I live and hunt in Utah where we are limited to a 1x scope if we are to use optics on a muzzle loader. I've never used one and am having a hard time finding one from any sort of search engine. I know that Nikon makes one, and I have always liked Nikon. They are a bit expensive for a scope with no magnification. Does anyone have any advice and experience they can impart?

I would like to take this opportunity to take issue with Utah's law concerning optics on a muzzle loader. The argument is that with advances in technology the muzzle loader season is just another rifle hunt. Utah seems to consider big game hunting to be a game of chance and not of ethical harvest. Aside from hunting and marriage, gambling is illegal in Utah.

Pentax made a limited run of 1x Lightseeker Turkey scopes. I have one mounted on my .500 A2 and am exceedingly happy with it. I've only seen two of them for sale, and I bought them both for very reasonable money. While not at all common, they're certainly worth the effort to find them.

Sightron has a closeout special on their 1X20 scopes. Though I don’t have a 1X scope from the company, I have a 2.5-7x scope that is quite clear and a good value. See the link below:

http://swfa.com/Sightron-1x20-...iflescope-P9195.aspx

I doubt that you'll find a better deal than those closeout Sightrons.

Thanks for the tip on the Sightrons. That looks like an excellent deal.

Find a minty Weaver K-1 with the big dot and CH.
Great American made scope that always works.
PM me for directions to at least two.

The compact Aimpoint with a 2moa dot might work for you.

I think it is called the H1 or similar. Very small and neat and the dot is much more precise than the more common 4moa dots.

I think I would go with a red dot instead of a 1X scope personally. Lots of experience with them on ARs, so why not a muzzleloader?

Narrow minded state government at work. SO a 1.5 or 1.75 would be illegal huh? How is it we allow or vote in such nimrods?

Anyway...+1 on a high end red dot. Good optic quuality with the higher dollar just like anything else.

quote:

Originally posted by quarterbore:
I would like to take this opportunity to take issue with Utah's law concerning optics on a muzzle loader. The argument is that with advances in technology the muzzle loader season is just another rifle hunt. Utah seems to consider big game hunting to be a game of chance and not of ethical harvest. Aside from hunting and marriage, gambling is illegal in Utah.

If you'll look at the American Big Game threads you'll find quite a few complaints from rifle hunters in some states which set up a privileged primitive weapons season prior to the regular rifle season. Lots of hunters feel (rightly or wrongly) that the muzzleloader hunters are getting all of the best heads due to their head start and the fact that modern muzzleloaders are very accurate and effective. If muzzleloader users want a privileged season all to themselves, then they should accept some of the restrictions which keep "primitive weapons" primitive. In Colorado, for example, not only are optical sights of any type prohibited, but even saboted bullets. This is an attempt to keep muzzleloaders the relatively short-range arms that they are presumed to be. The fact that Utah allows optical gunsights at all might be considered overly generous by rifle hunters who aren't allowed to hunt in the special muzzleloader season. I've got nothing against muzzleloader hunting, in fact I think it's kinda neat and engage in it myself, but if you want to use a scoped weapon with bullets capable of shooting MOA at 250 yards, then I don't think you need a special season in which to do it.

By the way, Leupold offers a 1-4X variable. If it is glued at 1X would it be legal in Utah?

Good thinking, Stonecreek. I see nothing very atavistic about a muzzleloader that looks like a Remington 700.

What would be gained with a 1x scope over a peep sight?

quote:

Originally posted by carpetman1:
What would be gained with a 1x scope over a peep sight?

Not a lot, for an experienced shooter. Someone who has never shot anything other than a scope may find the task of aligning two sights with a target some bit more challenging than simply placing a set of crosshairs on the target. A low-power scope is slightly faster to use than an aperture sight, and much faster than open sights; however, muzzleloader hunting isn't usually a speed contest, anyway.

I love peep sights but a 1x scope will put everything in focus at once.

