Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Current Vx-1 and VX-IIs - ever NOT killed b/c at dawn or dusk due optics?

Curious besides debating Stats on various models...

Has anyone NOT been able to kill game during legal light b/c the view was not 'bright' enough?

No sir.

Got 3 VX-II's and I could shoot past legal shooting hours here in AR. (30 min. before sunrise to 30 min. after sunset)

Not just Leupolds either. I killed a crap load of mule deer and whitetails in my early to late teens with a Marlin336 30-30 with a Weaver k4, Redfield 4x, and Redfield WideField (remember that one?). No prob in legal light.

No , but unlike so many hunters I do not constantly find myself having to try and pick the 180 class buck out of a herd of 160 class animals ghosting past at the edge of a wood line 600 yds from my stand with only 30 sec of shooting light left. Evidently though I am the exception as the internet is full of guys that have to address this vexing situation on a frequent basis.
Seriously year before last I had a doe come out shortly before dark and begin feeding about 50 yds from my stand. I just sat and watched her and when my partner came up it was pretty dark but still within legal shooting time and I pointed her out to him as he wanted a deer for the freezer. He was never able to see her but thru my old vari xii which is supposedly the same technology as the vx-i I could clearly see her until well after legal light.

Just this last season, a buddy and I spotted a deer in a cut line right at legal shooting time, first thing in the morning (30 min before sunrise). The deer was about 90 yards away. I looked it over through the Vortex Viper 10x42, and then we decided to take the nice, juicy doe. After the recovery, I discovered 2" spikes on the "doe". Neither my buddy, looking through a Zeiss Conquest 3-9x40 on 9x, nor myself spotting through my FX3 6x42, were able to see the spikes before the shot. Luckily we had both buck and doe tags, even though anything under 4" of antler technically counts as an antlerless deer up here, but what would have happened if we were without a buck tag, and the antlers were 2" longer?

All else being equal, more light and more clarity are never a bad thing, IMO.

Yes, I used a FX-II 2.5x28 IER scope this year on one hunt which has the same level of glass as the Vari-X II IIRC. Thirty minutes prior to sunrise, I was hunting a clearing and was unable to make a shot on the largest boar I have ever seen. I could resolve the black boar rooting against the dark earth background with my 8x43 binoculars, but not with the FX-II. This, despite the FX-II having over twice the exit pupil @11.2mm. Glass matters.

I recall one buck in Alberta on a field edge,whose antlers blended so well with the aspen bush in the background that we could tell nothing about them until he was too far and too late to shoot,and the antlers were contrasted against snow.I could see him to kill him, but could not tell what he was even with good bins to help.

Problems usually don't crop up with deer in the open,but when they are on the edge with no contrast IME....and I have had deer in full sunlight feeding through high brown grass and tricky sunlight/and shade show up a whole lot better through one scope than another of the same make.....one scope had the contrast to "see", and the other, an older model,could not cut it.

I use pretty common rifle scopes,but don't kid myself, and no one is going to tell me there is no difference in glass, or that better optics can't, under some circumstances, make a difference. That's BS.Those who believe it are kidding themselves.

Of course it can.

What that is worth to a person is for him to decide.

There certainly is a point of diminishing returns in optics. In recent years that even came down a lot.

There is "serious" guys out now hunting with 90 $ binos...

Priceless the tendency of the "high optics" clientele rationalizing gear purchases.

Oft encountered - the snearing look at my guiding optics - Minox Porros 10x44 and Leupold Gold Ring Compact Spotter.

Invariably follows the lecture on the brought Zeiss, Svaro, Leica, ...

More often than not, it will be later me spotting the game.

I do not envy my fellow men their gear. I take exception to any trial of one - up - manship.

I'd say "no". If I can identify the deer with my good binos, I can generally still see the reticle in my Leupolds well enough to make the shot. That being said, I've grown to like the little dot in my Trijicon scope and used it a few times this season on late shots. I probably could have made the shot with a non-lit reticle but the dot makes it a bit easier. I could really see the illumination being handy on black hogs at dark, as I just need to get a bullet in their front end, not identify their headgear or precise body angle/presentation.

Much is made of scope resolution under dim lighting conditions on the forum. Where I've hunted a more frequent issue to me is glare and flare by trying to look towards the sun when it is low on the horizon. I've not done any testing in an organized way but I noticed a big difference when I replaced my old Weaver K4 with a Leupold Vari-XII back in the 80's.

