Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics What Real Difference Does Good Glass Make

Trying to explain how good glass makes a difference to someone who has not spent time with premium optics is like attempting to describe how fried shrimp tastes to someone who has never eaten seafood.

No, top-end glass is not needed for the majority of hunting situations. But if your shots typically come at the very beginning or very end of legal shooting light or perhaps you pursue hogs or varmints under moonlight conditions, good glass will often be the difference between you being able to take an ethical shot or having to go home empty-handed. When the ranges are a bit longer and the lighting at its worst, the superior resolving power and transmission of top-tier optics make all the difference in the world. But again, that's something one has to experience for themselves.

I have Leupold scopes on my big game rifles and have no problem seeing to shoot during legal shooting hours. Just have turn the magnification down as it gets darker.

What you just described -- having to turn down the power to see -- is one of the things that separates the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. In the worst of lighting, and when the range is beyond stone-throwing distances, you need magnification to make an ethical shot. Set at 3x will for fine for good daylight at most sane ranges, but when the light is all but gone, that same 3x setting at 150+ yards won't allow you to differentiate between fully broadside or quartering or even to make certain you are shooting at the exact deer you want to tag.

Rarely do my scopes get down to as low as 8x -- and most of my shots in moonlight are at least 10x.

People turn down their scopes too much, they tend to think a giant exit pupil will help.

Anything beyond 7mm is wasted, the outer part of that big shaft of light falls outside of the aperture in the front of your eye. For those of us who are on the top side of fifty that number can very well be smaller than 7.

Example: I often hunt using a Meopta 3-9x42. Set to 3x I'd get a 14mm exit pupil. Awesome, right? Not so actually. Let's say my 55 year old eye might open to 6mm for this discussion. All of the light that fell on the front of the scope got focused into the 14mm beam and the 6mm aperture it's shining on cuts most of it out. To get the correct figure we don't compare diameters, we must compare areas. When that's done we see only about 18% of the light in that beam gets past the front of my eye to shine on my retina where the "seeing action" happens.

So I turn up the scope to 7x. The light falling on the front of the scope is now focused into a 6mm beam, which is also more intense, all of which gets into my eye. A brighter light is shining on my retina. On top of that the deer or whatever looks larger, and larger objects appear brighter to our visual system.

Paul, I honestly don’t know if the VX5 would allow you to accomplish anything that the Freedom will not. I do know that the VX5 HD (1-5x24) gives me a much better view than the Freedom (1.1-4X20), and also better than the VX-III (1.5-5x20).
Those are as close as I can get for comparison for somewhat equal and somewhat modern scopes. The VX5 HD does have a 4mm larger objective, which I also believe gives it an advantage.

The view from the VX-5 HD is much more pleasing to me. Part of this is I like the wider FOV. But the optical quality of view is better. Particularly in the lower lighting situations. I will add, that the VX-5 HD 1-5x24 seems to be very good optically. My initial opinion is this scope, optically compares well to similar scopes costing much more. This was the first Leupold that I had bought in probably 30 years.

Other than not having a distorted view or a mile of parallax, the low light conditions is always a deciding factor to me. In decent daylight / lightning conditions most all scopes serve the purpose.

I do not hunt the Southern woods, but I did as a kid. I do hunt the Northern woods. My maximum distance in my open / broken terrain is about 225 yds. Even if the target animal is large, I am aiming for small area on it. To me, the quality glass is Very important in the lower powered straight tubed scopes. And extremely important in my binoculars.

I have shot two moose in the forehead at approximately 25 yds. The head shot is not my preferred shot. Sometimes antler parts / body parts are all I can see even on a Large animal at close range. The quality binoculars and scopes, in my opinion, make a difference in positive identification of legality and getting the bullet on an unobstructed path to target.

I don’t knock anyone’s choice of optics. But to me the optics are as important than the rifle or cartridge within reason.
The scope and bullet, to me defines the intended use of the rifle. The older I get, the more I want / need / appreciate any optical enhancement I get.

The reticle is also Very important to me. I prefer a heavier reticle. I don’t care for relying on illumination. I have several illuminated scopes, and I do believe that proper illumination can make a difference in some situations. I have some higher end scopes that the non-illuminated reticle quits before the optics do.

