Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Of scopes, marketing and musings there upon...

Question on another forum regarding optical clarity got me thinking this morning, and to which I replied with...

*****

Ah, the power of marketing, eh?

For years I used Bausch & Lomb/Bushnell 3000/3200 Elites on all my rifles.

Then several years back I convinced myself it was time to move up to better quality optics, in part considering all the money I'd spent on making several rifles into shooters of tiny groups clearly required, so I'm told ad infinitum, to plug deer at a couple hundred yards or so.

So I spent some more dough on upgrading to Leupold. To that end I bought a VX-III 4.5x14x40 for my go-to 300 WM, an FX-II 6x36 for the Marlin, an FX-11 4x33 for the Ruger 77/22, and a VX-II 6x18x40 AO for the 25.06 Rem. Varminter.

My anticipation for the VX-III, with its "indexed" lens system squeezing out an extra dozen or so possible minutes of the hunter's witching hour, had me twitching with enthusiasm for deer and elk season to arrive. Boy, just imagine how great this is gonna be to see twilight turn into daylight, as all those other poor slobs with their inferior scopes had to pack it in just when the game du jour was finally getting around to poking their heads out of trees to see if the coast was finally clear!

You can imagine the sag in my shoulders when I inevitably discovered that perhaps my expectations were maybe a tad bit over the top.

Indeed, pretty much nothing had changed...at least not that I could tell. Twilight was still pretty much...ummm...twilight. Damn!

Oh, well...there was still the advantages of Leupold quality and reputation.

...not that my relatively inexpensive Elite 3000/3200 scopes ever let me down, mind you.

In making the move to Leupold I'd wondered what the difference in light transmission was between the VX-I, II and III amounted to. So I sent them an email, to which they quickly replied.

From memory, best as I can recall...

VX-I: roughly 88%
VX-II: roughly 92%
VX-III: roughly 95%

Since then I've done a lot more reading on optics...paying more attention to the facts, and less to manufacturers' marketing hype. You know, reading I should have done before spending a bunch of dough.

Bottom line:

Fixed power scopes with "fully multi-coated" lenses will transmit about 98% of available light at best.

Similarly glassed variables, due to the number of additional lenses involved, will transmit about 95%.

These numbers represent, contrary to advertising loosely "suggesting" otherwise, pretty much the limits of light transmission as dictated by the science of physics.

I remember once watching a brief news documentary in which they put about 20 "officiandos" of sound systems in a room...blindfolded...and asked them to rate the different playback from the various equipment. Interestingly enough, they were all over the map, and systems costing a mere fraction of others generally scored, all said and done, about as well.

Point being, when's the last time anyone read the results of a blind...okay, you know what I mean!...test on rifle scopes???

Right. I thought so.

The human eye...with all its faults, particularly as one gets on in years...is only capable of so much distinction. I sincerely doubt Joe Average Guy, for the most part, is actually capable of distinguishing the difference between 95% light transmission provided by one brand of fully multi-coated lenses and the the next...forget that the cross-hairs lie at the center of image where the deer's vitals happen to be located, nowhere near the outer edges where nothing worth mentioning is happening.

However, the power of suggestion (meaning, yes, marketing) certainly can convince many otherwise.

Yes, a 50mm or 56mm...or God forbid...a 72mm objective lens may add a few minutes of potential at the end of the day due to the "exit pupil" thingy happening. Good stuff, if one doesn't mind, personal preference-wise, packing around what looks to be a battle club attached to his rifle I guess.

Marketing, eh? Makes the world go around.

More to the point, makes people want to spend their money on the latest and bestest with the mostest that surely will make us the baddest, meanest, leanest, most proficient, kick-ass Masters of the Known Universe.

Hunters and shooters are no different from fishermen, x-country bikers, skiers, you name it. Did I mention golfers? Especially golfers!!!

Hence, the next 6.8mm Whizbang Magnum, with precision 2.246 lb trigger, stock reinforced with the same carbon fibers used on B-2 bomber wings, match grade barrel rifled to .0000001 tolerances, all coated with military spec Astro-Duralast-Teflonite to insure long life and maximum performance we dedicated hunters deserve and expect...

