Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics 300 yrd or less deer scope

I have 4 of these scopes, great scopes. Went to Sportsmans last night to get one they were selling for $149 couple months ago. Like I mentioned earlier they are priced at $189 now.

3x9's and 3.5x10's are what most of my rifles wear. Have a couple that go to the mid teens but sure aren't needed for most hunting . Have banged steel at 1000 with my hunting scopes what ever that's worth.

Am liking the 2-7x range of scope more and more.
Had a 3-9x back in the 70s and moved up to 4-12x.
For dual usage ( varmints and deer ) id proly go w an AO w max of 10 to 14x.

Bag or bipod gun only, like for PD....could go higher.

Deer? A 2-7x w a bit longer tube would fit a variety of rifles w ease and do all i need.

But everybody these days wants shorter length, and higher mag.

Ridiculous.

All my bolt-action centerfires wear 2.5-8, 3-9, 3.5-10, or 3-12 scopes, and nearly all of them get shot at 300 and/or 400yd steel. Many people think they need a 20x scope for those ranges until they shoot my life-size pig silhouette at 300yds with a typical 3-9 scope. It's no thing to wear out the headshot area with a reasonably accurate rifle and decent drop dope or a BDC-style reticle. If using a load that's sub 2,900fps, it's simple to dial down 10-20% from the top magnification and have your BDC dope jive with the slower load with most 2nd focal plane hunting scopes. I've seen 7mm-08/.308 carbines run great with a 3-9 BDC like Leupold's when dialing down from a 9-10x max to a 6 or 7x setting. Even though you give up a bit of magnification, you have a more precise aiming point for 300yds than trying to estimate 7-9" of drop from a 200yd zero, but you can always just hold the drop dope with the crosshair if you like.

I like smaller scopes for big game rifles so anything with a 32 mm or smaller objective is my pick. Usually this will be a 2x7 scope these days. It used to be (before the turn of the century) that some 3x9 scopes had smaller objective lenses. Now 2x7 is the most magnification offered in this size. Maybe this niche will come back into fashion. I hope so but guys like me don't need to buy many more scopes in our lifetime.

I have 2-7x scopes on most of my rifles along with a couple of fixed power scopes. One of my favorite scopes is a Weaver 1-3x20 on that is mounted on my 7mm-08 BLR. They are no longer made and I wish that I would have bought another at that time. I only shot the 1-3x out to 200 yards and I think it would a bit harder to use out to 300, but doable.

I've hunt multiple times with a Shot gun scope on top a 260 or 243....Bushnell 1.5 x 4s. with that Circle X reticle...

wasn't handicapped at all at 250 to 300 yds with them...

in fact several times when I made the shot, the magnification was setting on 2.5 power...never knew the difference until after the fact.

+1 on that

A quality scope that can be set between 4x and 6x is perfectly adequate for 300 yard hunting. Higher power settings are fine for the range. 2.5-10x and 3-12x Kahles, Leica, and Burris are my choices that I own. However, there are so many scopes on the market now to choose from and 3-9x40 is never a bad choice.

4 AND 6 Power Scopes are all Most Guys Need