Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Spotters- straight or angled?

blood stains on them jeans?

I have an older Leupold compact 25x50 for hunting in the field or a window mt straight eye piece . For black powder target shooting to 1000yds it's damn hard to beat the angled eye piece on my Kowa TSN 821 because you need the steadiness of sitting if you expect to see bullet impact at 1000yds....mb

I'm definitely more right-brained. I'm an artist/craftsman/creative person, and have always had good spacial sense - I'm not an engineer or uber-linear thinker (but very few people are all left or all right brained obviously). I'd always owned a straight spotter, then in 2010 I started working on a remote ranch here in MT that had nothing but angled spotters. I started using them and instantly liked them better, and nothing over the following 2+ years I used them changed that opinion. I still only own a straight tube, but my preference is absolutely angled for 90%+ of what I use a spotter for.

Over the years from the bench to the mountains and the truck window, I just bring whatever is going to be more productive with the activity. If hard pressed to pick one, it would be the straight spotter. Options are good to have.

Whacking pigs and aoudad is lots of fun! Near Fluvanna if you know where that is.

Is that by Covidville?....

Not sure I know where Covidville is.

Covidville is a suburb of fluvanna of course…

I put together this bino/spotter device. Makes it handy to use by looking through the binoculars, then turn your head to use the angled spotter to look more closely at the animal. The spotter looks at about the exact same location the binoculars is aimed at.

Been using it for 15 years now.

I reckon angled is viable inside a fence on Blue Bird Days,but we've a thing called "weather" and another called "gravity",which fuels same as a minimum. Hint.

The LAST fhuqking thing I want is a Riflescope,Bino,LRF,Camera Lens or Spotter defaulting to a position to collect water. Hint.

Not that the Pavement Pounding Fair Weather Chronicles ain't a fhuqking HOOT ladies. Hint.

Fhuqking LAUGHING!.....................

Absolutely! Scurry county-south and a bit west of Post TX-See the sign when we go that way to Dallas from time to time. Pigs everywhere these days! Didn't know about the aoudad though...they eat well? or trophy?

Pigs and Meskins have taken over texas

Thanks for all the info. A number of thoughts hadn’t occurred to me. I’m thinking for my primary use, straight is the best option.

No pigs just Meskins have taken over Utah

Good choice IMO, just buy the best one you can afford so you don't go through this again down the road.

The 15x Vortex, diamondback? (now discontinued IIRC) was not the same grade as the 18x56, nor even close.

Make mine straight 👊🏻

Just a heads up, we have the Kowa TSN-883's and 884's with the TE11WZ 25-60 Wide Eyepiece on sale for only $2,499.99. If you're looking for an alpha quality scope then look no more

I just spent a week on my first backpack mule deer hunt. It was pretty big country, with fairly big mountains and pretty deep drainages (i.e. looking way up, and way down). I used an angled scope and binoculars on my tripod. My buddy had a straight scope. It was a good opportunity to see if my opinions would change. I normally hunt from a basecamp and view out to moderate ranges. And also do a fair amount of target shooting in the field on the Oregon coast with extremely steep angles.

I still like both, angled and straight. As some others previously mentioned, going from binoculars on the tripod to angled spotting scope is not ideal. So in the heat of the moment, when an animal was located, it took extra time to get back on it with the scope to confirm if it was worth pursuing. Straight scope being quicker.

Also, as Stick mentioned, I have preferred a straight scope when hunting or shooting on the Oregon coast. The ocular is less likely to collect water and can stay surprisingly dry without much effort with the light rain and mist.

I did have the opportunity to observe out to two miles and beyond on this hunt. At those distances, my 8x binoculars were not of much use. At least for deer, but I could certainly spot goats with their white coats on occasion. So it wasn't like I was switching from tripod mounted binoculars to spotting scope in those situations.

At those extreme distances, and spending long periods of time behind the scope, I much preferred the angled scope. Way more comfortable to me, plus I could keep the tripod lower which was helpful in the wind and the high magnification using a light duty tripod and head. I also rotated the angled scope body countless times to fine tune the viewing orientation and essentially expand the viewable area without having to move the tripod or reposition myself. With a straight scope, I would have had to physically reset the tripod, and reposition my body, all those times. Not a deal breaker, but I appreciate less movement and less fiddling especially when whooped from climbing or dropping elevation. Nice to be able to just sit and relax, and "peak around the corners"!

Only rained a coupla inches here yesterday,but the forecast is stellar. Hint.



Straight glass does a better job,of defeating wet gravity and only by Light Years. Might be a pun intended. Hint.(grin)





It was 70 a coupla days ago. Hint.

Reupold if only as per always,fhuqks easy schit up and my MK4 FFP Mil Spotter didn't have an OEM rain shade,so I made one. Now it's Super Fhuqking Custom. Hint. LAUGHING!






An external frame pack,makes a nice weather shield and a right proper shooting rest. I'll happily take a splayed tripod across my lap,rather than Monkey Fhuqking around. Hint..............