Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Help with light-weight-rifle optics choice

Frankly, I care very little how the scope looks on the rifle. What I care about is how well it works in the field.
Your Zeiss or any of the better 6X42's will give you as bright an image as you can get in bad light simply because the extra exit pupil size floods the eye with light.
But the point about a reticle that shows up well in bad light is even more important. You really don't have to see the target all that well, but you must be able to see the reticle clearly. Something like the heavy euro reticles or the Leupold Heavy Duplex really make a difference here. E

VX3 or Swaro when going lightweight but do take a look at the S and K mounts. About as light as it gets, rock solid and oh so sweet looking.

I liked the 2-7x33CDS. And is very nice glass for size.

To conclude this thread, I got the rifle back from the gunsmith and mounted a new Z3 3-9x36 with 4A reticle. With a fully bed receiver, the barrel channel corrected to be centered on the barrel and free-float, the magazine box shortened to free-float, and the trigger polished out and tuned to 3#, it consistently shoots 1-1.25 MOA 5-shot groups off bags with Black Hills 175 SMK which is all I expect from a factory barrel. I am very pleased with the feel/balance of the rifle. It weighs 6 pounds, 12 ounces.

You did good.