Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Your finest optic

Plenty of Ford trucks have been built in Cuautitlan Mexico.

Dodge builds trucks in St. Louis Missouri and Saltillo Mexico. The mexican built dodges are generally regarded as being of higher quality. I've got a 98 dodge diesel built in Saltillo that's now got a little over 350K miles and still runs like a top. Best vehicle I've ever owned.

As for my best optics:

Swarovski 10x42 slc's
Swarovski PV 2.5x10x56 rail scope

Swarovski EL binocular / S&B 6x42

Lieca 8x32 bn's, just a great bino w/ enough but not too much of everything for 99.8% of all purposes.
Lieca 8x20 Trinavids, perfect pocket bino for when a pocket bino is called for.
S&B 1.1x4x24 Zenith w/ illuminated #4 style - fantastic reticle, glass.
Swaro 1x4x24 PH w/illuminated circle dot - great glass, crappy reticle system though.
Ziess 20x60x85mm spotting scope, can judge elephant ivory from miles away, no light weight, but not a factor when a tracker is carrying it.
Ziess Conquest 3.5x10x44, remarkably nice scope for the $'s.

JPK

Swaro EL 8.5x42 = And the world opened up to me.

Leica 8x42 Trinovids
Kahles Helia C 3x9x42
Kahles Helia C 1.1x4x24
Swaro 3x9x36
Zeiss Conquest 3x9x40
Docter Optic 2.5x10x48
Leupold VXIII 2.5x8

pheonixdawg,

How does the Zeiss 3x9 hold up next to the Swaro and Kahles?

That's probably one of the truest statements you've made on here jeff.

Not as of 2004.

http://www.canadiandriver.com/news/2004/040630-5.htm

Canada... Mexico... what's the difference...

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Leica 8+12x42 Duovids. Went thru a ton of Alpha binoculars(as some here can attest) before finding these incredible binos. Most fun I've ever had with high end binos and smaller than I was thinking.

8x30 Zeiss Classics
10x42 Swarovski New SLC

Schmidt and Bender 3-12x42 #4 classic in a second focal plane arrangement.To me there is no finer all round scope.A bit heavy but rugged and very dependable.Their just tuff and tuff to beat.powdr

Jeff, you don't need to see the tiniest details of a buck in order to shoot it.
Second, no matter how "sharp" or "bright" that scope makes it look, you are limited to the top end magnification of 5.5X. That means you can only see roughly 5.5X times as far during low light conditions as you can with a naked eye. Anybody with similar optics and more magnification can see further than you can with that. E

Another ditto.

Nikon LX 8X32's - Wonderful binos and I only paid $449 for them.

Frostbacks vs Wetbacks!

John

Hi E!

Just to be clear, that scope is on my .358 Model 7, which is pretty much a dedicated blacktail rig for me. To that end I often find myself in very gloomy conditions, in a valley or canyon, in a temperate rainforest (THICK), in the rain and/or fog.

So with that in mind, my testing of that scope hasn't been geared towards seeing things far away... it's been geared towards seeing things CLEARLY at 30, 40, 50, maybe 100 yards away, in a tangle of branches and so on, in very low light.

And in THAT scenario, that particular scope (talking about the Zeiss 1.8-5.5x38mm that I mentioned earlier in the thread), it's clearly superior to the scopes I've put it against in my informal testing. Those are Leupold 2.5x8's, (both Vari-x and VX-III but not the new VX-3), and a Burris 2-7x, and a Zeiss 3.5-10x44mm.

I won't pretend to know why, though I suspect that building this low-power scope into such a long body helped the designers somehow, but that scope maintains depth of field MUCH longer than any of the above scopes, and for that reason combined with the amazing resolution and very good brightness, it allows me to see twigs and newsprint in deep shadow at dusk, several minutes later than anything else I have. And, during the WHOLE process of "fading light", it is superior as well. Through it, I am looking at something; my mind can make sense of the image easily. Through the others, particularly the Leupolds, I am trying to make sense of an image, but having a hard time.

Now, does this MATTER? I don't know. Ask me after the season is over. I'm very familiar with my (beloved) 2.5x8's in very low Oregon light, and while my testing has shown a marked improvement over those in the above conditions, the rubber meets the road during actual HUNTS. I'll know more after this coming season. For now I can only say that it's a spectacularly good optic (for $299!!), and that I suspect it will really make a difference on my blacktail hunts.

I've only big-game hunted in Western Oregon, Eastern Oregon, and western Colorado. That said, I grew up in the West, and I've been all over the west, and in the last ten years I've always looked at whereever I find myself with a hunter's eye. It seems to me that PNW blacktail hunting is it's own thing; the terrain and vegetation and weather combine to make conditions that are unique to the PNW. So I would NEVER say that this particular scope is the bomb for hunting anything else, anywhere else. However I suspect it's gonna rock my world hunting blacktails in western Oregon!

Hope that clarifies my thoughts on the matter.

-jeff

I'd explain if I thought it would sink in.

You must have missed the smiley!

But in the end, neither is America, and we are the best and all that, so... really, after first place, it's all just "losers", right?

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(now, don't get gettin' all pissed off and invading us and making us drink your skunky beer, now...)

I didn't use a smiley on my reply cuz I meant what I said, up front.