What is the purpose of the spotter?
if you are shooting to 1000 and reading mirage then 25-27 is all you want. I don’t know of any high power shooters that run more. My current scopes run wide angle, long eye relief fixed eye pieces in that range. (I shoot F-TR not tactical matches)
I used to shoot with a Leica 77 with a 20-60 zoom. Never ran it off of 20 in a match, but 60 was good for spotting hits on white paper out to 600 when the conditions were good. Still have it, great for showing the kids Jupiter’s moons, Saturn’s rings and watching eclipses. Short eye relief on that scope is it’s only drawback. (Even as old as it is they still aren’t cheap)
These days for a mirage reader scope the about the best bang for the buck out there is a Kowa 82sv with a LER eyepiece or a Vortex with their LER eyepiece.
If you are looking at high power, spend the $$ and get good glass. High power + average glass = crap image.
Long eye relief is an awesome thing in an eyepiece, but you aren’t going to get it in a variable.
I have a Razor 27-60x85mm spotter with 16.7-17 mm of eye relief. I have very high rx glasses and struggle with some spotters/binos because of short eye relief, but the razor is decent in this regard. Certainly not 31-32mm like the vortex/kowa long eye relief fixed mag eyepieces, but I need to zoom a lot when prairie dog shooting.
A variable zoom spotter with longer eye relief than my Razor is the
Pentax PF-80EDA (they make a straight one too) with the
smc PENTAX Zoom Eyepiece 8mm-24mm (
18-22mm eye relief). Works out to 21-63x zoom on the PF-80ED/A, and if you’re in the mood, Pentax makes a
PF-100ED for even greater zoom (26-78x). Sadly, no angled version for the 100.
Although I haven’t used one, I
keep reading these affordable Pentax scopes are hidden gems. They use a standard astronomy eyepiece interface, I guess, and if you’re savvy (unlike me) there are a wide number of non-Pentax eyepieces out there. But I read most of the Pentax eyepieces are very, very good.
Just don’t buy the lower quality zoom XF Pentax eyepiece (6.5-19.5mm).
If the bulk of your shooting is 100-200 yds with paper or splatter targets, I say a higher zoom spotter like my Razor will serve you well. Higher zoom makes it a lot easier to see those holes at 100-200. You don’t need a super spotter to do this…even the razor is probably overkill. But if you have crappy eyes, then buy the best you can afford.
I never shoot steel at long ranges, but you’ve got people here that have and I’d listen to them for that endeavor.
Perhaps:
- a cheap high-zoom spotter for 100-200yds, and a better lower zoom spotter for long distance (LD)?
- Kowa/razor with zoom eyepiece for 100-200, and use their respective LER eyepieces for LD?
- Pentax PF-80ED with 8-24mm zoom eyepiece for everything (FOV at 1000m is 31m). Or use one of their XW fixed wide angle eyepieces for LD? Not long eye relief at 20mm, but no slouch either. Looks like the XW20 eyepiece is the widest that’s compatible with the PF-80ED, and results in 27x with a FOV at 1000m of 45m, which is greater than the Kowa 25x LER’s 37m, and the Pentax does it at a greater zoom. Not sure how to calculate Vortex’s 22x LER’s 43.7yds at 1000yds (85mm scope) to meters. I think its 22x FOV is 43.7m at 1000m, but don’t quote me!
If I indeed did the conversion correctly for the Vortex LER, then the the fact that Pentax 80 + XW20 eyepiece has more FOV than either Vortex/Kowa and does it at 27x (vs 22x/25x, respectively) is quite impressive. Edit: you can buy the Pentax plus 8-24mm eyepiece as a kit right now for about $1k. Wow.
Food for thought.
Edit: perhaps
@koshkin will weight in, especially on the Pentax? (And my math)
Note: just noticed the zoom numbers and FOV vary a little bit between the straight and angled Pentax PF-80ED versions. I was using the angled numbers.