...as we sit hours on end, everything from our bootlaces to our sunglasses camoed to the nines with TrueTreeLeaf Armortac, in lonely treestands till the last flicker of marginally legal shooting light finally forces us to pack it in for another day.

Yep! You gotta love it!

I love the idea of blind tests. I would especially enjoy seeing brand-loyal beer drinkers participate. In my younger days, we had an on-going poker game held in a friend's apartment. It would fire up whenever there were sufficient "members" available. The most obnoxious of the group, both in terms of his approach to the game and life in general, was disciple of a particular brand of beer, extolling its virtues and consigning all other brews to the world of dog piss. He was also quite good at hollering at whoever was headed to the fridge to bring him one of his beloved beers. We all kept our own supply in said fridge. Some of us had taken it upon ourselves to pick up a six of whatever was cheapest and keep a few cans available. We also kept a few empty cans of "God's own beer" in the fridge so the can itself would be cold when we poured one of the dog piss beers into it to take back to him. It was entertaining to watch him take a deep drink and denigrate everyone else's choice of inferior beverage.

Very right, Sir.

Check out the LR forum - I posted a picture through a 3-12x56 with an integrated Laserrangefinder.

Zeiss has now even come up with a scope that has both a crosshair and a dot - illuminated, that is - so the hunter can switch... God knows what for.

The laser - I can see for dedicated LR-hunters in combination with the turret.

Personally I take my interest as a researcher and teacher and look at the new stuff - sometimes I find things of value.

Mostly, though

Plain old 4x Leos have never let me down...but I still have the first 1" tube I bought, for all of $30 or so, the Bushy Sportview 3-9X. Sans turret covers, it still hasn't fogged. A skeptical view of what is "correct" for everyone because it works for a few has never not worked for me.

About 10 years ago I took a new 10x binocular from a Japanese optics company to a prairie dog shoot, along with another new 10x made by another well-known Austrian company acknowledged to be one of the Big Three optics companies in the world. The Japanese company might be considered one of the Big Three of Japan, but not in the world.

I covered up the logos of the binoculars, and had a bunch of people compare them. Several people thought they were about the same optically, but the people who did pick one as superior picked the Japanese glass. Oh, and by the way, the Euro-glass retailed for twice the Japanese glass.

Here I'll also retell the tale of a study made a few years ago. A number of different wine bottles were put on a table, with nothing but a price tag on each bottle. The price tags had nothing to do with the real price of each wine, which varied from $5 to $40 a bottle. A bunch of people tasted the wine, and almost invariably picked the bottles with higher price tags as "better."

That wasn't the really interesting thing, however. The people were hooked up to brain-scanners, which indicated that when they tasted the "higher-priced" wines, the portion of their brain having to do with pleasure reacted to the wines labeled as costing more. So those wines actually DID taste better to most testers, even if the real-world price was only $5.

When I was young, Dad worked for an IH dealer who also owned a hardware store. Dad was mostly the parts man at the implement, but he bounced around doing most everything along with that. One day he was at the hardware store when some drummer came in with some sort of cleaner/degreaser. He wanted to set up a comparison test with any product they had on hand. It was getting on toward noon, so it was suggested that everyone retire to the cafe for dinner. (We caklled the daily meals by their proper names back then.) Dad was going home, so he said he'd close up. (Remember when businesses did that?) Before going home, he poured out the cleaners and switched containers. Amazingly enough, the product in the drummer's container far outperformed the one in the other. (Probably a lot like that Cutco trick with the rope where the seller holds it taught when you cut with his knife and loose when you cut with yours.) When Dad explained what he had done, the drummer was not a happy camper and decamped in a bit of a huff.

That reminds me of an evening some years ago when we were watching bears at some distance late one evening. There were more people than optics handy so the optics were getting quite a bit of sharing time. There were a couple of nice Germans brands (this was when Germany still held court as the premier glass I guess). My own binocular was a near look-alike Japanese made glass with a major hunting retailer label. I recall an oil company executive, a fellow who could and did own good stuff asking as he looked through my glass, "Are these (an alphabetically delinquent name)?"

But he was still impressed even when he found out the truth.



I thought that was an easy way to tell a city slicker from a farmer! (I sure pitied my friends who had to go to bed without supper.)

Funny story BTW.

Latest gizmos. It's a disease.

