Hey guys,

Not finding very much info on these scopes with regards to low light ability.

Anyone on the forum had any experience with these scopes, good or bad?

This is for my .375 H&H, looking at shooting to a max range of 300-400 yards which is doable with 5x magnification.

Cheers,

Michael.

low light and 1.5-5x30mm tube will not go very far in the night ...

The pupil dialation of your eye is going to top out around 6mm in low light -- maybe 7mm if you're young and have never smoked and always protected your eyes from harsh sunlight (ho, ho, ho).

At 5X the exit pupil of a scope with a lens of about 25mm (about what a Leupold with a 30mm tube and straight objective will be) is 5mm, so you would need to turn it down to 4X to get the maximum exit pupil to match your eye (exit pupil = objective lens diameter divided by magnification). So, at 4X the sight picture will be as "bright" as your eye can use.

Of course, the larger an object appears to the eye the more clearly it can be resolved. So, if you had an 8x50mm scope, which would also give you an optimum exit pupil, the sight picture would provide better resolution (you could better identify what you were looking at) because the image would be twice as large as if magnified only 4 times.

Bottom line: You can't get a 4 power scope any "brighter" than your Leupold 1.5-5x, but being limited to only 4x for optimum exit pupil it may not provide the degree of resolution you're looking for.

Minor differences in the quality of the lenses/coatings and their ability to transmit light (rather than absorb it) makes some difference in "brightness", but any of the better makes, regardless of whether it is Leupold or a multi-thousand dollar European scope, will be within a tiny percentage of one another. So small a difference as to be dismissed as meaningless.

Unless you can shoot leopards by night (and bring them home), I can't see much need on a .375 magnum for a bigger objective than that scope has. The compact size is, however, very important in avoiding loss of zero from bumps.

On Stonecreek's reference to lens coatings, I'd always thought the problem with uncoated lenses was reflections rather than absorption.

I have one and I am pretty impressed with its low light performance.

I have a VX6 1-6x on my .375 H&H. It just plain works.

Thoughts on if this scope will hold up to a 458 Lott?

I would not put any modern scope on a 458 Lott or Winchester for that matter. Ray Atkinson has said he thinks the Lott is where the trouble begins, though, and that most modern variables are lucky to survive 100 shots.

The problem is the articulated erector tube, which is hinged at the back and suspended on springs. When the big rifle goes up and back, the front of the erector tube goes down and then crashes back against the screws. Over time the whole thing will move forward as well and the springs often break, esp. if the scope has been mounted crookedly.