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I'm in the very early stages of planning for a leopard hunt in 2015. What scope is the best scope for hunting from a blind ? Thanks. ____________________________ .470 & 9.3X74R Chapuis' Tikka O/U 9.3X74R Searcy Classics 450/.400 3" & .577 C&H .375 2 1/2" Krieghoff .500 NE Member Dallas Safari Club | ||
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Schmidt&Bender Zenith 1,5-6x42 Reticle FD7 with Dot on 10 (with flashlight) or one of the lower settings in low light conditions. I am sure there are other scopes which offer similar performance. | |||
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Swarovski Z6i 1.7-10x42 The one scope that covers all African hunting situations. Accurate,tough, and adaptable to all situations. Mine has dents and scars from various mishaps and hasn't hanged zero by a single millimetre. | |||
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Frank, I'm awfully fond of my 3x9 Trijicon with the amber traingle. It makes those shots in marginal light much easier. Mark MARK H. YOUNG MARK'S EXCLUSIVE ADVENTURES 7094 Oakleigh Dr. Las Vegas, NV 89110 Office 702-848-1693 Cell, Whats App, Signal 307-250-1156 PREFERRED E-mail markttc@msn.com Website: myexclusiveadventures.com Skype: markhyhunter Check us out on https://www.facebook.com/pages...ures/627027353990716 | |||
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Unless you get the heavier reticle in the newer scopes, the standard become unusable in low light. Trust me I had one and paid the 85 bucks to get the heavier #4 and Swarovski recognized this. There are few good ones out there, and there comes a point where increased cost does not buy you any appreciable difference. For my upcoming hunt, I decided not to go broke buying another Z6, S&B, etc and instead chose the Zeis Duralyt 2X12X50 with an ill reticle for half the price. USN (ret) DRSS Verney-Carron 450NE Cogswell & Harrison 375 Fl NE Sabatti Big Five 375 FL Magnum NE DSC Life Member NRA Life Member | |||
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Just purchased a Swarovski Z6i 1.7 * 10 for use in Africa this May. Took off my Trijicon Accupoint 3 * 9. Trijicon are a great scope and love the fact that it illuminates with no battery for all normal hunting where there is enough ambient light for the "dot" to work. Used it one night with a spot light chasing pigs, trouble was not enough light for the dot to illuminate, so using bush maths reckon that sneaking into the blind before daylight on a moonless night, sitting in the dark blind reckon there is a chance of the same thing happening . Besides got to love the clarity of the Swarovski !! Scott | |||
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I've shot alot of cats from a blind, both lion and leopard. without question, the best scope I've seen/used is a Trijicon. Personally I prefer the 2.5 - 10 x 56mm, with the green dot. | |||
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I have a Kahles 1.5 X 6 X 42 with lighted duplex that works quite well at night. BigB | |||
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I've never understood all the concern over a scope for Leopard. Sure the shot maybe at first or last light, but it will likely be taken at no more than 50 yards from a blind or machan with some kind of reasonably steady rest, with plenty of time - once he is on the bait he is going to stay there and eat - to acquire a good sight picture. Given those considerations, any good quality rifle scope will be bright enough to allow a kill shot. An illuminated dot will help, and as my eyes age I really like illuminated reticles, but they are not required. My standard PG rifle is a 19 year old Browning A-Bolt II .300wm with a similarly aged Leupold Vari-X II 3-9x50 with a non-illuminated heavy duplex reticle. Leopards DRT at the bottom of the tree. For Lion I have used .458 & .416, both with the Leupold 1.5-5x VX III with the illuminated circle-dot reticle. One shot kills on all my cats. Leopard Tip: Choose a specific rosette and hold your sight picture on it - do not become confused by the rosette pattern. And remember, the heart sits further back on the cats than on PG, so POA should be slightly behind the shoulder rather than on the shoulder. Visualize the heart in relationship to the angle of presentation. Hope this helps. Mike ______________ DSC DRSS (again) SCI Life NRA Life Sables Life Mzuri IPHA "To be a Marine is enough." | |||
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I also used a Swarovski 1.7-10 #4 Illuminated reticle on both Lion and Leopard. I cannot think of much that is better than that. I have a Kahles that has good glass as well, so if that fits you better, that's good also, but I wanted a bit more than 4X for the cats. I have seen a few Schmidt and Bender scopes (don't own one), they have good glass as well. The Trijicons that I have, the reticle is nice, but I am not as impressed with the glass quality on their lighter scopes. When I tried the 50mm or larger lens scopes I thought they unbalanced the rifle for uses other than the blind. Since you will need to shoot bait, you will still be carrying the gun more than anything. Enjoy shopping! | |||
