.adorama.com/CN40O.html Eye relief is quite good with this eyepiece.

This scope is a Maksutov-Cassegrain design. It is basically a mini-telescope, as usually the design is found on larger scopes. It consists of a series of mirrors to bend and focus the light, rather than pieces of glass. Dollar for dollar, a Maksutov-Cassegrain design will give you much better image quality.

I have exactly this setup, but with the previous generation Celestron C90. There have been many iterations/generations of the C90, and all have been very highly regarded. I honestly do not know how this current model stacks up, but I would be very surprised if it too was not an excellent performer. It also has an excellent no fault warranty. It also has an angled eyepiece, which is an absolute must, especially for any prone shooting.

The main downside to this design for range use is the magnification. You can't go any lower than 31x, which can be a little high if mirage is really bad. That said, many high power shooters use a KOWA 27x eyepiece/scope combo in all conditions and do just fine. The benefit of a Maksutov-Cassegrain is that it handles very high power with ease. Good luck seeing through the mirage though... Oh, and the scope is HUGE. Not heavy (almost no actual glass in it), but very large and unwieldy. And heavy rain may be an issue. The scope itself I believe is waterproof (not positive), but water may get in whatever eyepiece you use.

For a more conventional design on a budget, check out Konus. Very highly regarded as well.

 

[fireflyfather]

With about the same budget, I'm looking for something for spotting .223 reliably at 300 yards. Same advice? OP didn't specify if wanted to spot .30 or .22 at 300 yards. I assume there's a difference.

(I'm making do with a crappy sub-$100 scope for now, only good out to 100 yards on a good day).

 

[TargetTerror]

With about the same budget, I'm looking for something for spotting .223 reliably at 300 yards. Same advice? OP didn't specify if wanted to spot .30 or .22 at 300 yards. I assume there's a difference.

Yes there is a difference. Mirage will be the biggest concern, once you get a decent scope. On really bad mirage days, I can just barely make out .22 holes at 200, usually. On clear days, 300 is easily doable.

Make sure that the target you shoot at is NOT black. I find red to work quite well. The key is shooting at a target where there is high contrast between the bullet hole and the target. Black target and a dark bullet hole = good luck, especially with nasty mirage. Also, any target with black/dark lines going through it can make things difficult too if the shoot hits one of the lines for the same reason.

Using Shoot-n-c style targets will greatly increase the range at which you can spot your shots. .22 holes at 300 yards with a shoot n c is usually doable with ease, except when mirage gets really bad.

 

[Cesiumsponge]

The problem with 40-60x is you need a large objective diameter or you're simply going to get crappy, dark, and low contrast images. This is the same optical principle when people argue that higher magnification riflescopes seem brighter with a larger objective (ie 56mm vs 40mm), especially near dusk or dawn conditions. Usually these are only in the 15-20x range and people notice a difference. Imagine keeping the same objective size and doubling or tripling the magnification. The image quality at the high end of this will tend to suffer unless you're running top-dollar glass.

The largest common size you will find is about 82-85mm for the Leica and Zeiss units. Pentax makes a monster 100mm which is about 38% more cross-sectional area than the Zeiss 85mm but it's a fairly uncommon scope. I run an 80mm Pentax and while it's usable in all ranges, I notice image degradation above 40x.

The problem with using astronomical or terrestrial telescopes is they tend not to be weatherproof (in general) and they're not armored or built as heavily as sport optics like spotting scopes. They can offer great performance but a reflector is going to be short and really fat so keep that in mind. The nice thing is you're free to use ANY astronomy eyepiece (it's a standardized 1.25" interface) which are higher quality than most eyepieces used in sport optics, but they rarely come in zoom configurations because it's a useless feature in astronomy. This makes it less convenient but fixed magnification eyepieces are optically superior due to lower optical element count.

 

[X-Rap]

I can tell you this, after spending many thousands of dollars on glass from Spotting Scopes, Rifle Scopes and Binoculars over my lifetime I wouldn't spend much on the advise I got over the internet, get hands on and if you find a better deal on line great but find a way to look through that glass and compare if you intend to make any investment on it at all.

 

[Cesiumsponge]

The OP is trying to get educated on the topic and weighing the opinions of others because he specifically says no local stores carry anything but cheapies. An in-store comparison under metal halide or fluorescent lighting also doesn't yield very much vs field testing under variable lighting conditions.

 

[TxBobS]

At 200 yards (the longest distance at my range) I have been very happy with this scope.

http://www.opticsplanet.com/konus-konuspot-80-80mm-3-1-spotting-scope.html

 

[fireflyfather]

A lot of good info, but I'm specifically looking for something to see .22 holes at 300 yards (assuming mirage isn't too bad...) is there anything in the $200-300 range that will do that? I am looking for a recommendation for a specific scope that someone has experience with.

 

[SwampWolf]

A lot of good info, but I'm specifically looking for something to see .22 holes at 300 yards (assuming mirage isn't too bad...) is there anything in the $200-300 range that will do that?

Not very likely-but if you should come across one, please let me know. I'd be first in line to get one. Clearly seeing holes made by .22 caliber bullets @ 300 yards is a real "reach".

 

[TargetTerror]

A lot of good info, but I'm specifically looking for something to see .22 holes at 300 yards (assuming mirage isn't too bad...) is there anything in the $200-300 range that will do that?

With the Celestron C90 setup I can see .22 holes at 300 on a colored target, with little or no mirage. Shoot-n-c targets make it very doable at 300, even with quite a bit of mirage. Again, I have not used the new C90, but I would presume it to be up to the same caliber. Your other alternative is a Konuspot 80, as linked above.

Beyond those two, I don't think you will find anything in your price range. Adorama has a very good return policy - you will just be out shipping. I recommend you get one or both, try them out, and return them if they do not work.