Scopes

Let's talk scopes. This is something that I have been doing quite a bit of research on recently. So for those of us that are beginners, lets talk about a scope's specs. For example, I looked at my rifle last night to see if I could figure out what kind of scope it is.

After about 10 seconds I found the information on the bottom of the scope (facing the gun butt), near the end you look through. So I saw that it's a Bushnell 4X32. What does that mean?

So Bushnell is the brand name (a good one by the way). But what about the 4X32 (4 by 32)? The 4 means it's a 4 power scope (things look 4 times closer). the 32 is the reticle size, or the size of the glass on the side facing the end of the barrel. So mine is 32 mm wide. With reticles, the bigger the better, generally. So a 32 mm reticle isn't the smallest size, but it's also not super great. Generally for deer rifles you will want anywhere from 40 mm - 50 mm. These let in more light, therefore a clearer picture of what you're looking at.

As I was doing my research, I was trying to figure out what type of scope I should get, in every sense of the word. I was trying to answer these basic questions:

1. How far of shots do I feel comfortable making with my rifle? Remember I have a .243 Winchester. (if you don't know what that means, I will do another blog soon on calibers).

2. What specs does my scope need to shoot at those distances?

3. What Brand do I want?

So for question #1, I was going to have to do some research:

1. How much energy does a bullet have to have to kill a deer?

2. How far out will my rifle produce that much energy? (this is dependent on multiple variables, but for me, as I have no plans on reloading my own bullets, the only ones I worried about is weight of the bullet, and the brand). I shoot Winchester 95gr bullets. So I'm set there.

I see that most "experts" or long-time hunters that know a lot more than me say that your bullet should have at least 1,000 lbs of force, to be effective at killing a deer. Can you kill with less than that? Yes! But I don't want to do that. I worry about making a deer suffer more than it has to.

So I looked up a ballistics chart for my rifle:
http://gundata.org/blog/post/243-ballistics-chart/

As you can see on this chart, my .243 shooting Winchester 95gr. bullets produces over 1,000 lbs of force out to 400 yards. So I plan to shoot with that range.

So I really don't need a super awesome $2,000 scope with 32 power magnification. I decide, that I need something that I can shoot with at short-to-medium range. So about 3-10 power is really all I need.

So, lets talk brands (this is by no means a comprehensive look into all brands, just the ones I looked at):

Barska:
I looked into a brand that I found on Amazon called Barska. Their scopes have AMAZING specs!!! And for relatively little money. I found what I thought was my perfect scope from them. 6-24X50, for $65!!! I though I hit the jackpot. 50mm Reticle, and it goes from 6-24 power. Not too shabby. Until I saw the ratings. While there were many 5 star ratings, there were also many 1 star ratings. And it seemed, the more I read into it, those scopes are very hit-or-miss. So I decided to stay away from them.

Bushnell:
I don't know too much about Bushnell, other than they are one of the top names in optics. Like I mentioned before, the scope on my rifle is a Bushnell, and I've never had a problem with it being off, or losing its zero.

Vortex:
Vortex is a fairly new brand to me. A lot of my friends like their stuff. Including guys that are big time into high quality optics. From what I understand, they have really great warranties.

Leupold:
My dad is in the military. Being in the military, he gets a really good discount from Leupold. So that is the brand he usually goes with. They are another high quality brand, but they don't dabble much in the lower-end scopes.

Nikon:
Nikon has been a top name in optics for a long time. They have high quality scopes, but are generally a bit more bare bones than the other higher-quality brands, at least from what I can tell.

So I had narrowed my search to just Nikon and Vortex. They were really the only two brands that I felt I could trust, and afford.

After a couple hours searching around on Amazon, and other websites, I finally found a Nikon that fit my budget, and had the specs I wanted: the Nikon Buckmaster II 3-9X40.

Nikon has three main product lines:

1. Prostaff - lower-end
2. Buckmaster - mid-grade
3. Monarch - top of the line

So I ordered the Nikon today. I feel like I got a great deal on the scope for less than $110.