I am looking for a target scope

Need high magnification

Will be shooting targets at 100-300 yards

I will not be hunting with the scope

Need fine reticle - my Leica are great hunting scope but I think the reticle is little to thick for target shooting

Don’t need illumination

Any recommendations ?

Thanks

Mike

I don't know what your budget is but, I put a Sightron SIII 8-32x56 on my 6.5 Creedmoor heavy barrel target rifle that I only use for benchrest shooting. I really like this scope. It is bright with very clear optics and has a fine reticle.

How about the Athlon Argos BTR 10-40x56 - BLR SFP MOA?

quote:

Originally posted by Biggs300:
I don't know what your budget is but, I put a Sightron SIII 8-32x56 on my 6.5 Creedmoor heavy barrel target rifle that I only use for benchrest shooting. I really like this scope. It is bright with very clear optics and has a fine reticle.

What type of reticle ?

Thanks

Mike

I know very little about target scopes but was interested to see a March 36-55x52 scope for sale here today:
https://ssaagunsales.com/listing/20388

What caught my eye was that, in this age of massive zoom ratios, this serious scope maker limited its multiple to about 1.5x. I suspect there's a lesson there.

March scopes are very good; their warranty isn't the greatest, but a solid scope.

he'll probably put it on a blaser - so find one without lenses

Baretta682E, the reticle is an MOA-2. My old brain doesn't think in mil's.

quote:

Originally posted by AnotherAZWriter:
March scopes are very good; their warranty isn't the greatest, but a solid scope.

I used to think long/lifetime warranties were indications of quality but since constantly centred reticles I suspect they are just the easiest way to hide the elephant in the room.

That is to say, when a scope breaks down it gets sent back and is fixed or replaced. So, instead of being angry about the frailty of the product, the customer is left thinking about the great service they got.

Good service is great but never great enough when your stuff breaks down in the middle of Africa.

quote:

Originally posted by sambarman338:

quote:

Originally posted by AnotherAZWriter:
March scopes are very good; their warranty isn't the greatest, but a solid scope.

I used to think long/lifetime warranties were indications of quality but since constantly centred reticles I suspect they are just the easiest way to hide the elephant in the room.

That is to say, when a scope breaks down it gets sent back and is fixed or replaced. So, instead of being angry about the frailty of the product, the customer is left thinking about the great service they got.

Good service is great but never great enough when your stuff breaks down in the middle of Africa.

I will take a Swarovski warranty everyday.

Mike

I would like a March scope but warranty matters to me as this will be shot of 11 different blaser barrels.

The scope will be moved from barrel to barrel from 204 Ruger to 375 H&H.

I am developing an internet in .1 moa dot reticle.

https://sightronusa.com/product/siiiss1050x60lrtd/

Mike

quote:

Originally posted by Beretta682E:
I would like a March scope but warranty matters to me as this will be shot of 11 different blaser barrels.

The scope will be moved from barrel to barrel from 204 Ruger to 375 H&H.

I am developing an internet in .1 moa dot reticle.

https://sightronusa.com/product/siiiss1050x60lrtd/

Mike

I bent the March scope tube when I knocked it off the rack in reloading room. The rifle has a very heavy barrel, so the scope was bent. March charged me $700 to repair. Not sure a Nightforce would have even bent or if they would have charged me if it did.

Scope had to be sent to Japan to be repaired. But I can tell you, a lot of competitive shooters use March.

My target only guns have nightforce NXS scopes on them.

They do make a benchrest scope that has high magnification and a very fine reticle.

To me, nightforce is very reliable, but overly heavy, so I don’t use them on stuff I’m going to carry around.

You can use those lifetime warranties very cynically, of course, like the guys who buy old Leupolds from pawn shops, find some reason to send them back and are sent new ones. Other brands have no-questions-asked warranties - sounds good and saves them having to explain the image-movement Achilles heel of having the whole erector set, power scroll and reticle assembly suspended on a spring.

According to the guy who tests ammo, scopes, etc for the US DOD, to the tune of 500,000 rounds per year (this includes what he shoots and his guys shoot that he oversees), there are really only 3 scope brands he has tested that he deems reliable.

1. Nightforce
2. SWFA
3. Bushnell Elite Tacticals

No other brands, and he's tested them all, have passed his strict tests. I'd especially disregard anything sambar says on this subject.

Thanks JG, so are you saying that the usual modern scope does not have the stuff I mentioned, pivoted on some kind of hinge or gimbal at the ocular end and held by spring pressure against the turret screws in the middle? I know that Nightforce scopes do, having seen their long, brassy-looking erector tubes and much-tumbled springs.

Do you deny that the hingeing of such an assembly (weighing two ounces or more) is much more likely to be affected by significant recoil (being leveraged down as the rifle rises) than, say, a small reticle ring (<150 grains) held in a vertical dovetail by an untwisted spring such as B. Nickel used to provide?

The brands you mention may have tamed the image-movement beast somehow, to give adequate service for defence and target purposes at least, but at the end of the scope's life the physics realities will arise. I noticed in the 2017 Nightforce catalogue something like the Burris Posi-Lock on a couple of scopes - a third screw to stop the erector tube rocking around would certainly make sense to me.

With all due respect, sambarman338, you rehash the very same old argument for every single scope situation or question.

If those scopes were so darned good, then WHY aren't they being produced anymore? If they were the proverbial cat's meow as you claim, then why do people ever part with them?

You know, many years ago I picked up a Nickel scope from a place in Austin, TX called McBride's. It actually came on a rifle I wanted. It may have been rugged as can be, but I didn't like waiting till 11 a.m. to shoot anything -- you know, when there was finally enough light to see through it.

OK, so I may be exaggerating a bit, but those old school scopes pale in comparison to today's glass. And you DO need to be able to see your target clearly in order to hit it, right? And if you are so worried about internals, just spring -- no pun intended -- for a renowned brand and forget about it. Or at least try SOME modern scopes. You've said you have no real-world experience with illumination (but have strong opinions ha ha) and are inexperienced with twisting turrets and return-to-zero features. So get out there, try some of the modern offerings, learn a bit more about today's optics -- and enjoy what technology provides instead of constantly lamenting about what used to be.

I have no problem with modern glass, coatings and O-rings, Bobby, and I'd prefer to have a scope with an etched reticle, even though it might cut light transmission by two per cent or so.

We all have our hobby horses: yours are spotting bees' dicks in darkness and shooting pigs at the bottom of your garden; mine are the sad capitulation of scope makers to the juvenile appeal of 'constantly centred' reticles and issues of fair chase in modern hunting.

As JGraider's buddy in the defence department asserts, many brands of scopes can't be trusted to survive for long now, presumably even under the moderate recoil of 5.56 and 7.62mm ammo. And if the scopes are tested on cannon calibres, chances are they are on tactical rifles so heavy the shooter and scope have little shock to put up with - or on machine guns with characteristics more like motor vibrations than the recoil of elephant guns.

My objections to illumination and extreme-distance hunting are as much philosophical as technical, so to take your advice would not only cost me lots of money but principles as well. But if you have any not-so-old scopes that still fit your ideas of triumphant modernity, send them over and I'll give 'em a try down at our range on the distant targets, some rare day when it's not blowing a gale there.