About that same time my son and his friend on a backpack hunt reported that they could not get off a shot because of glare. My son was using a cheap Bushnell scope, don't recall what his friend had. (Told my son that keeping his lenses clean of dust also helps!)

Lately, I have looked through a few scopes in a long room in my basement with overhead lights that can be turned on and off to change light angles. There is considerable difference in how different scopes deal with light coming in at different angles.

Has anyone else experienced this?

Yep. I had a 4200 Elite Bushnell that gave me fits with glare and non-critical eye relief. Nice glass otherwise.

I've ruined Nikon Pro Staff scopes for a couple of guys at the range.

All I did was get them to pretend to aim at a deer along a certain brush line when the sun was getting low on the horizon. The sun didn't have to be all that low either. Their view was obscured by heavy veiling flare.

Absolutely spot on....for some a bigger issue than the low light scenario often mentioned....I notice "better" glass/scopes handle those situations when others fall by the wayside.They simply are not built to deal with it effectively.You frequently bump into this out west with a rising sun in your face,and the terrain in front of you in deep shadow.

I bought a used rifle the other day that had a Tasco pro hunter 3x9x40mm on it. I was playing with it at dark last night and there would have been no problem killing any deer with it during legal shooting time. Now if it just tracked properly and held zero it would be useable....

There is world of difference between a long eye relief, 2.5x scope and one with the same coatings but in the 3-9X40 size when it comes to low light shooting. Not even remotely close.
"Glass" matters ? Really ? All the examples I've seen are one of a kind comparisons which are not the same lighting conditions and/or at the same distances. When somne guy shows up with a meaningful test under the same light conditions and at the same distances, then I might buy into this argument.
One thing I do agree on is the crappy stray light management that one sees in really cheap scopes. But that's alot more a matter of internal baffling, and black coatings on the inside of the scope than any tiny difference in light transmition values or resolution. E

An exit pupil larger than 7mm isn't going to do you much good, unless you're a cat.

True. The point is that the 11.2mm of exit pupil delivered by the scope exceeds the 5.4mm my binoculars deliver yet I still couldn't resolve the animal. This eliminates exit pupil as the culprit and leaves only glass quality, magnification, and maybe eye relief as variables. Both optics were used at the same time, at the same distance (110yds), on the same target. One worked, the other didn't. BTW my binoculars are Pentax 8x42 DCF ED's for a point of comparison to the FX-II I mentioned.

No doubt, ZOOM matters in resolving detail, and an IER scope likely has alot of lost light from the sheer distance of the lens to the eye, i.e. the shorter ER scopes i.e. some of the Euro's - it has no downside, as a Bino has VERY SHORT ER and likely your eyes are up against eye cups - so little light is lost along the way to the eye.

No doubt glass matters, I just wondered how much diff one gets as the gap in glass quality from BOTTOM tier to TOP tier closes.

Re: seeing horns, I shot a button buck once, by mistake, broadside standing at 100 yds, VXIII 4.5x14 on 14x, another using a 4200 6-24x - on 24x - at 200 yds....

Spotting 'Buttons' w/a scope is not always possible IMHO shy of the highest quality spotting scope on a tri-pod and w/an objective large enough to transmit light.

Sounds like a majority of shots can and have been made using older tech scopes - the VX1 IIRC now has MC4. At one time - that was sd to be 'the top end' I believe. Times change..and tech no doubt.

Good posts and appreciate all - thanks.

[quote=CKW]Much is made of scope resolution under dim lighting conditions on the forum. Where I've hunted a more frequent issue to me is glare and flare by trying to look towards the sun when it is low on the horizon. I've not done any testing in an organized way but I noticed a big difference when I replaced my old Weaver K4 with a Leupold Vari-XII back in the 80's.

About that same time my son and his friend on a backpack hunt reported that they could not get off a shot because of glare. My son was using a cheap Bushnell scope, don't recall what his friend had. (Told my son that keeping his lenses clean of dust also helps!)

Lately, I have looked through a few scopes in a long room in my basement with overhead lights that can be turned on and off to change light angles. There is considerable difference in how different scopes deal with light coming in at different angles.

Has anyone else experienced this?

It happened to me with a Vari X II 3-9 in about 1997. Had a heck of time finding a buck in the scope, looking into the setting sun. I got him but after that I compared my fixed powers to the 3-9 and sold it. They were much better. I don't remember what they were now. I know one was a Leupold 6x42 and I think some newer Weavers. In 2003, I bought a new VX II 2-7 that was very good looking into the sun. Checking for glare suppression is very important when comparing scopes.