Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics 4X choices, what happened?

To paraphrase your quote:




6x at perhaps 20 plus a little yards on the run:

battue,

I have taken running game down to 10 yards with 6x--and standing game out to 500. A 3-9x doesn't provide much, if any, more versatility on big game--as long as the shooter knows how to point a rifle quickly so the scope lines up with the target. (Though I do prefer a little more magnification for, say, squirrels, whether tree or ground.)

But I have also taken some big game from 200-350 yards without any scope, just an aperture sight with a typical front bead.

I can see the benefit of a fixed 2.5 or 3x for dangerous game

MD,

Agree. The difference may mostly be what one grew up with and what they know can be done with it. Combined with figuring out what is best for the type of hunting they do, and not what they are force fed by most of the recent trends.

Shot one Buck at around 330 with a 4x and 3 minute dot. Bottom of dot on the backline. A Doe at 358 with a 6x post and duplex and a solid rest. A bedded Buck at 3 big steps with a 6X. Easily found the neck/back junction and hit the trigger. In recreating that distance for my own curiosity, everything was blurred, but in the moment it wasn't an issue.

All the others have usually been under 100 and the lower fixed powers have never been a handicap....

Addition: The 1.5-5 is also a favorite....

When you become one with the crosshairs, magnification really doesn’t matter.

Most folk familiar with my screenname know I can be an ass and I’m usually up for a fight, in this case I had no intent to bash variables. I do understand there are times when magnification is convenient.

I think most folk that bash a fixed just don’t have that “oneness” nor are they experienced to the degree they can appreciate the fixed.

I posted on another forum about the fixed...

“The more I use a fixed power scope, the more I use a fixed power scope“

Gunwriters, feel free to use

does a fixed power scope offer a wider FOV than a variable does when set to the same power? so if you use a fixed 4x does it have more FOV than a 3x9 does when set to 4x? Spotting scope eye pieces are this way.

I like this one too

https://www.leupold.com/leupold-cor...med-grays-best-by-grays-sporting-journal

“The more I use a fixed power scope, the more I use a fixed power scope“

Doesn't matter if it has a little or more or a little less, when it has more than enough....

Leupold 4x has 24 feet at 100....

I guess what you started with has a big influence on your preferences. I started shooting .22’s with open sights as a kid. Got pretty good at it. My first deer rifle had a peep sight. Most beginners now start with a scope and have no idea how well it is possible to shoot with a peep sight. I was a very experienced shooter and hunter before I got my first scope. By today’s standards it was low powered. As I got more financially mature, I hunted more widely and internationally. I’m not a long range shooter, but I have killed a lot of game between 200-300 yards with a fixed six. My longest shot was an Ibex in Kyrgyzstan at 305 yards. Five years ago I killed a Kudu in Africa at 240 yards with a Leupold 3X. I have never felt I needed more magnification. And I love the relative mechanical simplicity and aesthetics of fixed power scopes on my classic rifles.

I like to put the “hunt” in hunting these days, 5-60 yards on average. I’m mostly a meat hunter, not concerned with antlers anymore.

I understand how important magnification is for folk that can’t get close to game, it allows the mediocre hunter to maybe come home with an animal.

The more you talk, the dumber it gets.

For my deer hunting.......a fixed 4X or a 2-7X.
Either is fine.
Stock type, rear sight position.........some scopes will fit better than others.
Low rings and 28mm objective, my M8 4x on 760 with reg comb stock while not perfect, is pretty good.
And it looks right.

Nice package.

If I get a 99 in .250 proly slap a 3X on it.

Yur Momma !

If you like to hunt why even use a scope?
Should be running trad bows

I hunt the way I bow hunt, close.

I guess I like the simplicity of a fixed power scope, and it just stands to reason that with fewer internal parts their is less to go wrong. Other advantages, constant eye relief, the same no matter what. Less chance of the Magnum eyebrow, since the eye relief is normally greater on fixed power scopes. Shorter Eye Bells on the Eye piece (ocular lens). helps on the mounting of a scope, also assist on lesser chances of the Magnum eyebrow gash. Smaller profile of the scope seems to let the rifle glide out of a scabbard allot easier. Lastly for the people who claim the cross hairs of a 4x scope cover the whole deer at 400 yards, they need to look at Leupolds Reticle Subtension chart ( a 4x fxII scope thin section of the reticle is .8"@100 yards=3.2"@400 yards). So if you can't hit a deer at 300 yards with a 4x scope, it's best to look in the mirror, and not at the 4x scope.

I just like fixed power scopes. Light, simple, longer eye relief. Especially on the thumpers.

That is one beautiful dear. Congratulations Battue!

That is one beautiful dear. Congratulations Battue!

Thank you!!!!