Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics 15x bino vs spotter

I lean toward 7X bino's that appear to be relatively stable when hand held and I'm standing. These shake out game on the landscape level quick scans. Bino's above 7X and I have to brace up for some stability.

I need a spotter too though to judge distant trophy quality or count points. Also, when the bino's don't pick up on anything, the spotter and really stout tripod come out for those thorough and systematic searches of the landscape. For those searches though something in the 12 to 15X realm gives a bigger field of view. Crank one to 30 or 40X, and field of view is so small one will be there all day if he's doing a thorough search. In really hot seasons, however, spotters are almost worthless after the first hour of the day due to heat waves, especially across gentle or level terrain. Not quite as bad though with cross canyon or mountain to mountain views.

The comments on stable bino's are spot on. Resting them on boulders, logs, tripods, or whatever greatly improves their utility.

In big country I need both. In dark timber just the bino's.

Ok girls thats enough......I'm tougher than both you.

I went from 10 and 15x swaros to the 12s and the 80mm spotter. I feel I don't give up anything in finding game and get a much better look once located

Both -

15's to find and initial assess - Spotter to determine if he's 105" or 110" or 340" or 360"...

Rifle glass has one purpose, steering a bullet. Period.

10x binos
30x fixed spotter

AS you stated your not trophy hunting so a spotter is worthless get the 15's best you can afford and see what you've always been missing

GregW,



You might be surprised to discover your opinion does not establish facts. The group I know puts their rifle scope on game to determine if they are going to shoot or not. Everyone is a not trophy hunter. They want to know one thing only: Is it legal?

you need new friends.....

No chit.

I hunted with a guy who used his scope for bino's..........















Once

That's what binoculars are for. If they're so far away you need a 25x rifle scope to see if they're legal you need to get closer.

"Never let your barrel cover something you're not willing to destroy"

One of the Ten Commandments of gun safety. Doesn't matter if it's a person, doe or spike.
You don't sound like an Internet tough guy, more like an Internet dumba$$. IMHO of course.

My 7X binos can't show me the details the scope can. Not hard to understand.

Ringman you post was pretty simple to understand.....looks like nobody understood it I guess.

Pretty simple so I'll dumb it down for everyone

Step 1. Glass up game with 7x binos.
Step 2. Decide if it's a game animal you're after.
Step 3. Decide if it's a buck or doe.
Step 4. After determining if it's potentially an animal to kill proceed to step 5.
Step 5. Grab rifle to glass with rifle scope AND take shot.....

Ringman is not going around scanning the hillside with his rifle. He never said he was.

You have absolutely no clue.....About anything.

I have unintentionally done exactly this.

Found a buck I thought was legal through my 8x binos. Got all setup to take the shot. And as soon as I got my scope (set at 10x) on it to take the shot I could see it was not legal....and after cranking my scope to 16x I could definitely see it was not legal.

I was 100% positive it was legal and ready to kill that buck. Never glassed it with my scope as a way to determine whether or not it was legal.

That sums it it nicely.

You should update your binoculars to a good set of 10's first

Ringman clearly stated that he uses his rifle scope in place of a spotting scope and those are used for glassing

The only two people that "don't get it" are you and Ringman

Pretty [bleep] clearly typed right here quoted from Ringman himself.....

Looks like the only people who DO get it is me and ringman

You must be a democrat, as you conveniently left out half the original quote. BTW, huntsonora and scenarshooter have probably forgot more about big game hunting, including optics, than you'll ever know.