Scopes? Time to move on from the dark ages?

[wildfowler.250]

I feel like I’m now living under a bit of rock with my current 8x56 Schmidt and bender. Everywhere I look now, folk have some kind of fancy scope with a ballistic calculator.

Leupold will cut you a CDS dial for your bullet drop if you send in your bullet velocity. Looks a nice bit of kit.

The hik alpex seems to adjust for drop as well. And in guessing the Swarovski DS is similar?

Is this the way forward? Likely shots will still be similar distances but does seem to make a lot of sense eg for heavy for caliber 6.5 bullets once you start going past 200 yards.

Interested to see what folk on here think of them

 

[Karhumies]

I think it depends. For pure efficiency and in a safe setting yea i think the digital stuff is ahead of the old stuff. But living out in the middle of nowhere, doing multi day hunting trips... alot of stuff can break/get misadjusted. Anything night or thermal would have legal problems in alot of places as well. Try proving to authorities that it was set to daytime....

I think the old glass scopes have an advantage in reliable simplicity. Hunting max 200m out in the woods i dont see any real advantage to the modern stuff. I have an 8x56 zeiss on my 222 for racoondogs even tho thermal is legal for them because it keeps things simple. Not everyone wants things to fiddle with.

Adding complexity ads failure points and with the Zeiss 8x56 i shoot a hare in the head at 270m. Our brain can be an amazing BDC computer if you spend enough time at various ranges.

In theory they are great modern tools, but no i dont think the old fashioned scope is stone age, its just a different tool requiring a different approach. Nobody can convince me to trust a Hik in -25c days away from home.

 

[Will the chippy]

I was out with my mate last night. The battery in his scope died. My s and b 8x56 was fine.

 

[Selous]

All I would say is don’t sell your old scope until you are sure that you are happy with the super duper laser guided replacement. I know of a few folks that have retreated from “progress”!!

 

[sako751sg]

Had the Gen 1 DS on the 6.5 for 6ish years and a great bit of kit.
Never missed a beat and delighted with it.
Have a brand new Gen 2 that's sat in the box for 2 years that was going on the .243 so will have to get round to that.

 

[Karhumies]

Yea, one thing i can say is that i know multiple people who sold theirs after the first hunt in -30 degrees. some models get lag aparantly and others run out battery while you watch. I wouldnt trust a red dot sight either in harsher conditions or when i have to rely on it at all. I know militaries use them all over and they are supposed to survive everything and i dont dispute that, but if it doesnt have a reticle in it i dont trust it, i went LPVO with a dot on my AK. But i wont bash the Hik stuff either. For a hunter who leaves home with a few spare batteries and returns home at the end of the day to a hot meal and doesnt have time/money/ location to regularly shoot various ranges they are probably great. old fashioned scopes do require training to be able to accurately hold over targets in the field.

Thats the magic of our brain. Before compound bows and pin sights Hunters used feeling to shoot. With practise a skilled Archer using nothing but a stick and a string can hit a bird out of a tree with a snapshot. I shoot bows that way since i was about 8 years old.

Think of it like shooting a shotgun, people can shoot slugs accurately from an old side by side (my first deer was shot this way at 50m) At distance the old scopes require more feeling but can still achieve the same results. And iam not even talking about ballistic turrets, i used to have a meosport and i bought a package of these little glow in the dark stickers in different colors. Not even a chrono, just set targets in 50m increments and put little stickers at every distance on my turret.

 

[Bo Diddley]

I'll continue to let my wheels travel in old ruts for some time to come....

 

[nf-fuse]

I don't think traditional scoped being in the stone age but I also don't like the 'it's not cricket ' attitude that some people take to anything new.

 

[wildfowler.250]

Thanks folks! Interesting points all round. Didn’t think about battery life or extremes of weather etc.

Tbh I’m far more interested in the ballistic turrets to be honest. I see the John X videos with gunwerks using them a lot,(likely only showing the good shots but still).

I don’t think my hunting would change but I can definitely see the appeal on a wounded deer or something like that.

