Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics New scope for Remington Model Seven 260 recomendation

A fixed 6 w/ a 42mm obj will give you a 7mm exit pupil - as large as the human eye can use. A larger objective can be helpful at higher magnifications if the glass/coatings are up to snuff. As we get older our eyes can't fully dialate anymore, which is why some guys say they see a big difference in the 6x42 vs the 6x36 and others can't see any difference between the two....

If you've never tried a fixed 6 you should really consider giving one a try. As said before, if you don't like it you will be able to get most of your money back out of it. Not for everybody or every situation, only way to know is to try.

David

I ditched a variable for the FX3 6x42 and I'm very pleased with it.

David

Formidilosus, it's all personal preference as to what scopes we all like. I did use a Leupold 6x for a number of years. It was fine, but I finally decided that I wanted more magnification options. As for wandering POI's, I don't remember any problems with the 6 power, but I'm not having problems with the variable Leupolds or Burrises or Vortex. As for how I'm certain of that, I don't know what to say other than they shoot where they are supposed to shoot, month after month.

Some years ago I was climbing into a raised stand when the wooden ladder broke. I fell backwards on rocks on to my beloved Sako and the older model VariX III 4.5-14. The scope POI didn't change. But I did manage once to drop my VariX III 6.5-20 and the rifle it was attached to out of my side by side into the gravel road. The POI did change a bit in that instance.

Anyway, a lot of long distance guys use variables out to amazing distances and they seem happy, so there must not be too much inherently wrong with variables.

But...it does just finally come down to us using what we want to use.

The FOV of 17ft at 100yards is not enough. That optic has no potential in versatility department. Sacrificing FOV for long ER is pointless. It's not like anyone in their right mind is going to mount that on elephant rifle.

LMAO!! Dumped a large WT deer slipping thru dark timber on a moonlit morning at 15 yards. I don't know how big a creature you hunt but vitals more than 17 feet is impressive!

I work in reality. Not in emotion, desire , or wants. Therefor what I choose to use isn't based on emotion, looks, or "feelings", but instead on performance. I much prefer the view through a Zeiss Diavari 6-24x72mm than through a $300 fixed 6x SS. However the $300 dollar AWFA scope while not having the glass of the Zeiss, is more than sufficient for all legal light and is significantly better at doing what a scope is supposed to do.

What a certain group uses or doesn't use is only valid and helpful if you know the reasons why and how. For instance- Vortex PST's have by far the highest failure rate of any modern popular LR scopes made. Not even a question. A casual search will reveal that of those that do more than shoot 10 rounds a year, over half have had experience with Vortex's customer service. Their top of the line Razor likewise suffers an unacceptable rate of failures. There are people (quite a few actually) that own several Vortex scopes and have had to send everyone of them back for service, and yet still believe that they are good scopes.

Someone with critical thinking skills would notice a heavy trend of people that have first hand experience with Vortex's customer service (and it is good), and notice a decided lack of people that know whether a couple scope manufactures even have a customer service department.


In the last month I have had another Vortex Razor go down hard, three Bushnells with funky tracking, a Leupold variable with a cracked lens, a Leupold VX6 shift zero, and a Burris that couldn't be zeroed. That's just on guns I've used. I see a lot of optics used.


I asked about your knowing whether you had wandering zeroes because most have no idea what their guns/scopes do. I am very confident that if you took your Leupold, Burris, and Vortex scopes and got each a dead nutz POA/POI zero with at least 10 shots in it, and then once a week fired 3 rounds at an identical target for the rest of hunting season with each one and then compared the initial "zero" target with the test target that you'd want to take a hammer to somewhere between 30-50% of them. People don't know how bad scopes really are because most-

Don't get a good zero to begin with
Don't shoot POA/POI and therefor have "slop" built in
Don't check zero often
Change loads frequently and therefor have no baseline
Make excuses for why shots don't go where they should




Absolutely use what you like, but most scopes really are that bad and the 6x42mm Leupold is well thought of for a reason. Variables can be very reliable and consistently work correctly, however your average hunting scope isn't.

