I have regrets about a beautiful Leupold VX-7 2.5-10x44mm that I bought from and sold to another here on the fire. I never had it mounted on a rifle or I wouldn’t have sold it. Something about it and my eyes made it truly impressive to me.
I have a Swaro z5 that hasn’t been the start of a beautiful relationship. It wouldn’t focus at 100 meters without adjusting the power ring, the parallax knob, and the eye focus all simultaneously. Bought it brand new from CameralandNY, i was hoping they would swap it out for me and handle issue themselves. Instead I got to deal with Swaro during their “systems” transition last December. Not much luck until CameralandNY gave me a guy’s direct contact info there who really took care of me after that. There was a completely inoperable parallax mechanism inside scope as the culprit. Still took a month though and missed deer season with that rifle Dec 2022. I have high hopes for it this year.
Some will say it is blasphemy, but the Leupold VX-6 3-18x44mm with center dot illumination and windplex reticle never ceases to impress me when I am hunting with it. I have it on my stainless x-bolt in 30-06, my buddy has two of them on Tikkas, one a 30-06 and the other a 300 win mag. We have never lost an animal from any of these rifles, and our shots 80% of the time are in the first or last 15 minutes of daylight. Something about them makes the image seen through it really “pop” for my eyes.
I grab my loaner 30-06 nowdays and the Burris Fullfield II 3.5-10x with LRS illumination on the BDC reticle is a challenge for me in those first or last 15 minutes now that my eyes are 13 years older. That scope was one of my first purchases off the fire when I first joined 13 years ago. Someone recommended it as it was on closeout and being discontinued. Turns out it is kind of a desirable scope still to this day with its electronic illumination control, not a rheostat control on the ocular tube. I have it on a S&W I-bolt 30-06 with the factory T/C made 5r riflined barrel and factory Timney trigger. I call it my “loaner” rifle, seem to hand it out every year to someone who needs it. This past season was a friend of a friend who’s son was obsessed with getting his first deer. I helped them scope an old family hirloom win 94 30-30 with some weird scout rail setup utilizing he rear sight dovetail, a side screw on action and a barrel pressure screw up front o prevent the front 4” of rail from acting like a diving board. Cheap Vortex 2-7x scout scope and we finally got it to hold around a 4” group at 100 yards. I gave the dad my 30-06 loaner just so he would have something also if the opportunity arose. Well i guess the kid looked the “look” of a cheap camo pattern on a plastic stocked beater 30-06 and wanted to use it instead. I got a video a week later of his first kill, man was he excited. To me that is what it’s all about. This family moved to TN from California for a better life. Both parents are school teachers so no guns owned other than the 30-30 and a pump 12 gauge and not a lot of money to spare for a scoped deer rifle. I was tickled happy they were successful, told them they can borrow the rifle every season if they want to. Glad to help someone enjoy the sport. Sorry for the rambling post, let’s see if i can post the video.
