I have been thinking of putting a Zeiss on my 204 Ruger Predator which is mainly used as a sit down varminter. Any suggestions as to which model and places to buy? I was hoping to spend less than $1500 roughly.

Hi Ross ,
The only Zeiss you'll get for that sort of money is the Conquest . Either 4.5 - 14 x 50 or 6.5 - 20 x 50 would suit the .204.
I recently swapped an 8x56 Kahles that I had for a Meopta Meostar R1 4 - 16 x 44. What a nice piece of glass the Meopta is. Mounted it on my Sako 75 deluxe .270 WSM tonight. Better than my 6.5 - 20 x 50 Leupold VX111 I reckon and I have no complaints about that.
Given that you are a dealer you should be able to buy a Meopta locally from Winchester at a good price . I think the 4 - 16 x 44 retails around $1250 .
I have 3 x Meoptas now (2 Meostars) and think they represent great value for money.

Wrong Bushchook!!

I am just about to take one of the new Zeiss Duralyte scopes for a test on my trip to Africa tomorrow. Since I set it up and on the range it has been pretty damn good so far. Very, very crispy and clear - nice finish and made in Germany to boot!!! Not sure on the price but I would say under $1200 from a bigger retailer - bit more from a local retailer. Dont think these are available in the states so much as I cant find them on the .com website (which is weird!!) but you can see them here at youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8vuSD6WfpI

The scopes are imported here by Outdiir Sporting Agencies in Melb.

Sorry . Hadn't read up on the Duralyte.

Hehe - pretty unlikely that I would get you on something like that!!!

Only thing with the Duralyte is that they are 30mm tube only. Dont know why but they just are??

Cheers mate
Matt

Have a great trip to Africa Matt. You lucky bastard. Look forward to hearing all about it.

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O'Reilly's had a Duralyt 3-12 for about $1150 late last year and, as I've said, it had the worst blending of fields of any scope I've ever looked through. It might be OK on the 204 but I wouldn't trust it on a 404.

I'll see you a new 3 - 9 x 50 Duralyt for $1050-00 now I have an account with OSA Am going to put one on my 204 and I think it will be a winner. Zeuss get a good wrap in Optics section here on AR. Good thread started by Warrior is well worth reading, I think.

Ross
Marma Lake Firearms

I sold my 12 year old Swarovski 2.5-10 30mm scope & bought a new 3-9X Zeiss Conquest 1 inch scope. I found the optics have improved and I actually saved money. I got the Conquest from an AR member for US$375 plus $60 shipping! I have put it on my 280 Ackley Imp on a Sako L61R action.

quote:

Originally posted by sambarman338:
, as I've said, it had the worst blending of fields of any scope I've ever looked through.

what do you mean exactly?? The scope I am using is crystal clear, with good colour, right to the edges. Great reticle adjustment and power change.... not sure what was wrong with the one you looked at???

The fields are the inner field (what you see thru the scope) and the outer one (the world beyond). The separation concerns the presence or lack of a black ring between them.

Image-movement scopes generally have a larger black ring than the old reticle-movement type because the former need a field stop to make the crosswires appear centred. This field stop also cuts down the scope's field of view. Image movement always looks good, of course, even if the scope is badly mounted - a fool's paradise waiting for parallax to raise its ugly head.

The old Nickel and Zeiss scopes' field separation was fine as looking around the edge of frameless specs, and this was considered a great help when faced with dangerous or wary game.

The Americans seem to have won the marketing war, though, and I suspect reticle-movement is pretty much a thing of the past now. These days makers crap on about having reticles in the first or second optical plane but as far as I can understand these are just variations on the image-movement theme. By use of an 'egg-shaped' ocular housing (tapering to the rear) Bushnell and even Nikko Stirling have managed to get rid of the ring even in image-movement scopes, however, when they wanted to. The Bushnell Elite was still much better than the Zeiss Duralyt I looked through last year.

Why Zeiss took its eye off the ball beats me.

OK - but I still dont really understand what your criticism of this particular scope is though?? Are you saying it has a black ring??

First & Second focal plane has a huge difference. Reticles in first plane mean that the size of the reticle changes when you change scope power - which you see on a lot of Euro scopes...yuck!! Second focal plane means the reticle stays the same - ala US scopes. The Duralyte is in the second focal plane.

Yes Matt,
the Zeiss 3-12 Duralyt I looked through had the biggest, blackest ring I've ever seen, worse than that on my Nikon 4-16, which is pretty bad, and as bad as any cheap scope I can remember. The quality of the picture was fine, of course.

The old reticle-movement scopes magnified the wire, too, but this was one of the costs of the optical integrity that came with the system. It did have the advantage of keeping a constant relationship when rangefinder reticles were used, which I believe is the reason Meopta offers the first (?) plane in one of their scopes.

When I was a kid (about 50 years ago) Bausch & Lomb had the purest system of all, with no clockwork in the scope. It changed zero by means of eccentrics in a spring-loaded cradle mount. Being purists, they had the crosswires in the same forward position as reticle-movement scopes. Their answer to the growing crosswire was to have it tapering from all points and it seems to have worked. Water getting into scopes was more of a problem in those days and real sticklers would use fixed-power B&Ls because that cut out another place moisture might get in. If field of view for close work worried you, at least there should have been no field stop to cut the four-power from the 30-33 feet at 100 yards common then to the 27 feet we often see with image-movement.