Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles fixed scope

Pssst, it's 2009. You can have your cake and eat it too.

Low powered fixed scopes offer nothing you can't get in a variable. The variable on the other hand offers a huge advantage over the low powered fixed scopes. It's not the 1950s anymore.

1950 or 2009... features like lighter, brighter, tougher, and simpler don't go out of style. A little more magnification may make it easier to shoot little groups from the bench... but when it comes to running holes through critters in the field, a fixed 6x rarely sucks hind tit.

What might that huge advantage be?

Dead is dead. Never missed a thing cause I couldn't turn my scope up.

It just has to be his shoes.



P.S. I'm still laughing over you scope pic. Funny stuff.

I have variables, quite a few of them but a fixed power is in almost all cases shorter in body length, lighter (especially when trying to get under a weight limit in BR), stronger, less temperamental and with far less that can go wrong and here's the real clincher a Hell of a lot cheaper...

Eremicus, that post wasn't directed at you, didn't know how to get the advanced reply box...

In all fairness, that "alternatively mounted" scope was a 3x9 VXII.

With dotz, no less.

So I do see a place for variables.

Of course variables are good....far better than they used to be;and useful,too....sometimes,when you need to turn them up,which is not often in much BG hunting,unless you want to.

With lots of moving parts,in a variable, there is just more to go wrong.It really IS possible to hunt,and kill stuff(some of it far away)with a fixed power scope.

Well, shiver my timbers. Just checked. I, on my personal rifles, have only fixed scopes left.

Weaver K2 2,5x
Leupold M8 2,5x28 (Scout)
Weaver GS 4,75x40
Aimpoint Micro H1

Ghost&Post on the 9,3x64 and the .45-70s.

Pawned of to Students:

Leupold Vari X II 3-9x50
Leupold VX I 3-9x40
Leupold VX II 2-7x36
Zeiss 2,5-10x48

All good scopes - just not for me.

I think, in good time I will upgrade my fixed scopes to:

2,5x20 UL Leupold
4x36 Leupold
6x42 Leupold

cmg: How'd that happen?

Be careful.....you might not ever hit anything again

CMG - that Weaver 4.75 always intrigued me and I was kicking myself for not needing it bad enough to buy it. I have only heard from one guy here regarding it and his review was surprsingly unflattering.

Have quite a few variables and fixed in QR rings. Really enjoy using the Leupold 1.5-5x when going between thick and open. However, can't think of any other situation where the variables would or have served me better than a fixed 4x or 6x. Most are afraid to give the medium power fixed an honest go and thus will probably never see the advantages they have.

Except for groundhogs and bench my variables have little use for hunting BG. The LR people have a different situation, however Bob and I know how few go there.

Me too, and the older I get, the less I like moving parts.

Just my humble opinion but I believe that some people just don't have good enough eye sight to get by with the fixed power scopes up to 6x for hunting. You've GOT TO use what works for you and some people simply do better with higher powered scopes for hunting.
I've got a 4.75x GS and the only negative about it to me is it's short tube length for mounting. Minor but still there.

I may be wrong on this, so if the eye experts will chime in it would be appreciated.

The way I see it is that if your eyes are not normal, the the only thing the higher powers do is give you a bigger blurry out of focus picture. Extra power or more xxxx's will not correct your vision and in fact may make things worse with a reduced fov making it harder to find stuff when you need to do so quickly. Combine that with the harder to hold steady disadvantage of high xxx's and again I don't see the advantage.

I have no issues with anyone using whatever gear works best for them. If you like high power, by all means use it. If you may occasionally need to dial it down, by all means use a variable.
But deciding to use a fixed scope is an equally valid choice, and not merely a throwback to an earlier time, as some have suggested.

battue,
I'm not meaning "don't have good enough eye sight" as in not having normal vision. Bad choice of words I reckin. I'm meaning some people just "see" better and therefore shoot better with higher x scopes. Maybe someone who experiences this can explain it better but I do know hunters who simply shoot better having they say "a better view" of game with higher x scopes. Hey,it works for them.

Gotcha. Problem with talking long distance is that ones meaning often falls between the cracks. I "see" now what you meant.

To suggest that variables are some way vastly (or even less than vastly) superior to fixed powers is kind of like saying a 300 RUM is somehow vastly superior to a 30-06 in terms of what can be accomplished among our choices of quarry. In many cases both address the question that doesn't often get asked: "what if," except in one's mind.

Now, I will admit that I enjoy using the certain niche items which sometimes seem best suited for specific "what ifs," but from my early years in the midwest as well as better than a quarter century of living and hunting in Alaska, I'm having a hard time trying to think of a situation where I would have been somehow cheated of an opportunity had I been using "only" a bolt 30-06 loaded with 180 Partitions and topped with a quality (M-8 would work) 4X scope. If anything, it has been the use of niche items: an interesting "ideal for certain situations" caliber, an interesting "let's see how this works" bullet/load combo, or a "good for anything, perfect for nothing" scope which have interfered with my intent.

I will venture to say that many folks would be perfectly well scoped with either a relatively light, compact fixed-power scope, either in 3X or 9X - since either of those powers are where I surmise most variables are set mostly (and since the majority of variables seem to be sold in that power range.) And logically, that should eliminate much of the demand for variables. However, "what if?" is a tremendously powerful (if not even magical) sales feature. I suspect it will continue to sustain the variable market even as the arm chairs of America sustain the "what ifs" which haunt the minds of the masses, many of whom spend more time dreaming "it" than doing "it".

Variables have their place. Fixed powers, in spite of their lack of razzle-dazzle, do also. Popularity is not the same as value in terms of utility. One is not intrinsically better than the other. Use what you will. Only you are responsible for your hits and misses.