To really equal the field of a ghost ring peep, though, look for something like an old Nickel Marburg and get it refurbished if the lens cement has cracked. If you can find one, it apparently will give 108ft at 100 yards - even with the slim 33mm ocular housing.

My 1-4 only has a 66ft field at 1x but, with an even skinnier ocular and a five-inch eye relief, should make an incredible scope for an elephant rifle.

If I were a PH setting up a magazine rifle for DG, though, I would plump for a ghost-ring peep over any scope, but not one that had a thin, unsupported cross arm - too easily bent in a fall.

For us older geezers that need reading glasses, you can punch a pin hole into a piece of paper and looking through that small hole be able to read. Even easier to do is curl your index finger up and look through that small hole. That is my understanding of what glasses do. They make your eye focus which it has lost ability to do is why glasses are needed. A peep sight does this. I have both scope sighted and peep sighted air rifles. I am almost as accurate with the peep sight. This is not a 1x scope either. {I know it is an aperture sight--but I call em peeps.)

Carpetman: The phenomenon you describe is the same as tightening the aperture on a camera. The smaller the aperture, the greater the range of distance from the lens that the picture is in focus. As your eyes age they tend to focus in a shorter range of distances, meaning you can be both nearsighted and farsighted simultaneously. If you "F-stop" your eye down artificially by looking through a small aperture like a peep sight then it causes the eye's focus range to increase and "magically" improves the clarity of the target.

Similarly, this is why you can focus better in good light -- when your eye's pupil is smaller due to adequate light, its focus range is greater. Reading a newspaper in poor light is difficult not just because the print is poorly illuminated, but also because your eye pupils are enlarged, making their focus range narrower.

While the aperture sight is superior to open sights in nearly all ways, I would differ with Sambarman on its being as fast or faster than a low-or-no power scope. Even if the aperture "automatically" aligns with the front bead, you still have to get three objects in alignment: The rear aperture, the front bead, and the target. With a scope, you only have to align the crosshair with the target.

Of course, the speed of any sighting system depends on how well the stock dimensions fit you and naturally align your eye with the sight plane. If a stock comb is too low for the scope, but just right for an aperture sight, then the aperture sight is the winner. The traditional "European" scope mount which places the scope WAY too high above the comb of the stock is rapidly fading, largely because even slow-to-change European shooters have come to recognize that having your head bobbing around in the air while you attempt to find the sight picture makes shooting both much slower and less precise. "Low" combs also have something to do with the longstanding myth that irons are faster than scopes to use, despite the obvious quickness advantages of scopes.

Sorry if I gave the impression I thought peep sights were faster, Stonecreek. The reason I would have one instead of a scope for professional, constant use, is purely to do with them being fractionally less likely to be bumped out of alignment - and that's only the ones that sit firmly on top of the receiver.

I also think apertures are better than express sights because they don't shoot high when you're in a hurry. Because of the moon-sight possibility, most express sight leaves do not have a flat top each side of the V. Therefore, you need to zero with the bead deep in the V. This is fine when you have time to think about it but I've shot over the backs of animals twice and suspect others have, too.

From a hunting standpoint and at muzzle loading range I prefer a peep sight and I have on on my 54 caliber Lyman Plains rifle...I would be just as comfortable with barrel mounted iron sights for that matter..I see no advantage to a 1X scope and I agree with Utah on that law..Idaho does not allow a scope on a primitive hunt. If you add to that the elk hunts for archery and some muzzle loading hunts are during the rut, I think the states are more than generious..I can kill a bull elk during the rut with a 22 L.R. and a shot in the eye, based on the bow hunts I have attended. Some of those bulls were in our pocket before Robin H. took the shot!

I'm with you on the gambling and sale of liquer..but hey its what the masses in Utah want. Majority rule still applies.

I have a Burris 1x scout-style scope mounted on a Marlin .45-70. Very fast, works well, and has held up to many hundreds of hot-loaded rounds. I think it would be wonderful on a muzzleloader, as it has enough eye relief to mount well forward of the hammer, preventing any interference.

How about this?