Rifle Scopes Deciding on deer rifle optic

[Fig]

This is not popular on the sniper/competition site, but while I like big, clear, high field of view scopes for hunting, I detest a tiny FFP reticle on low power. I have a NF NSX SFP on several hunting rifles, and I love the fact that it has a full sized reticle on low power (where most shots occur). I put a Razor on a hunting rifle years ago, and wanted to love it and love dialing for deer, but I hated it. It sucked, and I'd have to waste time fooling with the scope and dealing with a tiny reticle on low power. If you're going to insist on a FFP scope then you definitely want good illumination so that you can see the damn thing when fully pulled back, but SFP makes way more sense for hunting ungulates at chip shot (under 400 yards) ranges.

If you're shooting antelope at long ranges then SFP makes more sense, but even for Elk I prefer SFP. You can also get way more scope for the same money to go SFP and MOA, and WGAF hunting? Now, I probably have five times as many FFP scopes in mils, but I don't hunt with them. I only have four or five, sporter-barrel, hunting rifles and they all have 56mm SFP or LPVO scopes on them depending on the terrain. If you want to take long shots and hold over you can always go to max power and then the reticle is correct. This just is way more comfortable and makes more sense to me.

 

[Hecouldgoalltheway]

Are we in the pit yet?

 

[Fig]

Throw rocks all you want, just my experience looking through scopes for days and killing more deer than chronic wasting disease.

One of my buddies had a farm in Western Ohio, and his dad had a kill permit for something like 50 deer. We shot 21 one night braining them with a 220 Swift under the glare of a carbon arc searchlight mounted to the roof of a truck. All head shots. The rest of the herd would just stand there as we turned them off. Butchered them till the sun came up with rivers of blood flowing out of their garage. Then we drove around Wheeling to all the food pantries and were like camo clad Santa Clauses.

I guess my point is that hunting is not competitive shooting, and I find that although my comp guns would certainly kill deer (it's not very hard), there are "better" (more comfortable) tools for that. The reverse is not true. You can't shoot a comp with a hunting rifle, or rather you can, but will be in the basement at the end. I don't try and get any of my firearms to do it all. To me they're different tools for different jobs, and what is important and applies to one job does not, or is a hinderance to others.

We (myself included) like to think that guys who only hunt and go through a box of Corelokts every couple of years can't shoot and are ignorant, and in terms of competition and precision shooting they probably are, but if you needed all our knowledge, skill, and the minutia of reloading wildcats to kill a deer very few people would hunt, as very few shoot competitions. The hunters outnumber us thousands and thousands to one, and despite what we know, many are highly successful without shooting a 6mm or having four thousand dollar scopes on their rifles.

I almost never see a 56mm, mil scope on sale. It's almost always the SFP, 50mm, MOA hunting scopes that vendors are trying to give away. The only scopes I have in MOA are on hunting rifles, because...who cares?

Those less expensive NF NSX scopes are pretty useless for what we do, but they make fantastic hunting scopes IMHO.

 

[JS8588]

Zeiss V6 2-12x50 starting at only $1,149.99

You just cost me $1149

Thanks, Doug!

 

[steve123]

Throw rocks all you want, just my experience looking through scopes for days and killing more deer than chronic wasting disease.

One of my buddies had a farm in Western Ohio, and his dad had a kill permit for something like 50 deer. We shot 21 one night braining them with a 220 Swift under the glare of a carbon arc searchlight mounted to the roof of a truck. All head shots. The rest of the herd would just stand there as we turned them off. Butchered them till the sun came up with rivers of blood flowing out of their garage. Then we drove around Wheeling to all the food pantries and were like camo clad Santa Clauses.

I guess my point is that hunting is not competitive shooting, and I find that although my comp guns would certainly kill deer (it's not very hard), there are "better" (more comfortable) tools for that. The reverse is not true. You can't shoot a comp with a hunting rifle, or rather you can, but will be in the basement at the end. I don't try and get any of my firearms to do it all. To me they're different tools for different jobs, and what is important and applies to one job does not, or is a hinderance to others.

We (myself included) like to think that guys who only hunt and go through a box of Corelokts every couple of years can't shoot and are ignorant, and in terms of competition and precision shooting they probably are, but if you needed all our knowledge, skill, and the minutia of reloading wildcats to kill a deer very few people would hunt, as very few shoot competitions. The hunters outnumber us thousands and thousands to one, and despite what we know, many are highly successful without shooting a 6mm or having four thousand dollar scopes on their rifles.

I almost never see a 56mm, mil scope on sale. It's almost always the SFP, 50mm, MOA hunting scopes that vendors are trying to give away. The only scopes I have in MOA are on hunting rifles, because...who cares?

Those less expensive NF NSX scopes are pretty useless for what we do, but they make fantastic hunting scopes IMHO.

Just two weeks ago I shot a yote at 190Y with my 5mmFBI with a Athlon Heras 4-20 SFP scope on top but it was on 16x and just then another one came out at 60Y running off to the side. The FOV was too small to track it while running so it got to the trees. I put it on 12x to try that out for next time.

I keep on coming to the conclusion that those Athlon Helos G2 DMR 2-12's work for these kind of scenarios about perfectly and work for many other uses as well. It's still my most versatile rifle scope. If I'd had it on my 5mm that day I think I would have got the 2nd one.

 

[fdkay]

Dude, one time at band camp...

 

[FuhQ]

Dude, one time at band camp...