Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics affordable spotting scopes Q's

Looking for a scope to help spot target hits at the range. Nothing too fancy, should be used in pretty easy conditions looking to spend $200-400. I was thinking a 15-30 power range from Leupold, Vortex, (I like good warranties on glass) are there any others I should be looking at. I've been just taking and extra rifle with a Vortex Viper 4-16x44 scope on it, and using the rifle as a spotter.

Also what are your thoughts on straight/ angled? I think I would prefer straight, but I haven't messed with them enough to know the functional difference. I already have a pretty good tripod

It takes a decent scope to see a .308 bullet hole at 300 yds. If you are just spotting holes at 100, no big deal. My experience has been that a $200 spotter leaves me wanting better optics. It may be advisable to save a little more and get a little more scope to be money ahead down the road.

If I were to buy a Spotter ~$500 today, I would be looking at the Minox Demo from Doug or, for a little less, Vanguard Endeavor offerings.

Personally, I prefer straight. it just seems easier and more intuitive when getting the scope on game/target for me.

I've seen a lot of criticism of Konus spotters here but I have one I use for the range and it has performed very well. I've had no issues spotting bullet holes in paper at 500 yards. I haven't shot paper farther than that. Either I lucked into a good one or the critics haven't tried one. It is not perfect. It definitely has some CA issues. It doesn't jump out at me while looking through it but snapping a pic through the scope makes it very apparent. I still dream of a Swarovski but the big Konus has been perfectly adequate for me for range use.

yeah no experience with any of those brands, will have to try to find someone locally who carries them to look at/ play with

If this spotter will only be used at the range then angled will be nice

I shoot steel beyond 250 to see impacts easily

My spotter is a 65mm Vortex Razor

Theron Saker 15-45x60 ED is affordable, light and has great reviews.
When I have used mine on decent conditions it has shown 7mm holes at 300yds without doubt. When it is hot and humid it lacks a little, but even reading a newspaper at armas length was hard that day
Eyepiece cant be upgraded and eyebox could be a little more forgiving. No complains for the $300 it costs.