Like many of you, I can shoulder a rifle with good glass and think to myself, man that is nice. I have some rifles with good glass and some with mediocre glass. When I go hunting or I go to the range, with both when I put the plus sign on the target and pull the trigger, the bullet goes where its supposed to.
Most of my hunting is southern woods. I have done some open country hunting. Other than an appreciation for the sharpness of the good glass, I can't say that I have ever realized a real benefit from it. Low light situations are an exception.
I have cheap binoculars, decent binoculars and good binoculars. It is especially satisfying to put the Steiners up to my eyes. The sharpness is evident. With that said, they don't give me any information that my Nikons don't also give me. If I can count the points on the mule deer with the Steiners, I can also count them with the Nikons.
Excepting low light performance, does great glass provide any real benefit over good glass? Will a VX5 ever allow me to accomplish anything a VX Freedom won't? Will a MeoStar allow me to accomplish anything a MeoPro won't let me accomplish?
Your disclaimer "Low light is an exception" is, IMO, the crux of the matter. I hunt Georgia hardwoods, and first and last light is prime time for whitetails. The lesson I painfully learned many years ago was the abrupt total loss of performance of cheaper optics below a certain light threshold, still within the "30 minutes after sunset" game regulations in Ga. A very good buck had stepped out of the woods into my food plot about 150 yards away in the fading light. I had watched him with my Zeiss binoculars working his way through the briars for about 10 minutes. No shot opportunity because the brush was so thick. As he made his way onto the food plot I picked up my rifle and could barely make him out for a few fleeting seconds, and then all I could see was fuzzy blackness. I looked again through the binos and could see him quite well, well enough to shoot, if the scope was equal to the binoculars. I was using an inexpensive Simmons. Lesson learned.
