Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska electronic sights for bears and other dangerous game

As to your common sense - that does seem to be ailing - looking at the way you disregard the informed opinions you have been given upon asking.

Note:

Bold text is mine.

I've guided hundreds of hunters and lost track of how many insisted on keeping their scopes turned up to the highest power. Even though I tell each of them to keep them turned down to the lowest power. If you bump into DG at close range there is no time to turn the power down but if it is far enough that you need to turn the power up you usually have plenty of time.
Anybody who might "accidently" be carrying his scope at a higher power will probably have failed to turn his red dot on when he needs it or have left it on and the battery will be dead.

I hear you... well i always like to think of the worst case scenario... and if I were hunting dangerous game or hunting alone in an area where there are dangerous game and I didn't have 10 guides lol backing me up... I would prefer either straight iron sights or a high quality dot sight like aimpoints...

The soldiers in iraq and afghanistan trusted their lives to them.. and the weather and abuse is mroe severe then most any western hunter will endure

if they are so terrible then why would the U.S. army trust the live sof THOUSANDS of soldiers to them... in WORSE WEATHER CONDITIONS and more ABUSE than any western hunter on a casual hunting excursion. Hell evena PH or guide in alaskan will get less abuse then a platoon somewhere in the mountains of aghanistan on a several month tour

Better question is if they are so wonderful WHY AGAIN ARE YOU ASKING about their use then arguing with the comments?

You do know that hunting brown bear in Alaska is a bit different then 20 guys entering a 2 room house in Iraq with air and mortar support, right?

I'd just go with what Phil said and call it good. Of course, he is only speaking from experience, not something that he's conjured in his head or read on the internet - I certainly wouldn't put much stake in what he's got to say on the matter.

"Polska"...sorta says it all, eh?

You just might be surprised at how much abuse an alaskan guide will get during an average outing...

OTOH - equipment makers are regularly surprised at how much abuse some AK guys and guides can dish out.

It's funny how one can go to the doctor and he'll send you on your way with a prescription, etc. and nary an argument. You assume he knows his biz because, well, that's what he does. Toss in an experienced guide that does his thing for a living, and, well, the "patient" knows better.

A rather trivial comparison? Yeah, maybe. But listening to BOTH can help you live a lot longer.

Having been a line grunt in Vietnam ( which I'm sure is different from Afghanistan) I am aware of how tough grunts are on weapons. I am also aware that for the most part they are using equipment procured from low bidders. The Leatherwood/ Redfield scopes we used on our XM-21 sniper rifles were POS , even thought they were current state-of-the-art.

Having also known a lot of Alaskan guides I will say that they are at leat equally hard on equipment as the average soldier and probably more so as most never ( and I'm not kidding) clean their rifles and half of those who do simply spray the entire rifle - stock and all - with a heavy dose of WD-40 at the end of the year and call it good.

You say that like it's a bad thing!

This entire thread reminds me of a public relations guy I used to know in the firearms industry. Because of my job I had to be around him now and then at social functions, and invariably he would sit near me. Then he would ask me a question, prefaced by several sentences extolling my experience.

When I answered him, my answer was almost invariably NOT the one he wanted to hear. This was because he knew just enough about firearms and hunting to be dangerous. As an example, he once made a speech about how his .338 wildcat was the greatest big game round ever, because it had killed with one shot three African plains game animals (about 10% of his lifetime hunting experience). He went on to brag about how it got .338 Winchester Magnum veliocities with a case that had at least 20% less powder capacity.

Then he asked me why the primers fell out of his cases when he opened the bolt. When I told him he was loading his wildcat to dangerous pressures, he started to argue with me.

Eventually he disappeared from the industry, I assume because he was killed by some other gun writer.

This thread has got to be a setup by a troll to get an argument going, right? And a number of us "bit".

Bear in Fairbanks

Nope...I think he's about 17 and reads lots of magazines and watches lots of hunting TV shows... .

Dennis

The ultimate in overpenetration!

He do speaketh like a kielbasa.

6X at 40 yards works OK too. 1.5 is better. Fixed is more fool proof than variable. I'm pretty sure.

I should buy one.

Wouldn't be that hard to mount a bayonet for DG at ranges a low power scope setting won't work......

Without looking at all post that should be obvious here, I would have to ask how electronic sights relate to KISS? Further, I would have to say that it is the NBTB which affects speed (and accuracy) more than anything. Personally, I can't see why I'd want more than 2.5X on a bear gun anyway, assuming I'm choosing opticals at all.

I started this thread simply because I wanted to hear the other side of the argument... why people are against dot sights and what their reasoning is. I'm allowed to disagree though am I not? I am being persecuted, ridiculed and made assumptions about simply because of my disagreement with the use of a scope versus and red dot sight. And even made fun of for being Polish... which I am proud of. Pope John Paull II was Polish.. 5 time world's strongest man Mariusz Pudzianowski is Polish, Nicolaus Copernicus was Polish, Boxing LIght Heavyweight champion with multiple titles Tomasz Adamek is Polish... so if we were really so stupid why would we be so successful. It seems to me that americans are the ones who's country is falling apart.

just notified the moderator bub. keep it up.