How old are you?

I too like to work in reality, unbiased, no emotion, with certainly NO brand loyalty. I prefer what I prefer because I have used 100s and they have never given me a reason to not like them.........

Dang after reading that I didn't know I was at such risk of being knocked off zero at all times. I best just screw the whole glass on top of the rifle thing all together and run open sights I guess.

Interesting,I have 4-12x and 3-9x on my my coyote rifles and they stay on 6x. Any higher I have problems when the coyote is close.

Here is one that I killed with the scope on 6x. Shot it at about 30 yds.



Pic of rifle and coyote.

Good thing Big Al doesn't know about the wandering zero on his 20+ year old vari-x II, and his VX3. There's a chance he won't believe it. There's a chance the 780 inches (4 big ones) won't believe it either.

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Now this is more like the contentious Optics forum I remember so fondly!

Two weeks 'til I get to go try and kill something.....gotta vent some how!

I don't watch hunting shows nor worship any of the "hunters" on them.

I do recall Jim Shockey saying he owned like 80 something world records taken with Leupolds over a 30 year span. I have been using them longer than that......

Formidulosis, I'm not saying that you don't know what you are talking about, but I am saying that other folks can have a well earned opinion about scopes - fixed and variable - that doesn't necessarily agree with yours. You like your Zeiss variable. That's great, but wouldn't you be happier hunting with the fixed 6 that you've pontificated on. Probably not, and for all the same reasons I no longer use a 6 power. For real world use, here's my usual approach. I drop down to 4.5 power when I'm in the heavy woods on my place. I leave it on 8 power when I'm hunting the power line right of ways. I crank it to 14 when shooting paper and when I see a coyote 400 or so yards off in my hay field. So, yes, 6 power would work, but why limit myself to that. Doesn't seem that you've limited yourself to just 6 power. As for scope failure, I had a Redfield 1.75-5 get a cloudy lens back in the 70's. I had its replacement, a Weaver 3-9 fog up on me on a cold day in January (with the big buck in range), and I had a brand new Nikon Monarch 4-16 die on my 223 about 2 years ago. Right now I have a few Leupold variables, two of which have worked great for me for maybe 20 years. I have couple of
Burris 4.5-14 FFII's which have given good service (no failure and no obvious change in POI), and I have a new Vortex Viper PST 4-16x50 FFP that I really like. It hasn't died on me so far, and I hope it doesn't. So maybe the complexity of a variable will lead to more chance of failure, but so be it.

And, to do something really radical, such as agree with 2muchgun, I also have been using Leupolds for over 30 years. I've had no failures, and I've worked them hard. The old VariX III 4.5-14 that I had on my Sako 270 was on it for about 30 years (hard to be exact on that) and year after year after year the POI was right where it needed to be. Not that I didn't tweak it a click or two every year or two if needed. I've replaced it with a new VX3 4.5-14 with the VH reticle and we'll see if I can get 30 years out of it too. Actually, I suppose I won't last that long and my grandson will have to comment on it later.

So use a 6 power if you want to, though it sounds like maybe you don't use one, but just tell others that if they were smart that's what they'd use. Just let everyone else decide what they want and not force your opinions on them. Now...if I was to tell them what they need, I'd say to get a VX3 in 4.5-14 and whatever reticle they like, put it on their gun and enjoy it for the next 25 years. But...if they want to crank turrets, I'd suggest the Vortex Viper PST that I have. I've been very pleased with it, and the longer I use it the more I like it. That MRAD reticle is nice, as is the illumination (which I'd never had on a scope prior to this one). Still, I guess the PST could crumble into junk at any time, but for now it's doing fine. Yesterday I took the gun (Tikka T3 260) out of the safe, walked to my shooting bench, noted that I still had targets that weren't shot full of holes, and proceeded to put two bullets spot on target and in the same hole. I was just checking on the POI and I liked what I saw. With a 6 power, I doubt I could have shot that well and even if I had I'd have had to go look for my spotting scope, set it up and then look.

