Here's a real life experience I had hunting with a 1X scope in Utah during muzzle loader season.
It was about 9:00 in the morning when I had a group of five bucks come down a draw and stop 117 yards from where I was sitting. They were across the draw in the shadows with buck brush in the background. I grabbed my rangefinder to check the yardage and could clearly see each one of bucks and the biggest of the bunch, a decent 3x3.
I propped my ML on my shooting stick for what should have an easy chip shot. One problem though. I couldn't clearly make out the body on the 3X3. I could see his head and the white patch on his neck/chest. I thought he was standing broadside slightly quartering and facing downhill. I put the crosshairs down and to the right of white patch, held solid and steady and squeezed the trigger.
Boom. After the smoke cleared I expected to see a dead buck on the ground ... but no.
I sent shot exactly where I was aiming but I missed him clean. What happened was I assumed he was standing broadside but in fact he standing straight downhill. After thinking about it I put it all together and finally realized that when I was looking at his white patch he was head on.
So ... a combination of him standing in the shadows during broad daylight and a lack of magnification is what caused me to miss the buck. I can definitely say that the scope didn't help brighten the image in this particular circumstance.