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I agree with Mark and Aaron the absolute best is the Trij. No batteries to fail or worry about, excellent glass, durable etc. Mine is the 3 X 9 with amber triangle. When the light goes to nothing the tritium takes over. End of Mr. Spots, end of story. Larry Sellers SCI Life Member | |||
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This will always be my favorite-a fixed 8X scope for all my hunting. [URL=  ]a[/URL] | |||
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Leopard, lion, hippo, croc, grizzly, whitetail, several caribou, more plains game than I can count with a Swarovski 1.25-4x 30mm on a .450-400 ble. Cal _______________________________ Cal Pappas, Willow, Alaska www.CalPappas.com www.CalPappas.blogspot.com 1994 Zimbabwe 1997 Zimbabwe 1998 Zimbabwe 1999 Zimbabwe 1999 Namibia, Botswana, Zambia--vacation 2000 Australia 2002 South Africa 2003 South Africa 2003 Zimbabwe 2005 South Africa 2005 Zimbabwe 2006 Tanzania 2006 Zimbabwe--vacation 2007 Zimbabwe--vacation 2008 Zimbabwe 2012 Australia 2013 South Africa 2013 Zimbabwe 2013 Australia 2016 Zimbabwe 2017 Zimbabwe 2018 South Africa 2018 Zimbabwe--vacation 2019 South Africa 2019 Botswana 2019 Zimbabwe vacation 2021 South Africa 2021 South Africa (2nd hunt a month later) ______________________________ | |||
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Swarovski Z6i 1.7-10x42 Or Swarovski Z6i 2.5-15x56 ( my favorite) The illumination makes a huge difference at last light or later where legal! | |||
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Call me cheap but I went with the Leupold VX-R with a German #4 reticle. I thin for the money you can't beat it. It has a bunch of different settings for the brightness of the red dot in the crosshair. The battery will shut itself off after sitting their motionless after a few min. so you will never have a battery issue. It has a 30mm tube and you can get a 50mm objective to gather good light. Leupolds are good scopes and you won't have to pay more than $600 for it. It beats buying a sworo for $2000+ for the same scope. I used one on my last trip and had no problems killing my cat with it | |||
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Be sure that you have a high quality scope (because it will gather more light) with a reticle that you can see clearly. I wouldn't get hung up on which brand scope to use, but make damm sure that you practice shooting in poor light as well as in the dark with someone holding a spotlight...aiming at a carboard cut-out of a Leopard hung in a tree. Your equiptment is secondary...YOU have to be able to make the shot and to make it seconds after the light goes on. | |||
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I have shot two cats with the Leupold 3.5x10 50mm illuminated duplex reticle. No problems with either kill, and both done at night from the blind.  | |||
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I've shot lion and leopard with the Trijicon illuminated reticle scopes. No batteries to worry about failing at the wrong time. The tritium will illuminate even in total darkness if there isn't enough ambient light to work the fiber optics. That's just another great feature of the Trijicon, dual illumination; fiber optics with ambient light, tritium without ambient light. No batteries!! | |||
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All the cats I have shot were killed by rifles with the Leupold 2.5-8 scope. It is the same scope I use for e verything else - from duikers to elephants. If you are hungting in a country that does not allow nightime hunging, you are limited to 30 minutes befoire sunsrise and 30 minutes after sunset. This all sounds reasonable, but can play havoc in certain circumstances and locations. Depending on the exact location of your bait, you will not get those 30 minutes if it is cloudy for instance. abut, as have been mentioned above, use the rifle and scope you are familiar with. Because far too many leoprads are missed. Or worse, are wounded to cause damage later on. Another suggestion is to make sure you have everything worked out with your PH. Because some leoprads won't give you enough time to mess about, and you have to shoot very quickly, and accurately. | |||
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Frank I would choose either a S&B or a Swarovski in the 1.5 to 6X or in the 1.7 to 10X with a 42 mm objective, and DEFINATELY an iliminated reticle. On the follow up, if there is one, you will definatley want to power all the way down. Those above scopes are excellent for all other scoped hunting as well DOUBLE RIFLE SHOOTERS SOCIETY | |||
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German 4 config 2.5-- 10X, 30mm tube, 50mm bell illuminated Mike  | |||