All of the above is just my opinion, which doesn't make it 100% right, but is still my considered opinion that is based on experience of up to 4 decades of using variable scopes (and fixed). I am not going back to a fixed 6, but you can if you want to.

Thanks, I think.

I do have Leupys that I have verified zero on year after year and they have stayed put. As many others have said. And they kill stuff every time I use them, without issue.

I do agree that many haven't a clue how to test a scope and wouldn't know if their scopes actually tracked reliably or not. However, many of them still obtain the desired result, dead critters.

My Leupold HUNTING scopes work well for HUNTING. I never bought them with the intentions of shooting the Snipers Hide Cup with them, or taking them to Afghanistan or Camp Perry. As stated, I use fixed Mark 4s or NF for such SHOOTING not HUNTING. They break eggs at 600yds without a fuss.

The last scope I actually tested was a Vortex Viper. Tracking was off. But not enough for most to probably realize. On a hunting scope a simple box test followed by some shooting is all I regularly conduct. But do so with every scope, after checking movement on a collimator. For LR stuff, I do the "yardstick test" or similar test using paper. And NO I don't care to do a giant write up on it, or try to prove to anyone that it works. I don't care that much.

In regards to the Vortex, the reticle was not square to the turrets. The further out, the more off center the shot. Would most hunters notice a 1.25" difference at 600yds? I think not. But precision LR shooters do.


I have seen some Leupys that were same way. But for hunting, I don't think say a 3� cant will matter to most.

Formy---I wish you would quit assuming that nobody other than yourself is able to accurately determine if a scope truly tracks or not, even though I agree 100% that many are incapable. The broken record $hit is getting old and becoming a joke. Kinda like when E. thought he was the only one who could focus a Leupold scope. Hunting scopes are for hunting, and in that regard, they seem to serve 99% of hunters needs, whether they know how to test them or not, or even if tracking isn't on par with the scopes you like to mention so often........

2muchgun, I was just lightly kidding you. It is nice that we agree on a few things, and I hope the agreement continues. In general I try to be nice, though I have a bad tendency to resort to sarcasm at times.

Agreed. And I have my "moments" as well

So you state that scope quite often don't work correctly, but instead of suggesting scopes that do work when someone requests advice on a scope for shooting at distance, you instead say they should buy scopes that don't work?

Makes sense...... Give or take. Though I find it to be a dirty trick to sell people POS gear and make no mistake scopes that don't work correctly are pieces of chit. 10 year old children can see the fallacy of crappy equipment, but apparently that goes right over the heads of grown adults.

The OP asked for a scope to hunt with to 300 yards and target shoot with a turret. Do you suppose that maybe he wants a turret because he intends to use it? And if he intends to use it do you suppose that he'll find LR shooting to be "difficult" as JG if he gets a POS scope that doesn't work? Good equipment that works connects a lot of dots. Connect those dots and things get real easy real fast. Screw that relationship up, and things get real hard real fast. But again dudes love to talk about the stuff that matters the least, and won't touch the stuff that matters the most with a 10 foot pole. Forgive me that I don't have to guess about scopes that work, but please keep pontificating that you've a 20 year old Leupold that works and explain how that has anything to do with current Leupolds, and then explain to the few people that see more Leupolds shot in a month than you will in a lifetime how variable Leupolds don't suffer a 30% failure rate in a matter of days.


I'm sorry that me actually addressing the question posed and then correcting bad information upsets you and JG. Funny as he would love to tell you about the POS Swarovski model that caused a rodeo on a big mule deer, which were known to have problems, but can't wait to bury his head in the sand when I state that the scopes he loves are barely better. Or the another poster that claimed Leupolds were awesome and that I was FOS, yet had two fail back to back in the exact manner that I said they do. Reality often hurts.

603,

You couldn't run fast enough to give me a variable Zeiss, and I shoot a whole lot with fixed 6's. As well as variables that actually work.

......nevermind