Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Low light hunting--- eye box or light gathering?

I've got a bit of an optics dilemma trying to choose between 2 great optics for some low light/ night hog hunting, think fast shooting, short ranges, moving targets:

Zeiss Duralyt 1.5-5x36

Vs.

Leupold VX6 1-6x24

The exit pupil and sunsequent eye box on the Zeiss is so easy to get behind, I can be anywhere behind it at any magnification and be relatively parrallax free and have a good picture.

The Leupold with it's straight objective tube, is actually brighter at night (true at all magnifications, I've tested them side by side), the reticle can be illuminated, but zoomed in to 4-6x it has a pretty tiny eyebox, and the 4mm exit pupil is about at the limit of my eye, so i get teh moon sliver affeectwith teh scope at full magnification. Also at short ranges the edge effect/ parrallax is pretty noticeable on this scope, I never thought that a large objective could solve so many issues with exit pupil/ parallax.

Which would you go with?

Thanks!

For you, with your description, there is no doubt that the Zeiss would get the nod.

Scopes do not gather light, they transmit it. If you want to night hunt just buy a night vision scope or either a good light.

I don't have any experience with either, but I do have a Zeiss Duralyt 2.5-8x42mm and it's a great low light scope.

I have two hunting partners that believe in trijicon scopes. They've used leupold, Zeiss and nightforce. For low light they favor trijicon.

That's because of the Trijicon illuminated reticle, not because the optics are any better.

These days many scopes have very good to excellent optics, and in general the reticle is more important to dim-light aiming than the optics.

That makes me ask. Does the 56mm make that much of a difference ?

Larger objectives do make a difference -- as long as we are talking about quality glass and an appropriate reticle.

These were taken within the past few months in moonlight-only or near-dark conditions.

But good glass in a 40-42mm obj can be useful, too -- just to a lesser degree. The greatest benefit of a larger objective is the ability to use a higher magnification, which is essential under the poorest of lighting and at extended ranges.

alright alright...I'll start talking Light TRANSMISSION

I've got one of those also on a 257 BOB, when Zeiss Discontinued them I bought all the ones I could find at closeout prices, they are a little heavy, but they have good optics, and I like their #4 reticle alot better than Leupolds #4 reticle. It is also a scope that is real easy to get behind, I wish more manufacturers would make scopes that have a minimum exit pupil in the 6-8 range.

But for low light TRANSMISSION/ color the VX6 beats it hands down, even with the smaller objective it jsut has an exit pupil of about 4, not that fast...

kinda what I've been thinking, I might throw the 1-6 on my kids gun, they've been getting used to shooting their .22 with a red dot, the firedot duplex might be a good transition tool for them to magnified optics...

Something to look at would be the Zeiss/Meopta/S&B/Swarovski scopes in 1.5-6x42. I love them for low light and many nights they'd be fine all by themselves all night long.

My favorite is the S&B with a modified #4 and turrets that one click gives me 300 and two gives me 400 + 3 inches on the rifle it's on.

The Meopta is the Artemis model and a lot cheaper if you can find one.

I love what I call "over objective" scopes, I'll check out that Meopta