Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Leupold FX-II 4x33 or VX-3 1.75-6x32???

don't overlook the leupold 1-4x

I have a 4/33mm on my Ruger #1 9.3x74,good eye releif and FOV.
Works for me and it stays set!

I got over my "fear of 4x" with my very first deer, killed at about 10 yards with the 4x on my father's .30-30.

At the other end I have taken several big game animals at around 400 yards with 4x scopes, and never have missed one. These include "small big game" such as pronghorns and African springbok.

But if a variable makes somebody feel better, then by all means they should feel better. That's what buying stuff is all about.

I think that's an excellent point.

Just to wipe a little fly turd in the salve; I think the FX-II 2.5x20UL might be the best scope for the majority of MPBR medium-large game hunters. I'm torn between that and the 2-7x33 with a slight edge toward the FX.

If you were born in the 50's came into shooting in the 60's and used what was "common",read the authors of the time,and got out and actually hunted varmints and big game.....well, you were gonna eventually come to use a fixed 3X,4X etc....and maybe a fixed 6X,7.5X or 10X for your wood chuck and varmint hunting

Variables were not as highly regarded back then, at least among the BG hunters I knew,and the most common scopes I saw in use among the guys who traveled to hunt were fixed power Leupolds....some few had variables,but they were in the minority.In my crowd, no one really trusted them.....

Any how, for many of us, the notion that a fixed 4X was not "enough" was pretty curious, and the next question was ..."not enough for what?" .....since we all hunted east and west with 3X and 4X,and never had an animal get away,or missed a shot opportunity due to any lack of magnification, in all those years....and yes we killed deer, antelope, elk,etc clear out to almost 500 yards,but mostly under 400...I've killed a few animals moving pretty quickly at distances under 20-30 yards with them.....

To this day (and even though I own them)I have a hard time distinguishing the practical difference between a fixed 4X and a 1.5-6, or 2-7; neither one, IMO,offers any real world advantage on BG over a fixed 4X,........you can get lots of confidence in a fixed 4X if you go shoot stuff with them.

Which is exactly why I started going back more to 4x and 6x a number of years ago. I tried a number of smaller variables, because I kept hearing (and reading) about how ideal they were, but generally I just left them on their highest power. They worked fine, even when I had to take a close shot in a hurry.

I do have a couple of 2-7x Leupold Ultralights (what used to tbe called the Compact) on rifles, but that's just because they're even lighter than Leupold 4x's, around 8 ounces. I just leave them on the highest setting (which as I recall is actualy around 6.5x) and use them that way.

JB, I am softening on the fixed 6X thing,and even stuck one on my 257 Roberts

...which is what I used to use on the Roberts years back along with a 4X's...

To be honest, the only variable I have owned that I absolutely luv,is my Summit...

Yeah, the Summit is great. I generally leave it on 6x, however!

It would be nice if S&B made a 6x weighing, say, 13-14 ounces. But their 6x42 weighs 18....

Don't need no stinking scope.

I've set aside two hours today to practice scope focusing....

JB they are on the heavy side....but the Summit is going to stay on a 7RM M70 Classic that I am dropping into a Borden Rimrock stock ( I have shot it in the wood stock and know it is accurate),and I don't seem to notice the weight of the Summit too badly....I have plenty of LW mountain type rifles.

If they made a light weight 6X, I would be all over it pretty quick....I have even contemplated a S&B 4X....but those 4X Conquests and Leups are getting me by for now...

My Summit (for the moment anyway) is on a Heym SR-21 in .300 Winchester Magnum, which is heavy enough anyway that the scope doesn't bother me. The outfit weighs 9-1/2 pounds, even without sling and ammo! Kinda takes the sting out of 200-grain Partition handloads...

Interesting stuff guys, thanks. JB, I think your idea of a fixed 6x Accupoint has a lot of merit. You have any pull with that company? Ever talked to them about it? Some of the hogs here are black as coal and that glowing dot is sweet.

I bet a German #1 would work

The irony of it all is the only two scopes I've ever sent back to Leupold were 4x33's. I've never had a Leupold variable take a [bleep] on me.

Just by shooting them? What did you have them on?

One had a crosshair crap out, it was on a 30/06 and another would track right, on a 7x57.

Hmmm, was that a ULA '06? I know lightweight rifles put more G's on scopes.

I reckon a crosshair can go bad on any scope, save the etched reticle models. Fortunately I have not had one break on any scope. Thanks for the reply.

About an 8 1/2 pound Mauser. The one with tracking issues was bought used so really no telling what someone had done to it.

Hmmm, didn't slug a bear in AK with that rifle did ya! LOL