I know this topic and discussion has been thoroughly covered and at times worn out. But I need some help. The short of it is I need opinions based on experience on the absolute best glass for low light field hunting in the south. Whitetail, hogs and coyotes.
On an extremely overcast evening a couple weeks ago I was unable to identify what buck I was looking at through my scope about three minutes before legal shooting light ended. I have three good bucks on Camera and only one that I wanted to shoot this year. The others need one more year. Hunting a food plot field I could not distinguish what buck I was looking at and the edge of the woods 200 yards away.
I have $1300 set aside for glass on a new rifle I am having built. But I would be willing to save a little more over the course of the spring if it would make a huge difference. I currently have a VX5 3-15x44 with a fire or not and have been pleased with it and still am, but that was the scope I was looking through on the evening I couldn’t make out the buck. I’m trying to figure out what route to go to give me the absolute best low light performance. That is probably the biggest priority for me as a southern Whitetail hunter looking at fields and powerlines. I elk hunt once a year but that is typically an archery hunt. I have a solid set up for elk hunting with a rifle so the scope I am shopping for right now is a dedicated low lot field hunting scope. I’m fine with large objectives and like the idea of twisting turrets out to 600 yards for practice.
I’ve been reading about Z6, V6, and and some of the offerings from S&B, Tract and Leica. willing to put up extra money to go in this type of direction if it’s worth it and I get an extra 10 minutes.
Sorry for the long epistle but hoping someone can steer me in the right direction. Thanks
I have gone through your same quest but I did not want to pack around a 56mm star scope on my deer rifle. So I went with a lighter and smaller 1" 42mm Z3 Swaro, which alone has excellent low light capability. However when I cant see horns with my scope I can see them clearly thru my Swaro 10x42 binos. So I use them to first scan and id horns etc in low light. Yeah I know they are 2k binos but with your existing good scope you might want to instead look at putting the 1200 bucks into some top quality glass. Maybe check out the Toric line as they supposedly have euro glass but at less than 1/2 price of name brand ones. You can always try out and return if you handle them delicately.
I am not a rich guy but did treat myself to a pair of top of the line binos some years back. If I got in a bind I would sell one of my fav rifles before I sold those binos.