People think technology will make them more skillful, and it can if you learn how to use it properly.

I don't own any red dot scopes.
I don't own any stainless rifles.
I don't own any synthetic stocked rifles.
I don't own a rifle that cost me more than $800.00.
I don't own any scopes that cost more than $750.00.
I don't own any scopes with a higher power than 10X.
I don't have any that have a larger objective than 44MM.
I don't have a $1300.00 3 1/2" Mag. duck gun. I shoot an old 2 3/4 Auto 5.

I have yet to miss an animal because I had none of the above. What I have works well for what I do. YMMV.

I've seen plenty of people miss shots who had all of the above.

If you have reliable equipment and know how to use it, that's worth more than all the technology and hocus pocus stuff money can buy.....if you never take the time to learn to use it properly.

JM

In business, if there is head to head completion, you will be out of biz in 5 years, as consumer comparison shrinks profits.

The cell phone industry has obfuscated the difference between plans and phones so well that it is hard to compare one company's phones with it's own other phones.

By these standards, the scope industry has a healthy lack of controlled comparison.

Looking back in time at my purchases:
1) Kahles
2) IOR
3) IOR
4) Leupold
5) Leupold
6) Leupold
.
.
.
~ 50) Weaver K4

What does it all mean?
I don't know what the hell I am getting for my money with rifle scopes, and neither can anyone else.
Some $3 bill gun writer might pretend that he can.

I really have no brand preference and I am not a person that pays much attention to marketing, I listen to what others who hunt and shoot say over the marketing teams. It is with great care and focus that one can tell the difference between my Pentax 8 x 40 glass and my zeiss 8 x 40 victory glass, I mean its not a "world" of difference for 3 times the price.

At this time there is not any laser rangefinder/GPS system/BDC/Video Camera built into my riflescope, only a blacker reticle that I can see better in the inexpensive Conquest series. A good reticle, user friendly head placement, reasonable glass and good durabilty are more important.

Three years ago looking through a fellow I used to hunt with 6-20 (or something) Bushnell Banner it was awful and anyone that was not blind (which he was partially blind in his right eye) could tell, maube it was a bad scope I don't know. One needs to seek a balance in life, stainless rifles for rain days and usable optics are the two I seek not so much the the video/GPS/LRF/BDC riflescope mounted on a braked 416 Lazzaroni Meteor deer rifle. On the other hand if they could put an iPod in a riflescope they would be on to something.

I threw a Bushnell scope in a lake in Maine, and there's another one in the stream by our rod and gun club. I put a Nikon Buckmasters scope on for a guy this Summer that would not hold zero. He got another one and that one wouldn't either. He finally got a Monarch that did, for twice the price. I sent a Vari X 2 and a Competition series back to Leupold because they wouldn't track. Do the square test and see if your last shot lands where your first did. I sent a Burris Fullfield back because the inside had light spots in it. It was as though they paint the insides black and missed a spot.

Forget optical clarity... start with being mechanically sound. That would be nice. My benchrest shooting has shown me that I can shoot a new Competition series Leupold that's 45 power and a thousand bucks and switch to a 36 power Leupold that's 20 years old and not miss a beat.

Good glass and coatings are great, but something reliable is more so. I've seen benchrest classifieds where after the name of a scope are the words "proven" as to say it has been tried and holds zero and tracks. Most scopes they claim don't even hold zero. I've read very prominent shooters say that it is impossible for an internally adjustable reticle to hold zero. Guys glue the reticles in place and buy or make adjustable rings to zero their guns. Like the old Unertls.

I think alot more folks than just prominent shooters would know that if it were true.

Agreed. Guess all those national and international championships shot with Nightforce scopes were'nt shot by "prominent shooters." The use of "frozen" scopes in adjustable external mounts seems to be a phenomenon of super-long range benchrest shooting, from what I have read about the practice, and has more to do with the lack of scopes on the market with adequate adjustment past 1500 yards than it does with lack of reliability.

Think this is a good place to add my observation about marketing and spending money on our sport(s). This may be long, so if you don't like to read skip to the end.