I think wind is the main difficulty anyway and nothing beats practice.

 

[Namman]

Thanks folks! Interesting points all round. Didn’t think about battery life or extremes of weather etc.

Tbh I’m far more interested in the ballistic turrets to be honest. I see the John X videos with gunwerks using them a lot,(likely only showing the good shots but still).

I don’t think my hunting would change but I can definitely see the appeal on a wounded deer or something like that.

I think wind is the main difficulty anyway and nothing beats practice.

If wind is a factor in a shot on deer, should you be shooting that far ?
Wind is certainly not predictable nor consistent..

 

[nf-fuse]

Thanks folks! Interesting points all round. Didn’t think about battery life or extremes of weather etc.

Tbh I’m far more interested in the ballistic turrets to be honest. I see the John X videos with gunwerks using them a lot,(likely only showing the good shots but still).

I don’t think my hunting would change but I can definitely see the appeal on a wounded deer or something like that.

I think wind is the main difficulty anyway and nothing beats practice.

I don't think batteries and temperature are a big issue. The modern lithium batteries perform well in low temperatures. Certainly what you would ever find in the UK.

 

[Jagged77]

I’m a convert to digital but the main draw for me is the low light performance. Shots so far have been below 200 so no need for ballistic calcs, however I’m sure it’ll be useful once I fully test it out.

 

[nf-fuse]

I’m a convert to digital but the main draw for me is the low light performance. Shots so far have been below 200 so no need for ballistic calcs, however I’m sure it’ll be useful once I fully test it out.

I think the ballistics is actually more useful on rim fires and air guns too be honest. Guess it depends on what range you shoot at.

Speaking from using a zulus for foxing, they certainly offer a lot but then there's also a lot of options. IR intensity/focus, zoom, normal focus, reitcle colour, range finder/BC. PIP etc. can be too much of good thing

 

[Karhumies]

yea nothing wrong with digital if it suits your situation. Lithium batteries are good but its still a weak spot in that setup. iam a toss it in the trunk and go guy. but then iam not a Uk stalker and dont know how differenr thingd are. I may be driving around, see a track next to the road, call my wife, then snowshoe after it for 3 days in -30. Alot of things can go wrong/be forgotten where a piece of glass works everytime.

on the original question, no i dont think the time of the glass and metal scope is over. We just got more options to tailor our kit to our needs.

 

[Karhumies]

adding to that, fixed vs variable. The time of fixed scopes being the top low light option might truely be over.... For people with money.

for the guy who saved up a year to buy a rifle and scope, give me a 600 euro budget and il still grab a fixed power.

 

[cjm1066]

The more adjustments the more time they take, is the deer still there?

 

[Essexsussex]

I was out with my mate last night. The battery in his scope died. My s and b 8x56 was fine.

This - I will always have a rifle with a traditional scope even though I’m mostly using digital. Batteries run out, software glitches and other issues. It’s important to have a back up

 

[Essexsussex]

I’m a convert to digital but the main draw for me is the low light performance. Shots so far have been below 200 so no need for ballistic calcs, however I’m sure it’ll be useful once I fully test it out.

Same as you. It’s been a revelation for the last five minutes of deer o’clock

 

[SSN100]

I can’t imagine I’d ever switch to a digital scope unless I was under real pressure for numbers. Looking through other peoples, it just feels like a fundamentally different experience watching the deer on a screen. I will probably get a thermal spotter at some point, but imagine I will still carry binos because I like being able to observe the deer (and other things) both to learn and understand them and for pleasure. Doing this through glass seems much more pleasant than through the Habroxs I’ve borrowed.
I spend 8-10 hours a day during the week looking at screens, I’d rather not have them intermediate my deer stalking experience, but I’m not under pressure for numbers!

 

[wildfowler.250]

The more adjustments the more time they take, is the deer still there?

I’d say further out the stuff is, the more time you generally have. Kind of like that whole, time to wind up but not usually wind down argument.

Sounds like a lot of folk are leaning more into the digital stuff and less into the ballistic dials. Probably 20 years time we’ll all be digital but we’ll see!