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Unused / Unneeded Scope Features

Illumination

Capped windage turret…I take the cap off an toss it…or avoid buying such scope to begin with.

Sunshade/ARD
Flip up scope caps
 
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Going to get a huge mixed bag from everybody.

Mine is adjustable diopter with locking rings. Never seem to get it locked tight enough. Much prefer what I think is called euro style diopter. Those are usually plenty stiff enough especially after it's not moved for a while.
 
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Reticles with windage holds beyond five MRAD make me wonder if anyone is holding that much wind.

As an example, per Hornady 4DOF app my 6.5 Creedmoor 140 Grain ELD-M at 800 yards would have a 35 MPH wind at 90 degrees for 4.99 MRAD hold.

-Stan
 
Capped turrets are my main one. I haven't used illumination yet but I guarantee I will while hunting at some point. I also hate most diopter adjustment systems.
 
Reticles with windage holds beyond five MRAD make me wonder if anyone is holding that much wind.

As an example, per Hornady 4DOF app my 6.5 Creedmoor 140 Grain ELD-M at 800 yards would have a 35 MPH wind at 90 degrees for 4.99 MRAD hold.

-Stan

Shoot a .308 at 1000 in that wind in south TX and you will hold more. LOL Haven't done it in a while but used to at Rifles Only quite often.
 
“CC” mode or 7y parallax on the 1-8 S&B short dot scopes.

Doesnt give much over a properly adjusted diopter on a 1.1x or “true 🙄” 1x. Not worth the cost and certainly not worth the risk of getting stuck in that mode (which has happened to me on these scopes).
 
Reticles with windage holds beyond five MRAD make me wonder if anyone is holding that much wind.

As an example, per Hornady 4DOF app my 6.5 Creedmoor 140 Grain ELD-M at 800 yards would have a 35 MPH wind at 90 degrees for 4.99 MRAD hold.

-Stan
The Oklahoma, Kansas, and rimfire crowd have entered the chat.

I have held/dialed some stupid numbers in rimfire matches before.

For me the unnecessary features are

-Zero stop that doesn’t stop at 0
-Locking Elevation/windage
-More than 1 or 2 MILs above center of reticle
-And of course MOA
 
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Locking turrets. Who are these for, what is the use case?

Going to get a huge mixed bag from everybody.

Mine is adjustable diopter with locking rings. Never seem to get it locked tight enough. Much prefer what I think is called euro style diopter. Those are usually plenty stiff enough especially after it's not moved for a while.

Between fast focus and locking diopters I can’t get either to stay in place when handling the eyepiece scope cap.
 
For me it’s illumination
But is that because illumination sucks on 95% of scopes or because there’s no use case? There’s definitely been times I wished the reticle illumination was actually worth a shit due to washout in whatever conditions.
 
But is that because illumination sucks on 95% of scopes or because there’s no use case? There’s definitely been times I wished the reticle illumination was actually worth a shit due to washout in whatever conditions.
I prefer a reticle with thicker lines / a larger center dot that is visible under more conditions sans batteries and possibly less precise than a thinner reticle that is possibly more precise but requires illumination.

I think Rifleman’s Reticle vs Competitor's Reticle quite often.

-Stan
 
Illumination for the most part could be omitted from the match/LR scopes IMO. I look at it as extra cost that I don't use. Can see it having a use in LPVO and hunting scopes, though.

Variable power under about 8x on the bottom end of a 18x-36x top end FFP scope is silly to me. I'd rather have a 8-24 or whatever with simpler lenses or better optical quality than having a 8-10x zoom ratio for the sake of saying it's 8-10x zoom ratio. I live between 12x and 18x 98% of the time anyway.

Any zoom range that tunnels.

Uncapped or non-locking windage turrets.
 
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