Turrets seem like unnecessary and expensive overkill for a spotter. Spotters also lack the form factor requirements, so they can have higher magnification and wider field of view.
Nope, still not following...
IMHO spotters are probably the worst tool for the job, bulky and just all wrong, we don't need the high magnification levels they offer for PRS going stage to stage to stage, we're not looking for bullet holes in paper at 700 yards, we're looking for which direction a 1-2moa plate swung. The only reason I'd be willing to put up with any of the shit the comes with carrying one of them would be to have a reticle...
...which leads me to wanting to just try another rifle scope.
I don't really think eye fatigue would be a real factor, shooting ten 90 second stages in a day isn't a lot of time behind the scope, and most of us don't spend a huge part of the day glassing (unless one is maybe a designated spotter at a bigger match or something, which is a completely different thing). If most guys are anything like me, there's plenty of time at matches when we're looking for shit in our pack, loading mags, messing with our dope calculator, watching another squad across the way who're on the weird car stage or whatever... I don't watch every single guy in the squad shoot every round. I'd be surprised if I'm behind glass the whole 90 seconds for even 3-4 other shooters on an average stage.
Part of the reason I've dragged my feet on getting a tripod yet is because, for me at least, handheld 10x binos allow me see ~90% of what one sees through 15x binos on a tripod anyways, and if I want to see what a target looks like at 15x and perfectly steady for a minute or so, there are usually like 2-3 unused rigs right next to me that no cares if I look through for a minute. Either way, neither is really like looking through a scope though.
I've begun to come up with a hypothesis/theory here about why no one is really running a rifle scope on a tripod setup, and I think it has everything to do with how fancy photography tripods ended up at the rifle party:
As I understand it, in the beginning everyone used spotting scopes because that's just what one used, and the fact that they all had integral/built-in stands/tripods that made them great for the job since there wasn't an established universally-adopted industry-standard attachment for attaching shit to tripods in the rifle scene like there is now (ARCA, co-opted from our photography friends).
Later, some hunter dudes figured out that using a tripod to bring a stable position along with them (besides prone) when out in the field, was pretty bad-ass.
Next, some of those same dudes and some other dudes started using them for different stuff at PRS matches, to shoot off, as support, or just for putting there spotting scope on. Up until some other dude showed up with binos (again, probably because he already owned a decent pair for hunting) and many guys went that route, realizing they really didn't need magnification beyond ~10-15x at PRS distances, then it became more binos than spotting scopes, maybe 50-50, but either/both are commonly used now.
So that's where we are now. Lots of spotting scopes and binos on tripods.
We all know trying to look through a riflescope while holding it in your hands is dogshit. But, so is looking through a handheld spotting scope or a 15x pair of binos.
I'm not going to throw away my handheld binos or anything, but I'm starting to think that it's less about spotting scopes and/or binos, and more about the tripod... IMHO the best tool I can think of to put on top of a tripod, and what would help me the most, is a scope just like what I've got on my rifle.
So far, at least for now, no one's got a good reason why it won't work. It's starting to look like I'm going to have to try it out if I want to know what I want to know.
Part of the reason nobody really knows, or hasn't tried it already, is probably because I almost have to fabricate my own mount to try it.
There's like a zillion ways to mount a pair of binos or a spotting scope to a tripod...and while my google-fu is better than most, as far as finding an adapter out there for a stretch of pic rail you could attach a scope to that works with ARCA, I can barely find 3, so far seems the best thing to do is to buy a length of picatinny rail (like for a shotgun or something) and drill and tap it for a 1/4-20 so I can stick it on an ARCA plate, and then on the ball head...
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