Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Fixed Power Scope Choice

I am slowly switching all my variables over to fixed power scopes. Mainly Leupold but would pick up zeiss and a few others if the price is right.

Leupy 6X36 and 6X42s are what I am buying, with a few 2.5X20s thrown in on my carbines. The fixed 4X scopes I already have on various rifles are staying though.

I have rarely felt the 6X was too much. In those few cases I am not sure 4X wouldn't have been too much either. Think coyotes charging in at pretty much bayonet range.

One thing is for sure: I am absolutely convinced variables change their POI at different power settings. FFP or not has not mattered. I may hold the rifle different or the reticle may shift...I don't know but I am done with variables.

Take a 6x and mount the rifle at something across the room; something like a door knob. Then do it again and again and again, etc. Repeat: again, again and again and�.

Eventually you will come to realize there is no problem in quickly getting on anything as big as a Deer at close range.

Just look at all the parts in a variable. Then a fixed. Not too hard to determine which is more durable.

Variables, AOs, fancy reticles and knobs to turn are just more things to go wrong or be forgotten/misused when that 6x6 walks out at 200 yards.

If I had to get down to 4 scopes:

2&3/4X Kollmorgen PCH (375 H&H)
4X Unertl Hawk 2" dot & CH (30-06, 9.3x62, ARs)
6X Leupold FX II with the simple dot hold over reticle (any of 5 30 Supers or 270 WCF)
4-16X50 Schmidt and Bender with the No. 8 Varmint reticle (FFP and POI never changes) (222, 22-06, 25-06, 338 RUM bench gun)

They are all bullet proof and the S&B cost as much as two nice rifles.

Probably 40 odd scopes on the shelf but if forced .......

Sounds familiar.

Larry Root!

Get a variable. That's what just about everyone does and wants.

I put a Leupold 2-7 on a light 7-08. It's just fine.

A 2.5-8 might be Leu's best all around scope however it costs
more.

I have several variables plus fixed in 4x, 6x, 10x, 12x and 24x. I like them all but, for game hunting, I could easily live with 4x32s on everything I own.

And your three longest shots on a big game animal are what?

He pretends to shoot the mounts at Cabelas. So a long shot there would be sixty yards. You should hear the stories he tells to the customers there. Between him and the skinny little nerd behind the gun counter they will have you in tears.

Hey, what's up!!??

Miss shooting with you. Going out tomorrow and get a little practice in.

I've never had a variable stay in zero long enough to cook a barrel;but a few fixed powers have done it.

That said, I'm also convinced that not all variables are created equal....mechanically that is.

1] Whitetail, 440 paces, Savage .243 with 6x Weaver. one shot, one kill.2] Whitetail, 355 paces. Savage .223, 3-9 Bausch & Lomb set @ 6X, one shot, one kill 3} Whitetail, 314 paces, Win 94 .30-30 with Williams receiver sight in back and 1/16" Lyman ivory bead up front, one shot one kill. # 4,5 &6 would be approx. 252, 240 and 225 yds. all with a Marlin 336 .30-30 and Weaver K-2.5. I'd way rather be looking through the K-2.5 when a deer scorches past at close range through the trees than anything 6x. It's one thing to get on and make a good shot on a running target in the open and another entirely to do it when there are lots of intervening trees. The picket fence effect is a bitch and the more magnification, the worse it gets.

Bob,

You have more experience shooting rifles than I, but a good fixed out to as far as most take BG-and with few exceptions especially most of us in the East-is they way I lean. 3's, 4's, and 6's have proven themselves.

They work well and distract almost nothing from a rifles balance and handling. About the only variable I use for actual hunting these days is the Leupold 1.5-5 which some with a lot of experience consider to be extremely reliable.

If I was in the wide open and had the ability eat up yardage, I would definitely look at other options.

I've taken game from 25 - 420 yards with a fixed 6x Leupold on my .25-06 Remington. No problem.

I use the 42mm version on my rifle. My son uses the 6x Leupold with the 36mm obj lens on his .30-06 rifle. Took a bear last fall at 320 yards... The kid is a good shot. He's also used that same rifle & scope on a whitetail buck at about 20 yards. No problem.

Guy

Doe I shot this year in Pa with the 1.5-5 on 3x, was jumped out of its bed and took off on the run thru slashings. I tried to get on it running right to left but couldn't. At around 80 yards it stopped and I found a hole.

With mature tress I don't have the picket fence issue, in that again I look for holes. How fast the Deer is running makes a big difference wither I can find one. Running full tilt they will probably win. Easy lope ups my odds.

Nice to see somebody else who knows what I mean by the "picket fence effect". I'd bet money you could've gotton on that doe running through the slash if your scope were on 1.5 instead of 3. Sometimes a little bit makes a big difference. Realizing of course that in your particular case it didn't matter because she stopped at 80 yds. and gave you a shot. But many times they don't stop and quite often because of cover/terrain you know immediately that the ONLY chance you've got is to get on that deer and take it NOW or not at all.

Nope, I was looking for holes but it was passing threw them too fast, and in an instant there was brush between it and me. I doubt that a lower power would have made any difference. The mistake it made was stopping in the wrong place on the other side of the gut for a look back.

battue: I was not trying to contradict anything you said in the post above....was commenting generally and you were the nearest "reply".

I agree with you.

I was commenting more to what Dog Hunter said about variables vs fixed in his post above....and my general observations of variables and fixed powers over the years,where I have seen some variables do some very subtle shifting of zero from session to session and over the longer haul....not a lot, but it's noticeable.

Yet many more fixed powers have stayed very precisely where I have left them, and this extends over a time period of "years",so long as loads remain the same,and the rifle itself was "good".

Like the poster above said, there are fewer moving parts in a fixed power....less to go wonky and I am suspicious that some erector assemblies do some subtle "shifting" here and there.It just does not take much "slop" to cause a shift in POI.

Despite carrying and using both variables and fixed powers,I am relative chump change when it comes to long distance killing......maybe a handful of BG animals in excess of 400 yards,and those were all killed with a fixed 4X; but I like a hair more power in open country these days.

Should say I don't own any Nighforce, SWFA,or scopes of that type...I suspect they are different animals and in another class of variables entirely.

Been to the range 4 times in the last 6 days sorting out a new 7 Rem Mag and a fixed 6X, shooting to 500 yards....think I got it.

I keep "checking" zero with my 7mm Mashburn,162 Amax, and fixed 6X, to 600 yards,but don't know why I bother anymore...it hasn't shifted at all in 4 years.

Bob, I didn't think you were. Damn internet gets it wrong so many times.

I pretty much have a handle on how you think about this stuff, know how much you work at it, and was agreeing with you.

Going to do my best to make it to one or both in OH this year to shoot with you.