Mounting a new leupold 1.75-6 VX III on DG rifle. Thinking of reticle choices. I am leaning towards wide duplex instead of standard or heavy. any recommendations/experience would be appreciated. Thanks, studdog

Go with the wide studdog !

I should stay out of making recommendations like this, after all there will about 1000 other opinions, so why waste the time??

Still, here are MY PERSONAL reasons why I would choose the HEAVY DUPLEX on a scope/rifle combination like the one mentioned. In general, it is easier and faster to pick up a heavy reticle in a hunting situation. This is the case under normal light conditions, and (naturally) even more so in falling light. By choosing a heavy reticle you somewhat compromise your ability to shoot minute groups from the bench. But for a DG rifle, who cares??

So, for me, HEAVY DUPLEX all the way. Wide Duplex as the last possible option.

- mike

I agree with mike.

Reticles should naturally guide the eye to the aiming point and in order to do that they have to be visible against dark backgrounds and in less than perfect light.

Anyone with half a brain would choose an illuminated recticle anyway !

quote:

Originally posted by GDOG:
Anyone with half a brain would choose an illuminated recticle anyway !

I'm not quite sure how much of my brain is still intact - sometimes I wonder - but I would personally stay away from an illuminated reticle for a DG rifle. Certainly, I would stay away from a reticle which NEEDS to be illuminated to be useable, choosing optional illumination would be less of an issue to me.

So why this "half brained" opinion?? In particular on a DG rifle, you need something which will work with the least possible manual intervention, come rain or shine. Fiddling with illumination is not high on my list in a DG situation, nor are batteries which might run out.

I know some people like the new type of illuminated reticles, which simulate dot sights, Zeiss makes a series called "Varipoint" - or something?? They supposedly allow very fast target aquisition, although not as fast as a dot sight (Aimpoint, etc). The reticle also works unlit, but I would personally worry about it disappearing on a dark background (e.g. buffalo), as it is just a small dot with no crosshairs.

To each his own, I guess. I certainly don't claim to have a monopoly on wisdom regarding which reticles work, and which do not. Personally, I try to stay away from gadgetry requiring batteries etc, when a regular reticle will work just as well, yet not involve the danger of becoming unusable when you least need it (barring failure of the scope, naturally).

There probably is a place for illuminated reticles in very low light hunting - they are quite popular here in Europe for night time pig hunting. But even then, don't believe that an illuminated reticle will turn your scope into a night vision device. With luck, you might gain 15 minutes of extra shooting time, or so. Worthwhile, yes, but hardly essential. And now we are talking big (50-56 mm) objective scopes, which are hardly the choice for a DG rifle.

FWIW - mike

Beeing one of those with only a half brain.....and no DG experience, I still feel that one of the best and fastes reticles for medium range, big game is the German #4.
It works like a gosth sight...draws the eye to the center of the scope without the need to consentrate of aligning.
A winner in dense cover/bad light.

One is sitting on my M70 375 H&H in a Leupold 2,5-8x36, and it work wonders.

It still are on the Leupold site, but might be on special order...I dont know.

Just a halfwits experience for wathever it´s worth

Thanks for the observations. I guess I really need to see(forgive the pun) the wide duplex to compare to the regular and heavy which I have looked thru. studdog

Black reticle + Black animal= ISSUES

Go with Illuminated !

It seems the illum model center crosshairs are barely visible when batt is out or off. I wouldn't want to be staring a buff in the eyes and not be able to see the crosshairs!

Go with the Heavy Duplex if you don't want to spend the money on the illuminated Reticle or it doesn't come in the scope you want. Otherwise I think the illum is a good idea, just make sure you check it out when the illumination is switched off to see how well the crosshairs show up.

Bulldog563= Full brain !

Most of my scopes' cross hairs are black but turn gold against black background. FWIW.

Steve

Studdog........BIG black post.....Sight in so bullet goes just on top of post. Swing top of the post onto fatal area of DG..... BOOM...... Not so dangerous anymore. Grant

The KISS theory should be applied here!

The Heavy duplex is by far the best choice for DG and it is what is on my DG rifle.

306sako, For close range shooting I agree. For all around shooting the regular duplex may be better. I guess I'm just not happy with the options. I've done all my scoped rifle shooting with various duplex reticles That's why I'm not keen on changing to other reticles. I guess I'll stick with standard duplex. studdog