Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics ideal scope for mountain rifle ?

yukon254;
Top of the morning to you sir, I hope the Labor Day Long is starting out to be a fine one for you folks and all of you are well.

For sure and certain I'll preface this with the whole, "many roads to Mecca" preamble as well as the idea that you only have to please you... you know?

So then in my case when building a lightweight, walking around rifle for the mountains here in southern BC, I had a target weight of 7lbs loaded.

As I assembled the parts, the thing I used most was my wife's cooking scale as it told me the truth - sorta like a chronograph, as long as the chronograph isn't lying to you like my ancient Shooting Chrony appears to be, but I digress...

Again too, I wanted either a Husky or Mauser 98 type action and had a commercial roll marked, between the wars Mauser 98 action sitting in my safe so that's the way I went. By doing so however, I started out with 5oz more than if I'd waited to find a Husky action or for instance went with a short action 721/700.

The major reason I was aiming at the 7lb mark was that I've shot rifles lighter than that and had difficulty doing my best work with them. I'll note that the rifle below - started as an '06, then became a .270 which did make the 7lb goal and now is a 6.5x55 at 7lb4oz - is "different" to shoot than a rifle in the same cartridge but a pound and a half heavier.

Again that's me and might not be you, which is of course cool.



The scope I chose is a fairly oldish Leupold 6X Compact and yes they're a bit more finicky with the eyebox than some other Leupolds, but no I don't find it insurmountable, liking them enough to own two.

They're exactly 8.4oz by the way, the Trijicon you mentioned is 14oz I believe, but then if you started with a lighter action than I did, you'd still be okay.

Sorry about my usual long fingered way of answering, but there are in my view and experience, a whole lot of variables to take into consideration when building a mountain rig.

Good luck whichever way you decide and good luck on your hunts this fall.

Dwayne