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All the above personal recommendations on makes and power values, reticules, etc. are perfect and quite frankly a few minutes difference between one and the other is not going to alter much as: (a) the shooter is not supposed to be in the blind beyond a certain time (some countries have well defined hunting hours) and (b) if the hunt is being conducted on a free for all basis, you may just as well sit in the pitch dark and use whatever additional visual aids you want, from spotlights to night vision. If I failed to collect my leopard at last light within the specified time my choice would be to go back well before dawn and have him for breakfast. | |||
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Not to be a smart ass, but NO scope "gathers light". The difference in scopes concerning light is some TRANSMIT light better than others. There is simply no way for a scope to gather more light than is available. Just saying. Larry Sellers SCI Life Member
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NO scope gathers light?????? the equations of 3d fourier optics in your typical optics course state the effects of clarity on brightness. If you honestly believe no scope gathers light better than others then go out after the sun goes down and look through a Swarovski versus a leupold. I rest my case. However I would say buy a ATN PS-22 scope that fits over the front of your day scope. I promis that puppy will "gather" light. Maybe I missed the memo in my optics course but im pretty sure light gathering is a capability in any well designed scope. ask another electrical engineer with an optics back ground maybe im totally wrong here. | |||
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The only instrument that "gathers" light is a nightsight. Scopes actually degrade light to a certain extent - some less than others. | |||
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Bushnell Elite with Firefly reticle. No batteries,and crosshairs have a nice glow that is great for for lowlight shooting. Daytime the reticle looks normal. Worked great for me. Scott | |||
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sorry to beat a dead horse but I think what he may be asking is which scopes appear brighter in low light. and yes ALL scopes "gather" light. They do so via their aperature. If you build a radar and use it to make pictures you do so via methods of Synthetic Aperature Radar. that's where the velocity of the plane is used as the aperature to make more radiation available for capture. The more radiation the higher quality your image is. this is how israli f16's will fly in Israeli air space and paint pictures of the neighboring countries and then use the SAR to relay coordinates to the onboard jdam in order to deliver the payload to the front door. we put the same design into the UAE's block 70 f'16's that we sent them but those were fixed aperature radar which was a whole new beast. I could get into the f22 stealth raptor radar but that one is really complicated and not up for discussion. If you simplify all this down to a scope the aperature of a scope is its objective diameter. the larger the diameter the more light that gets in. the more light that gets in the brighter your image appears. Saeed is right in that you can't amplify light without night optics but the larger your objective diameter the more light you are able to use which allows you to see better in low light scenes. So if you plan on magnifying the picture you need a lens diameter exponentially increasing with your power magnification. basically the picture in swaros appear brighter because you are able to see at 100 yards with the clarity you can see with your own eyes at 10 yards. Most optics cant focus light well enough to have useful zoom powers due to poor lens structures. So your definition of "light gathering" is what is at question here. However for an optics guy the whole ball game is built around "light gathering" the real trick is to be able to operate at the 3db point which is where your optics are able to pull useful information out of complete noise. Some scientists are getting quite good at this. | |||
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Schmidt&Bender or Zeiss with 42 to 50mm objective bell with proper #4 reticule(not the light and wide 4A) and preferably in illuminated. | |||
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Any Zeiss, Swarovski or Schmidt & Bender with a power range somewhere between 1 and 10, illuminated reticle and a 42mm objective. In my experience optically they are streets ahead of any US made scope, although Leupold are generally the best of the bunch. Of course you do pay for that privilege but compared to the cost of a safari it's not significant. | |||
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They must since there is NO optically perfect glass AND the tube itself (and bell) is another obvious limiting factor. No tube and bell can "gather" as much light as your eye WITHOUT the physical limitations of the scope itself. The reality is that, with modern technology, the practical difference between a $400 Leupold and $1500 Leica, Zeiss, or Swarovski is effectively NOTHING. | |||