This is my long winded opinion, relevant only to my eyes and hunting situation.

I have a Leupold VX5HD 3x15x56 and a VX6HD 4x24x52, both are good scopes. My VX5HD has a fire dot and it's a nice feature but I've never needed to turn it on. But neither Leupold scope is as crisp in low light as a Swarovski Z6 2.5-15x56.
The better you can see without a scope, the better you can see with a scope, nothing beats excellent eye sight. I know this thread is about scopes, but my preference is Steiner 10x 50 binoculars. The Steiner's are auto focus once you adjust them to your eyes and you can sweep close to far and there's no need to adjust the focus. Steiner isn't the best binocular, but for hunting their excellent hunting binoculars.

More intense? Really? Explain that one to me.

Paul,

Here in S.C we hunt till you can’t see any more- pitch black. What I have noticed is that even with my low-to-mid grade binocs, because you are using two eyes and two objectives rather than one, I always seem to have better light than from a single scope tube. I used to have a little trouble at dark with a VX ll trying to figure out exactly where the crosshairs were, but I don’t remember ever making a bad shot because of it. Now, I have completely cured that problem by going to a VX6 with an illuminated dot reticle. It simply works great because you can turn it down so low that you can see it, yet it’s not so bright that it blinds you. I could probably only increase the potential of my set up by going to better binocs with larger objectives (which I would like to do) and maybe scope with bigger objective as the VX glass is already pretty sweet.

It pleases me.

Same amount of light energy distributed over a smaller area.

Good glass whether it is binos or scopes is like having air-condtioning, power steering, etc on your vehicle - you can get by without it but once you have had it you don't want to do without it. That is the way I feel about good glass, once you have used it then it is difficult to go back to a lesser item and be satisfied.

drover

Agreed, I’d just like to add heated and cooled seats though.








Happy Trails



Bob

First/last light and glassing into the sun is what expensive glass is for. Just depends on how much you are willing to pay for it.

Reality is if you are taking measurements and counting points at first light, you gotta wait a bit anyway. If you want to drop something that looks big and hope the best, a higher quality to scope will help you do that.

I fought that argument over and over in my mind until I made the plunge and bit the bullet and bought me a very good Leupold VX-3L 4.5-14x56. It's a ridiculously clear scope but not much difference in practice than my Nikons. I have since bought 4 VX-3i 3.5-10X40s which contrary to what is said on here are very clear. And yes, they are a bit of a pain in the ass to site in because they don't track like some are claimed to but once sited in they hold their zero. I don't know of another scope even close in price that is as bright and light weight as these are. And they do what I want them to. End of story.

Really? Same amount of light? I don't think so. The light coming in is in direct proportion to the area that you are focused on. That's why the image gets darker as magnification increases because you are looking at a smaller and smaller area of the picture. Extra light does not come in from the surrounding area.

So if by zooming in you decrease the area by 25%, you also reduce the overall light by 25%. The reverse is true.

True. Buy once, cry once.
You’ll never look back.

Optic is all about visual, The clearer the better, There are different technology that provide different product with scope clarity.

I agree with this.

The exception to this is Tract Toric rifle scopes they are top tier without the top tier price

Bank this one right there. And I will add:
I've owned scopes from Leupolds t0 high end Swaros and Zeiss. For 99% after about the 500 dollar mark, i just don't see the price being worth it. Basically, you are adding about 500 bucks for every minute of shooting light and if you want to mitigate that, just get heavier cross hairs. I tried this with a side by side comparison using a Zeiss Victory and a "lowly" VX3 with standard duplex and heavy cross hairs on a "leopard target". the standard cross hairs were pretty unusable compared to the Zeiss Victory, but the heavy duplex cross hairs made it pretty much even.

2. Binos, different story...almost. The eye strain is definitively an issue, but up to a certain point. For example, I see no really distinct advantage for glassing/hunting between my 15 year old SWARO SLCs and my Leica Geovids. Now if you are looking for DETAIL, as in Bird watching, etc., then then top, top end glass REALLY makes a difference, but your wallet will suffer..