My mind is frazzled!

[davegilly 1]

Hi Guys

A bit of advice please, ive been researching on here about scopes for my (when i get it) .17HMR and too be honest my mind has cooked itself. Everybody is saying different things! So ive got to the fact that 1. I want a fair bit of magnification up to X16, and i do a fair bit of night work, so decent glass for that...does it have to be IR?? I quite like Hawke nite eye 4x16x50

Simmons whitetail 6.5X20X50

BSA sweet 17 (this one doesnt sound as good)

 

My budget is £100-150 maybe a bit more at a push..

 

Thanks in advance guys

Dave

[HUnter_zero 58]

Hi Dave,

 

Okay, good glass cost money, simple as that. Cheap glass is exactly what it is, cheap.

Now we got that out the way

 

Lets compare good glass to cheap glass. First what is good glass? Zeiss, Swarovski, S&B, Kahles are good glass. Cheap glass, AGS, Simmons, Bushnell, Tasco are cheap, but you can go cheaper like SMK.

 

People will tell you that their such and such scope is as good as a Zeiss, but then they likely have never owned a Zeiss or they wouldn't say that.

 

A S&B 6x42 scope (£400 to £700) will out preform a 6-18x50 Bushnell even though the spec is less so to speak. Why? well it's top notch glass that's why.

However, you can pay many £100's just to squeeze the last bit of light in to your scope.

 

IR : illuminated reticle, well to my mind it's a waste of time, if it's too dark to shoot then illuminating the reticle isn't going to help much. Some people will say it helps them find the reticle at low light, then they should get the correct reticle for hunting and not try using a very thin target style reticle.

 

Magnification, the higher the magnification the less light will hit your eye, and the less bright the image will be. So 20x mag will be no good for night shooting or low light shooting. You can work out how well the magnification will do by working out the exit pupil. Divide the objective lens diameter by the magnification value. Your natural eye can handle an exit pupil diameter of 7mm, any bigger and it's wasted light. any smaller and you are losing light, so it's best to waste light in this instance which will give you the brightest image available for your particular scope/magnification. For example a 4x40 scope, 40/4=10 so the scope will have an exit pupil of 10mm, 3mm more than your eye can handle. 20x40 scope would be 40/20=2 the scope would have an exit pupil of 2mm, 5mm less than your eye can handle and so the 4x40 would have a brighter image at low light levels. I hope that makes sense.

 

1" tube or 30mm tube? There is a BIG misconception that 30mm tubes let in more light, it's rubbish the tubes don't! but the 30mm tube will have more room for adjustment that the 1" tubes and of course you can mount a bigger objective lens on the rifle because the tube is bigger.

 

Lets go back to quality glass, the price tag isn't all about the lenses, it's also about the ruggedness of the scope. A Zeiss isn't going to lose zero very easily, a very cheap scope is likely never to achieve zero (£25 scopes will not achieve zero and if the scope does it's not going to keep a zero for long, you get what you pay for).

 

Looking in my cabinet you will find, zeiss, s&b, Tasco and Bushnell.

 

So, lets look at what you need. High magnification and low magnification so you know that you need a variable mag scope but what size objective lens? The bigger the lenses the higher the mounts and the less cheek weld you will have on your stock making accurate shooting harder.

 

The Simmons whitetail 6.5X20X50 is a good scope, I have owned the x40 whitetail classic with a granite finish and it stood up to a .308 with no problems at all. The glass was better than my Bushnell but not as good as my S&B 6x42.

 

My personal opinion is to stay well away from BSA, I owned a contender scope when the scopes first came on to the market and frankly is was bad.

 

I hope the above has helped in some way, it all comes down to picking the right scope for the right job and doing your best to buy the best you can. You will never sell a quality scope, but you will always think about upgrading a cheap scope.

 

The second hand market offers some real bargains, Tasco Titan scopes are very good indeed, mine is equal to my Zeiss in every way and I have seen the scope for sale under your budget. Meopta is another cracker and I have seen these for sale near your budget. If new is on the cards and your options are as you typed, then for me it would be the Simmons.

 

John

[danw 1,748]

Good write up Hunter_zero

 

I looked through a mates scope on his .22 the other week can't remember the make but it was v cheap and the IR had the effect of illuminating the inside of the tube making it almost impossible to use in the dark

[davegilly 1]

WOW that was really helpfull, i wasnt expecting a response like that, thanks John. So atm im thinking the Simmons, do you (or anyone) know where i can get one, i take it they arent available new in the uk???

Or the 'second hand market'...by that do you just mean ebay lol! Or can you direct me to another place to look??

 

Thanks very much

Dave

[dave1372 83]

Cracking answer by Hunter_Zero :thumbs:

[vindiesel 1]

Got a simmos whitetail classc fo r sale 3/9 x 40 only took it off my 17 because i got a ziess cheap i'm wantin 60 quid posted