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WRONG. To "gather" is to actively execute a function and a scope doesn't go out and "gather" light you for example "gather" flowers. Scopes ALLOW (passively) the transmission of light first through their objective lenses, through the tube, ocular lens through your pupil, optic nerve, brain etc. No gathering involved, just transmission. USN (ret) DRSS Verney-Carron 450NE Cogswell & Harrison 375 Fl NE Sabatti Big Five 375 FL Magnum NE DSC Life Member NRA Life Member | |||
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If we are talking low light hunting, that statement is positively wrong. I do a lot of low light hunting for red and roe deer, often on moonlit nights over snow or frost covered fields. The difference between a $ 400 scope compared to a top end scope is as far from NOTHING as can be. My 3-12x56 Zeiss Victory are far much better than my 2,5-10x42 Leica ER under such condition. They are both top quality scopes. To say that quality and size on scopes don´t matter when hunting in low ligth, is a very strange statement....  Arild Iversen. | |||
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When you buy that big clunker German scope with its theoretically .05% better optical performance you have seriously degraded the rifle's handling ability. That advantage can be measured on an optical bench. In the field it is never noticed. However the rifle becomes a dude's toy. Of course like one poster here, you can always take the big ugly scope off of the rifle for the photos.... | |||
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Frank- You didn't mention whether you would be hunting in an area that allows shooting after dark or not. That would make a great deal of difference in scope selection and also if the blind is totally enclosed or open on top could also be a factor. Standard cross hairs, posts and even fiber optics can be tough to see while shooting in the dark interior of a totally enclosed blind such as a Double Bull type blind. Open top, brush type blinds not so much. When hunting after dark, I use a three cell, 123 type battery powered Shurefire light. It's 230 lumen output coupled with the Trijicon post scope makes the target appear as if shooting in the noonday sunshine. Had to take my PH out for a training run after dinner one evening to convince him of this factor. He doesn't bring a truck battery and handheld spotlight to the blind any longer when his hunter is using a Trijicon. Larry Sellers SCI Life Member | |||
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This is simply not true. The difference between my Zeiss scopes and the few Leupold scopes I own is substantial in terms of clarity in low-light situations. Granted, the difference is much smaller in bright light, but there is still quite a difference in contrast. | |||
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Yes yes, I get that bell diameter and tube diameter mean something when it comes to light "gathering"....but when discussing just optics, I am sorry, the fraction of a percent improvement in glass quality and coatings etc. will NEVER be worth doubling or tripling the price for ridiculously unwieldy and heavy European glass on a rifle. As mentioned above, the handling is destroyed which means a great deal unless the hunter is just planning to sit in a high seat. Granted, I like my Zeiss binoculars because they are durable, optically just fine...and I got them at 50% off. That is the only real condition under which "status glass" is actually worth it. Also notice that I said, "PRACTICAL difference". Does it make a tangible difference in one's hunting success or the ability to enjoy the hunt to have that tiny extra bit of contrast or light? Doubt it. There were plenty of leopards shot in this world before technology made it so much "easier" with game cameras, rifle rests in the blinds, and blaser rifles sporting illuminating reticles. | |||
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Trijicon Accupoint in 2.5-10 x56mm, pick your choice of reticle but I suggest the crosshair with illumiinated amber dot. Macs B U.S. Army Retired Alles gut! | |||
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I use a Swaro 1x4 ILL Circle-Dot or a Kahles 1.75x6x42 with Ill German #4. I have several Leupold VX3 4.5x14x50 ILL scopes that I wouldn't think twice about using either at 4.5X. | |||
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In the spirit of the turn this thread had taken, I must correct you. The sun doesn't rise, nor set. The earth revolves.   Hunting: Exercising dominion over creation at 2800 fps. | |||
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Quick, call Zeiss!!!!! http://www.zeiss.com/de/bino/g...9/Index/?ReadForm&71
Hunting: Exercising dominion over creation at 2800 fps. | |||
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