I have been off work for a long time due to illness and back at the first of the year got back into my shooting as a sort of rehab to reengage with life. So late April I go to the range with my stuff in the middle of the week when it isn't crowded. Two of us show up at the same time and we both pick the 100 berm to shoot from, backing up and offloading at chosen benches just 3 empties separating us. WE both get set and start shooting and finish about the same time and I have noticed this guy is a set up benchrest shooter and having never been around a real BR guy go and start up a conversation with him to see what its about.

Nice guy, lot of info, impressive equipment and lots of it, expensive components and custom made rifles from three different makers, none local, I mean this guy has out spent me with just the damn stool he is sitting on. And he is just a local farmer with an expensive hobby he travels around with and competes allover the country.

he shows me his best target for the load he is working up that day and I show him my best for the day. (and my load was carefully researched and then pulled directly out of my azz and slapped together)

He has a five shot group of 30 cal that might be a 1/2" one hole. Me, a five shot 30 cal with about a 3/4" hole.

On the way home I start figuring and from his truck and gear compared to mine I was probably looking at close to 60K worth of his stuff from truck to BR Primer compared to my possibly 25K in stuff.

lets see, 35K difference in gear and a 1/4" difference in group. mmmmm make ya wonder a bit?

Colo Wolf....I'd generally agree with you that there comes a point of deminishing returns in equiptment. For the "average" shooter/hunter it makes no sense to spend $35K for a 1/2" better group size (particularly when your 3/4" group is exceptional and more than you need for your game).

However, in the game HE was playing (assuming he was very good as a shooter) that 1/4" better group could be the difference in winning and just competing. If he was competing in a 1000 yard match with a 10" bullseye his 1/2 group would be something like 5" at 1000 yards (IF everything was perfect otherwise). Yours would be about 7 1/2". In other words, you'd have to be near "perfect" to hit the bull every time with no "wiggle room".....while he would have a bit of an edge on a not-so-perfect shot.

It's just like golf clubs. You can spend 5 times as much on a set of the best clubs and never see a difference in your score while a PGA pro can shoot two shots better with top eqiptment......and maybe win the tournament instead of being tied for 26th. For HIM, the difference is worth the money.....but for a less skilled player it makes no sense.

I remember a time at the range with friends when I was shooting groups that were near 1/2" (the rifle I had then was a "true" 1/2" rifle) while a buddy was getting a respectable 1 to 1 1/4" groups. He claimed it was the rifles that made the difference so we switched. He shot 1" groups (with my rifle) while I posted 3/4" groups with his. It was the SHOOTER not the rifle that was winning.

Until you reach the level that you can take advantage of better equiptment (and play a game where that advantage is needed), you just don't NEED the edge that twice the money can buy. You can't BUY skill. For most of us, we quickly reach a point where more money (better equiptment) makes no sense.

Except for "bragging rights" when someone looks at your rifle, there is no advantage gained or needed past a certain point. That $5000 rifle with the $1500 scope will not result in any more game killed than will a $500 rifle with a "cheap" $200 scope because the shooter skills can't take advantage of the small gain possible and "in the field" it's just not needed.

Spend money on more ammo and shooting rather than eqiptment if you want to improve. I repeat.....you can't BUY skill.

You can't buy skill, but if you shoot regularly you will reach a point where your skills outrun your equipment: then spending money on advanced equipment can build your skills.

Rick, don't misunderstand me, I am all for his endeavor in any manner he chooses and agree that for him a 1/4 is something to strive for. And while I did not write it, it is implied that shooting skills makes the groups, though equipment and components can make the difference when in competition with others with equal skill. .

The point is even though it was a comparison of apples and oranges as to methods and resources it was interesting to me anyway that the end result was but a difference of 1/4".

And yes, one can outstrip the potential of their gear with work. BTDT.

Where's Atkinson? I thought he would be along to tell us that the Weaver K3 made in 1958 was better than any scope made today, and that he just happened to have his own personal scope for sale for $800.

Mike Ratigan Extreme Accuracy Benchrest Book
by Mike Ratigan


"A Super Shoot winner and US World Benchrest Team Director, Mike Ratigan is a leading figure in the Benchrest game."



I just finished his book. There's a chapter in it on the weakest part of any benchrest system. The scope. It says exactly what I said. I do not make up stuff to participate in discussions I know nothing about. Check it out if you care to. Also, look into Frozen Leupold scopes and TSI and Brackney mounts.


Brackney mounts

dave