Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles How much scope do you need on a hunting rifle

No offense intended but we all do not have the same 'personal limit'. For you, what you use works. Not so much for me.

I've killed plenty of deer between 300-400 yds. A 6X would be good enuff for 'hitting' a deer. We have "Point Restrictions" and I've seen Xs when 8X wasn't enuff to see the points. I have posted a pic of a 175-178 lb buck with 17 1/2" inside spread that was ONLY 6 points. The pic is up close from over it, laying on the ground. EVEN at a distance of feet-- it's NOT easy to see anything but FORKED antlers. If anyone want to see the pic I can re post it. That is only 1 example.

For those of you who don't have point restrictions really don't appreciate the advantage of higher magnification.

As has been stated, higher magnification allows greater 'precision' placement.

Jerry

Big variation in rifles terrain usage contribute to the variety of choices here. With a modern rifle trajectory (30-06 shooting full load 165s or better) and a sight in distance of 200-250 for general conditions a 3-9 covers out to 500 yards pretty easily. I carry mine with on 3-5 power and would adjust the magnification to 9 power to use my Z600 reticle that is good for hits on deer vitals to 600 yards with my 7mm Remington mag. I killed a good sized boar with a plain duplex past 500. But I've been shooting that rifle sine 1977 so I have a good idea of what it does. The 300 Weatherby wears a 3-15 with a Z800 reticle and the trajectory matches all the way out.......beyond where I would shoot at anything other than a coyote. Both of those are open country deer and elk guns and might be used at 500-600 yards and I wouldn't dream of shooting beyond 300 without a laser rangefinder.

I'm guessing most game I have killed could have been taken with a fixed 4x but that doesn't mean I want to limit myself.

I have fixed 4x on my 'big game' rifles, because they are light and reliable. Most of my shooting is under 200 metres with the vast majority under 100 metres. I dont stress about coming across a deer that is 600 metres away that I cant stalk up on, apart from tahr hunting it doesn't seem to happen. Longest shot with 4x was 310 metres and I dont remember it being a hard shot. Probably miss the next one now after saying that.
Probably half of my rifles have open sights, and it doesnt cut my successes down much if I take one or the other.

Im a 2-10 kind of a guy. Like to have wide field of view at 2 power. but if I need to shoot 400 yards the 10 power is sure nice. Wish I had more $$ for VX6 2-12

Finally got around to sighting/zeroing the Kimber Ascent with the Swarovski 4x shown above. PPU blue box 130 gr ammo. Once I got it on paper, two 3 shot groups just under 1.2" at 99 yards. Not bench rest accurate, but for the first time shooting a 6 lb rifle, with a 4x scope, and factory ammo... I'll take it...

I would think optics quality woud be better than power. I have one of the early, 1970 vintage, Redfield 4-12x with adjustable objective lens. When I got it 47 years ago it seemed great, but when I took the rifle out a couple of weeks back, I just could not seem to get it to focus. Talked to a few of the range officers and one of them had an older 3x9 and said he had the same problem compared to our newer scopes.

send it back to Redfield and they will make it right.

The Redfield that sold his scope no longer exists. Leupold bought the name but is not repairing Redfield products made prior to them purchasing the name.

Most of my lever guns wear either a 3X or a 4X. Most of my bolt guns wear either 3-9X or 3.5-10X scopes, however my favorite grab and go bolt gun, a 65 year old .308, wears a 30 something Zeiss 4X. It works near and far.

Jack

Depends on the game... I don't varmint hunt but I could see more power helping with that.

My biggest scope is 14x I live in a very hot climate and have owned scopes up to 32x and anything over 16x or so gets psychadelic about 9 months out of the year.

That being said I would rather have very high quality glass in a lower magnification.

My hunting bolt rifles are topped with:

.223 1-6x VX6
.22-250 2.5-8x VX3//
.257 Roberts 3.5-10x Vx3
.257 Roberts 2-8x Zeiss duralyt
.308 1.8-8x Vortex Razor HD LH (great scope)
.338 Federal 1.5-5x Zeiss duralyt
.35 Whelen 6x FX3
.264 win mag Vortex Viper 4-14 (good for what it is, but looking to upgrade, rifle shoots lights out and could use some better glass)

Light weight tweener type scopes are the best for big game hunting imo
Any variable with 1.5x on the low end up to about 8x on the high end.
With a less than 40mm objective, perfect.

I have 2 X 7, 3 x 9 and fixed 6 power scopes. I could live perfectly happily with my straight six powers. When I am hunting with a variable scope I set the power to fit the time of day and the situation at the time. I found that, invariably, I would have the scope set at 6 power without consciously doing so.
I have little use for power above 6 except for target shooting. Our woods are thick and pipelines and high lines are narrow. When a deer or hog comes out there is seldom time to change a scope setting. I end up getting 3 X 9 variables now as there are more options with this type of scope. I am with the poster who earlier said that he would like a scope that jumped from three to nine power with nothing in between. I would really like to have a 2 x 6 or even a 2 x 7 with nothing in between.

I like 4x12 scopes.