Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Zeiss 3-15x HD5 target turrets vs Swaro Z3 4-12 BT 4W vs Swaro Z5 BT 4w 3.5-18x

I think holdover reticles are already archaic. They are no different than pins on a bow, but they cannot even be adjusted. A turret is brainless if you actually spend some time testing it in the off season. Takes 2 seconds to turn my turret to 9 and then I am dead on at 500yds. No different than turning a power ring.

They dont need to be adjusted if you match the reticle to your gun.
While your farting around spinning turrets, Im sending lead downrange. plus I never have to worry about the turret getting spun, or not returned to its zero setting.
Granted a BR may not be as accurate as turrets, but how much accuracy do you need? I know I can shot 12" steel plates in 100yard increments at the gun club with ease, by just using the reticle. Thats good enough for me.

I've owned holdover reticle equipped scopes and they are a joke. You cannot adjust the spacing so you are usually off somewhere or they match up to odd distances.

If it takes a guy more than a few seconds to spin the knob to where it needs to be after the range is known, then he's doing something very wrong.

I've never farted around spinning turrets. I have farted while spinning a turret though.

Tanner

haha. People can spin a power ring but spinning an elevation ring is complicated for some reason.

Takes me "0" seconds to be dead on at 500...

Second dot on a 6x36 Leupold LR with 162 Amax at almost 3200 fps from a 7mm Mashburn Super. Ditto that at 400 and 600 with the first dot and the bottom post.

Who says velocity isn't important? Malarkey.

Nothing to turn,no change in zero...easy and convenient. In the time it takes to read distance and turn a turret,an animal can change distance by 50-100 yards on the side of a mountain or in the plains.

I tend to agree with Bwalker and Schrapnel. If I specialized in shooting animals,varmints, or anything else beyond 600 yards,agree turrets are the way to go. But on a rifle intended for BG hunting out to 600 yards,I don't want nor need the additional complication of a turret.

My biggest beef with dots,hashes, etc is the same beef I have with skinny wire duplex reticles. If shooting towards a very busy/brushy background, or especially when light is pretty poor, my 52 year old eyes cannot see all the thin, "busy" stuff.

Yeah, just make sure you pick the right line when viewing a christmas tree reticle through your scope.

I guess this is a different strokes for different folks thing. I think I just prefer the uncluttered view that I have in my Zeiss Conquest. Nice bold reticle.

I have a Leupold VX3 on the other hand with a varmint reticle with thin holdover lines and it is cluttered.

Unlike the rest of you guys I haven't had to deal with turrets or ballistic reticles in a hunting situation as I am new to hunting but I *think* for me, if I am using a range finder to range an animal, getting setup in a comfortable position with my shooting sticks and the animal is 400 yards away, I'm far enough that I can turn a an elevation turret and also calculate windage and compensate for it.

I may be wrong and may decide the ballistic reticle is the way forward but I will probably go ahead and try the turrets first.

I dont need to touch the power ring, because if I need to use the BR feture the target is at long range and the scope is at max power anyway.

Its pretty hard to screw that up when they are clearly labeled like the Rapid Z reticles are.

If you are no more familiar with your equipment than that, you had better only shoot one caliber with one rifle. Yet a scope with turrets screwed up, down, side to side is a better way to go...

Come on back in a few years when you have enough experience to see the difference.

You obviously have never run turrets. I don't dial wind, I hold for wind.

That leaves one simple dial on top of your scope. You can simplify them even more if you go with a CDS type dial, but I like MOA.

I've owned holdover reticles and the intersections never match up exactly with what I am shooting so what is the point? Better than true Kentucky windage but that is about it.

Definition of cluster-[bleep]:



Not a cluster-[bleep]:

Of course you pic the 1000 yard version of the rapid Z.... The Rapid Z 6,8 are much less busy.
A true cluster fuq is a spinning dial mounted atop your rifle...

Every scope requires spinning a dial at some point. I will give you a hint, you don't have to spin if you don't want. I don't spin until 300 plus. I don't consider just hitting a 12" target as precise shooting though.

Nevermind those holdover reticles are only calibrated for use at the highest power. A turret works throughout the whole range.

Sniper boy fantasies aside, a BR is plenty accurate enough for shooting elk.

Some of the dumbest [bleep] i've read in a long time is in this thread.

Some of us are able to walk and chew gum at the same time as well, dont hate.

Man this turrets vs ballistic reticles stuff sure stirs up passions! I had no idea people felt so strongly about them.

I have both sorta. The 6500 has mill dots and the z5 has a Ballistic Turret. I discovered if I set the magnification on 18X in the 6500 my Savage .257 Weatherby (which is sighted in at 300 yards) is on at 420 with the first dot. With the second dot it is on at 550 and at 600 with the third dot.

The z5 is also zeroed at 300. The first twist up is 450 yards. The others have not been set.

dogcatcher I am a pretty simple guy....

Most of my scopes are fixed powers,have nothing more than standard,clean,duplex reticles,and for years my biggest reticle "trick" was learning (through shooting) that the bottom post of a 4X Leupold duplex corresponds to the trajectory of a 300 or 7mm magnum at 600 yards from a 300 yard "zero".

I have used that combination a handful of times to polish off bull elk,and antelope between 400-500 yards.Despite killing a pretty fair number of decent mule deer bucks I have yet to have to kill one beyond 350 yards.....luck of the draw or just how I hunt them, I guess.In any event they were all killed without the benefit of turrets and rangefinders.....you see I shot a lot...at the range and at varmints....for lots of years.

My only "trick" scope is a 6x36 LR with two dots; I don't own any christmas tree reticles, nor do I own turrets. Coincidentally,those dots match the trajectory of my 7mm Mashburn perfectly,at 400,500,and 600 yards,as I have learned through shooting.

I don't pick the wrong dot....I am smarter than that and know my gear too well.

I just love it when someone gets on here and tells me how I will "fail" to kill unless I follow their advise when it comes to methods for shooting BG animals when I have already done successfully what they advise against....and because I am not following them down the same technology path they have decided they cannot do without.Or I will screw up in the fashion they describe unless I follow their advise.

Like Schrapnel says, know your gear or stay home.