Another vote for the 1.8X5.5 Zeiss Conquest. For about $375 they are awesome!!! Watch for the demo sales by Camera Land. Full warranty at super prices.
I did a bear hunt with an illuminated S&B scope and found you never seemed to have the proper amount of brightness at the time you need it. As someone said earlier, too much is worse than too little. If I were going tomorrow, I would take the Zeiss with the #4 reticle and save about $1200.

quote:

Originally posted by 458Win:
My standard practice for shooting at any dangerous game is to stalk past the "I can hit him" range - and continue to stalk to within the "I can't miss" range.
As it gets darker that distance gets shorter. If you plan on shooting just at dark , any necessary follow up will be in the dark.

For those reasons I don't think lighted reticles offer many advantages over a well defined, un-lighted reticle

IMO, if we're talking bears - this is the definitive answer.

Yale:
The Optic Zone has the Zeiss 1.8x5.5 scopes on sale for $299. That is a smoking good deal! It would be perfect on a Whelen.

just a poor man from Tok but have used the Leupold 1x4 on all my heavy hitters ( .458 , .416 , etc. ) with no problems .

Zeiss does make good scopes, but for low light, you can't beat Swarovski. I bought my first one in 1985 and haven't found any scope that comes close when the sun goes down. If you compare the scopes side by side after sunset, you'll see the difference; the light gathering ability in Swarovski is unbelievable. Buy one, don't mount it, take it out after sunset and look through it into the shadows, then do the same with the Leupold. No comparison. If you don't agree, return it for a refund. All major outfitters allow returns of unmounted scopes. Use a credit card to make it an easy transaction.