Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics How important is alpha scope glass for your hunts ?

I sat on a mountain next to my buddy with the same model Swaro high end 10x42’s looking at a moose about 3/4 miles away and until we quit at dark we passed the glass back and forth. The only thing I noticed was his were lighter.

SLM, I have the 10x42 HDs from about 5 years ago, man, they have been slick. I even got a smaller set of 8x32 Meostars for back East in the woods. I also have the big Meopta spotter, can’t see paying more since all three have been excellent.

Probably not much time to mess with bins with that style hunting I’d think.

How’s your buddy kill 8-10 per year in NY? He has special crop damage permits?

We’ve got 8’s, 12’s, 15’s and the spotter, all are pretty good for the money.

Nope. He usually kills 4-5 a year during the regular seasons {bow/gun}, which ends mid Dec., then hunts a special late season on university land {Cornell} that runs the whole month of January. The university gives him 12 additional tags a year. One season 4 or 5 years back he filled all 12 of those university tags but most years he gets sick of killing/dragging/ butchering before he fills them all. He gives a lot of venison to his daughters and other folks who need/want some every year as he and his wife simply can't eat it all.

I'm not a fan of the guys who say you have to spend more on your scope than on your rifle- frankly I think they are full of beans and I have the results to prove it many times over... but I do like decent glass- kind of at the least middle of the road glass on my rifle for those times when I have to shoot across a canyon or into a deep, dark pocket in the forest where I can just barely make out my target so I need all the illumination I can get. The deep dark canyon is pretty self explanatory, but the cross canyon thing caught me off guard. In good daylight I have shot a few animals at "extended" ranges and without decent glass I probably would not have seen the small bush or a small tree branch that was on the bullet path so I could avoid it or wait for the animal to move. Also, sometimes you spot an animal in a group with your binos and then you have to pick that one animal out of the herd while they are milling around and that one is the only legal one in the bunch. Happens a lot in these spike only tag seasons we have here so you need to be careful to identify your target. My Bausch & Lomb and Leupold glass make it pretty easy most of the time regardless of the time or conditions- lesser glass is a crap shoot....

Besides, I'm too cheap to spend the money on "Alpha Glass" when the middle of the road glass has served me so well...

Bob

My first big game animal was a doe antelope, in 1965. I shot it while sighting through a 4x "Great West" scope (looked exactly like the Bushnell Banner on my dad's rifle). Since it was a bright, sunny day on the prairies, I could see the antelope just fine. The same rifle/scope combo accounted for a bull elk at just over 300 yards a bit later in the year. I broke that scope in a fall so I mounted a borrowed 2.5 weaver which looked like the lenses had been cleaned with steel wool. Nonetheless, I was able to see well enough to take several deer and a bear with this combo. I then got drafted so everything was put on hold for a couple of years. The next scope was a new Weaver K-4 which was much better, optically and was equal to the old Great West in that category. Fifty years later, I still have that old K-4 and it still works fine. I also have a bunch of "better" quality scopes. I can honestly say, over the last fifty years, in all kinds of conditions, I have never had a situation where optical clarity was of any consequence whatsoever. I even shot a black bear at night, in a full moon, while using that old K-4.
At 72, my eyes are much more limiting than any optical sighting device. GD

Working on getting shîtty-faced here...

Thinking a Redfield Revolution 3-10x50 is the cats paws.

😬🦫

You wouldn’t know alpha glass if your only good eye (brown) was looking through it before the fart.

Would it make you feel any better, if you knew he was wearing a leopard thong and a feathery red boa ?

😝🦫

This coming from a narrow eyed possum that sucks garbage down his shît filled neck is pretty funny.

🤣😂🦫

I scan with my scope all the time not a big deal.

That fickle little basterd sent you the same pics?

T you said the Leopard print and skinny pants were only for my eyes WTF!!

Here’s a very limited sampling of one by me on a East WT hunt in PA.

Picked up a deer in the early morning that was, if I remember, something like 235 yards away, but there was heavy cover between myself, sitting in a stilt blind, and the deer.

I dropped my bins after I saw the deer and ranged it, going straight to my scope NF SHV 4-16x50 f1. I literally sat on the deers neck and head for what must’ve been 15 minutes waiting for a clear opening through the thickets to see if there was any headgear.

It turned out to be a small, legal buck. I shot it. Blew the left front leg off at the shoulder. It ran straight into the waiting arms of another hunter in our group, who killed it...He was pretty happy.

I’m pumping Pom-poms for glass in a scope, that will allow me to check horns and milkers, if I can’t initially put horns on an animal right away through my bins.

🦫

For my purposes if my Meostar bino won't tell me enough then it isn't a buck I'm shooting.

Dammit. Beavers account got hacked by Wabi

I love milk. LOL.

Oh gotcha ya. I didn’t realize you meant he killed his archery, rifle and ML tags. I was thinking you meant he was able to shoot them all with a rifle. Tracking now.

A lot of the bucks I shoot are in heavy enough cover that I don't get a good look at their antlers or know how many points they have till I'm holding the rack in my hands.

Bins/RF, I’m using Zeiss Victory 10x45 and Leica 10x42 Geovids

Scopes. I really like my NF NXS, SHV scopes. I’m also satisfied with the Zeiss V4 scopes.

🦫