castor,
Welcome.
A couple hours ago I went to Medford Sportsman Warehouse. The sky was totally overcast and duskie; close to dark. I asked the optics guy if I could take some binos out side the store to compare with a couple of my stuff. I indicated the Swarovski 8.5X42. He picked them up and walked out of the store.
I placed my new optics chart clear across the parking lot and lazered it: 82 yards. The first line uses number 80 print. The seocnd is 70 print, the third line is 60 print, the forth line is 50 print, fifth line 40 print and sixth line is 35 print.
I laid out three sand bags and asked him to put the Swaro on one. I laid the Bushnell Ultra HD Legend 8X42 on the other and the Swarovski z5 5-25X52 on the last one. After adjusting the Swaro I could read the forth line with ease and sorta make out some letters in the next line, but culd not read any words. With the Bushnell I could easily read the forth line and could not make out any of the letters of the fifth line. If I called the Swaro a 100 the Bushnell would be a 96.
Then I went to the scope. I slowly turned it up till I could read the forth line and looked at the setting: 8X; same as the bins. No suprise because it is great glass. I thne turned it up till I could see the last line clearly: 10X. I asked the store man to go through the same routine. When he finished looking through the binos he said,
"Are those Bushnells the Ledgends?" Then he picked them up and looked at them and said,
"I see. You pay ten times as much for the Swarovskis and get a little bit better binoculars. At best they are only ten to fifteen percent better."
Then he looked through the scope on 8X.
"Wow!," he exclaimed. That's nice."
"It goes up to 25X. Turn it up and take a look," I suggested.
He acted like he didn't beleive me so I turned it up and made sure it was adjusted for clearity.
He tried to look through it and mumbled something. I don't think he was looking through it correctly. Teh eyebox on 25X is pretty small. I got down and looked through it. I could see the wrinkles in the celephane tape. There's no way I can see as much detail with a bino of any quality on 8X as I can with a good scope on a higher setting.
I digress. What I wanted you to know is you are not going to get your money's worth if you spend more than $250.
