Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Leupold 2.5X?

Consider a 7x scope with a 56mm objective lens. 56/7 = 8mm, just like the 2.5x20 scope. The difference is the intensity of the light in those 8mm beams.The 56mm lens has 7.84 times as much area as the 20mm lens. So when they're looking at the same target there is nearly eight times as much light focused into the 8mm exit pupil of the larger scope. On top of that your brain will see larger images as brighter.

That Weaver Grandslam 4.75 left a bit to be desired in its heft and eye relief. I had one but replaced it with a Leupold 4x. The recently discontinued Weaver K2.5 was probably one of the best 2.5’s ever.

Exit pupil usefulness is dependent upon the individual. My pupils are larger in low light than the average persons and I’m not unique in this respect.

During daylight in the woods, a boonie hat will increase your pupil size and you’ll see much better too.

Pupil size is like a camera lens. The smaller the hole the more in focus the entire picture.

When patients go to the eye doctor for a retinal exam, they dilate or increase the pupil size. Until it returns to normal they see poorly and have to wear sunglasses in any daylight conditions.

Sir, there is a difference between having your pupils dilated at max and larger but still able to adjust with a Boonie hat.

The natural closing and opening of the pupil that occurs during varied daylight or night conditions is an autonomic response to external stimuli to optimize vision. With or without a boonie, it will always react to optimize.

Dilation past the point of best vision results in reduced acuity. Wearing sunglasses at night being the extreme example.

However, wear your boonie with confidence. It has an insignificant effect on enhancing or degrading your vision throughout the day. Exception perhaps being if you are at the exact angle to the sun and you need some shading. In which case any brim hat would do the same.

My daughter and I were sitting side by side in a stand one evening a couple of weeks ago. I was holding an old Marlin 336 30-30 with a nice clear Leupold M8 3x duplex. She was holding a Howa Mini 6.5 Grendel topped with an older Nikon Buckmasters 3-9x40 duplex. Her scope was good for 12-15 minutes after my old straight tube Leupold bowed out and that older Nikon is far from cutting edge glass.

Sorry fella, the shade from the brim makes my pupil size slightly increase, reacting to optimize to the changed condition as you say. under a shaded canopy of vegetation it does help you see better. Of course the pupil adjust in different lighting conditions. Works for hunting humans and game animals. It really helps pick up movement better.
Yes, it does help shade light from your eyes in direct sunlight but that ain’t what I use it for.

Now lets talk about how the Boonie hat enhances hearing eventhough it hinders direction

Shortened M79’s with red dots and altered boonie hats are my thang.

Anyway, the 2.5x works but it ain’t for everyone

I'd think the SWFA 2.5-10x would be better than the 2.5x on the 458.

Set to the same magnification?

Sorry forgot to include that both set to 3X for side by side.

No, because the eye relief of the 2.5-10x is a LOT shorter.

Have one of the FX models on my Henry SS .308. A good fit there. Previously it rode a .30/06 and a .50 inline (still has a burn mark from that). BTW, that ML fell of a shooting bench and landed on the scope with no damage.

There's more to scope "clarity" in dim light than just the size of exit pupil.

One problem with small objective lenses, even if large enough to provide an exit pupil at least 7mm in diameter, is the ratio of the outer edge of the lens to its overall area. The outer edge tends to scatter light, because that's where light has to bend the most, and also due to the lens mount. Thus in smaller objectives, more light gets scattered, reducing contrast and definition. Which is exactly what happens in straight-tube scopes, even if the exit pupil is more than large enough to provide all the light possible to a human eye.

The other factor, of course, is lens quality and coatings. The only M8 Leupold that I'm aware of that had multi-coated glass was the 6x42--and then only partway through its manufacture. The other M8's (including the 2.5x) had single-coated lenses, which do not transmit as much light.

Some scopes from other American manufacturers weren't even single-coated before the 1970s or 80s, except maybe the front and rear lenses. Uncoated surfaces also tend to scatter light, again reducing contrast and definition. Which is exactly why the K3 Weaver I used for a while in the 1980s (which was used when I bought it) was so bad in dim light. The 20mm objective provided an exit pupil just under 7mm, which should have been plenty to see antlers on deer at 200 yards during legal light.

But when a group of whitetails walked along the edge of an open pasture 200 yards from my stand one morning, I could plainly see two bucks following half a dozen does and fawns through my Bausch & Lomb 10x40 binocular--and one of the bucks was the biggest I'd seen all fall. But when I raised the rifle, I could not see ANY antlers through the 3x, just a bunch of dim deer. Only some fast switching between binocular and rifle eventually allowed me to aim at the bigger buck--and even then I wasn't entirely sure I'd shot the right deer until walking up to him lying there.

The first paragraph is circles. Your boonie hat is good for blocking the sun and helping with rain. Movement is picked up by the peripheral vision. You see sharp with the central. Visually you are way out there.

Perhaps it can help funnel sounds to the ears. I'll take your word on that.

How does the later Japan made I think. Weaver 1 -3 Scope compare? Have a couple of those on my 10-22,s.

Works for my kind Sir, part of training, and thats really all that matters. Tried in the field, evaluated by military eye doctors, good to go.

Rain has really never entered my Boonnie equation, a soggy hat is a soggy hat. I have drank from it though, sometimes water mixed with head goop and sweat is tasty.

The first paragraph is circles. Your boonie hat is good for blocking the sun and helping with rain. Movement is picked up by the peripheral vision. You see sharp with the central. Visually you are way out there. Visually any hat with a brim will do what a bonnie hat does, and most of us during hunting are wearing a hat.

Perhaps it can help funnel sounds to the ears. I'll take your word on that.

Works for my kind Sir, part of training, and thats really all that matters. Tried in the field, evaluated by military eye doctors, good to go.

Rain has really never entered my Boonie equation, a soggy hat is a soggy hat. I have drank from it though, sometimes water mixed with head goop and sweat is tasty

Obviously thanks for the service.

BTW, since I figured that out, I searched for military documentation of the hat making any visual advantage in combat. Couldn't find any, but I'm willing to learn

However, how bad ass your are or where means little to me..

With my constant emersion in a visually fractured environment, using Presbyopia exercises, various colored lenses on shooting or sun glasses, coupled with my God given owl pupils and Boonie hat...I see very well.

I appreciate your newsletter and medical notes but I don’t subscribe to them on the subject at hand. I don’t take advice from dime-store or Walmart eye doctors nor Dr. Google.

Merry Christmas