View Single Post
Old September 26, 2005, 05:36 PM   #8
mdhunter
Member
 
Join Date: February 4, 2005
Location: Maryland
Posts: 65
Don't Get Anything Larger Than a 3x9 for Hunting

DGC940,

Those higher power scopes are great for long-range prairie dog, antelope, and other shooting, but for hunting at distances from point blank to 250 yards or so, they're simply overkill. That's not to say that some guys can't use them well with practice, but they hinder rapid target acquisition at close range, have a lot more mirage effect in heat (I used the wrong term, but you guys know what i'm saying), and don't work as well in low-light conditions.

Case in point - last year in Alaska, we had a herd of caribou come by on the last afternoon of out hunt - a group of about 75 caribou, but only 5-6 shooter bulls among them, and the herd was CONSTANTLY moving and never still. I managed to bag one of the shooter bulls with my Winchester MOdel 70 .30-06 with 3.5-10x sat on 4x, after following the bull for a couple hundred yards until he cleared the other caribou to offer an ethical shot. My buddy was using a Sako with a 6.5x20 scope, and he wasn't able to stay on the bulls well enough in the crowd, to ever get a shot. That gave me all the evidence I'll ever need about having too much scope on a hunting gun!

Get a 2x7 or 3x9, and KEEP IT ON THE LOWEST POWER - if you need more power you'll likely have time to dial the scope up, as the game will be some distance away; it doesn;t work the other way around - if you jump a deer at 15 yards and have the scope on 9 power, you're not likely to get a good sight picture soon enough to get a good shot off.

Good luck, let us know what you decide.

Michael
mdhunter is offline  
 
Page generated in 0.03023 seconds with 8 queries