You Alaska pro's, what do you recommend as the best spotting scope?

I see and am able to use a majority of the top end scope brought up by clients but have yet to see anything that would make me give up my Leupold GR 12-45

Ross,

One thing to consider is carrying it. If your packing it yourself your going to want a fairly lightweight scope. A friend just bought a Nightforce. It's a wonderful glass but no way in Hell would I be carrying it in the field.

Mark

You can't beat a Leupold in my opinion, I love mine.

I like my Gold Ring Leupold. I also carry my little Minox MD50 and seem to use it alot.

When it comes to spotting scopes best sources of input are probably Coues deer guides and the bird watcher crowd. IMO the best of the 65mm class are Leica and Swarovski. The best of the big scopes, 82mm and up are Swarovski, Kowa and Meopta. The problem is everyone's eyes perceive optics differently.

I've been hunting bison over in Delta for the past week . Trying to determine sex on them before daylight was more than the optics we had could do.
When I invest in a spotting scope, I don't want it to be an exercise in spending money and being frustrated by a lack of performance..
As a general rule we could get to within 1 mile of them before they spooked and ran into the timber. An hour before daylight. And we always had the wind in our favor.
Anyone with any ideas that getting a Delta bison just entails driving up to a herd of shaggy cows in a field and popping one from the pickup. Is sadly mistaken. We could easily get up to within 50 yards of several bull moose. But not bison.

I've been wondering if having a top tier scope on a rifle would be a better idea for me than having to buy both a good spotting scope and eventually a top tier rifle scope.
I'm thinking about an IOR/Valdada 4-28×50 , 40 mm tube Recon rifle scope . .
What do you guys think ? Am I out to lunch. I'm not really a trophy hunter and would no doubt get a lot more use out of the rifle scope than a spotting scope.

Get a spotting scope. Aside from the "don't point a gun at something you don't want to destroy" aspect, they are not the same animal.

The exit pupil on the rifle scope wouldn't be big enough at max magnification, so you wouldn't get much light transmission. Then there is how to support it while glassing, and it would have a much smaller field of view.

From the description you gave, an 80mm class scope at 20X is probably the best you could do. Get a solid tripod with pan/tilt head, and a good window mount.

The best brands have pretty much already been suggested. Mid range brands are very good, though, like Pentax, Minox, Nikon, and Vortex.

Jeremy

I have a Swarovski 20-60 with the angled eye piece. Have heard folks argue that 60x is useless. But I disagree. When I can count eye guards on a deer over a mile away, or get enough of an idea a ram is legal or worth checking out at three or four miles??? Just eyes up a monster brown bear at a mile and a half last week and could determine it was rubbed pretty bad. Ya. That's my go to spotter. Saved me miles and miles
Of walking.

quote:

Originally posted by MARK H. YOUNG:
Ross,

One thing to consider is carrying it. If your packing it yourself your going to want a fairly lightweight scope. A friend just bought a Nightforce. It's a wonderful glass but no way in Hell would I be carrying it in the field.

Mark

This is what I'm dealing with. A spotting scope is just another thing to have to drag around where as the scope is already affixed to the rifle. The Precision Rifle Blog gives an excellent break down of the top Tactical rifle scopes for the PRS competitors and lists the good and bad of all of them.

Had a Kowa 66mm which was good quality and lightweight. Sold it and bought a Fujinon 66mm of very similar specs, Except, the Fuji zoom eyepiece was of larger diameter and allows incredible definition in shadow and low light AT Higher Magnifications...

I bought the Fuji because I had a set of M22 binoculars that are also optically excellent.


As far as IOR-Valdada optics? I owned 5 of their scopes at one time, sold all but an old IOR 6x42. Will never buy another. The weight is a Big Problem, and most IOR stuff is very heavy, like Nightforce.

I have 15/20 vision. Great Glass rifle scopes costing $2000 or more are more suitable for sniping than hunting, in my opinion. If you shoot longrange across canyons from a portable benchrest, then maybe weight is no factor.

If you want the best euro glass, which has better contrast and color rendition, look for a Zeiss or S&B hunting optic with 30mm tube. The Conquest scopes were also well regarded. I would avoid IOR-Valdada like the plague.

fourtyonesix is spot on. I too have the Swaro in 65mm front lense with both the 20-60 power eyepiece and a 50 power wide view eyepiece(I really like this eyepiece), except mine is the straight eyepiece mount...believe me, nothing compares to these Swaro spotters and the 62mm are not heavy either..plenty packable. I have tested/viewed all manner of spotters from 350.00 to 2800.00 range and settled for the 62mm Swaro, and for a three hundred bucks more you could also get the HD glass and get another 2% better light transmission(not worth it to me). While I did not fancy paying 2000.00 plus for a spotter set-up, I also only wanted to do it once. I have zero regrets.

quote:

Originally posted by Fourtyonesix:
I have a Swarovski 20-60 with the angled eye piece. Have heard folks argue that 60x is useless. But I disagree. When I can count eye guards on a deer over a mile away, or get enough of an idea a ram is legal or worth checking out at three or four miles??? Just eyes up a monster brown bear at a mile and a half last week and could determine it was rubbed pretty bad. Ya. That's my go to spotter. Saved me miles and miles
Of walking.

Had the same scope and sold it after hunting with Brett and his Leica.

I bought the Leica APO Televid 65. The dual focus adjustment both course and fine made it far easier for my old eye to focus the image better.

I also like straight vs. angled. It's really hard to glass down hill with an angled scope.

That said, you are a guide and likely know better than I.

Cheers
Jim

Jim I don't think there's any right answer to these kinda questions. Go with what works for you! I don't glass down hill and need to stay hidden much, a lot more uphill glassing. Angled spotter I am used to and find it much more comfortable for my style of spotting. Everyone's different, lots of great glass out there. I just found a system that works for me.

I don't like carrying to much hope my great guide has the best spotting scope he can afford.

I have the ultra packable nikon ED 13-35x50mm. Very light weight and way better than just carrying 10x42 Leicas. Just yesterday saw two bull elk about 1.5 miles away. Barely saw them with binos, saw they were spikes with the spotter. Saved a LOT of hiking through snow. The price and weight are just right for me, but am saving up for a Swaro 65mm someday.

mt, check Doug's (cameraland) website from time to time..he posts on the classifieds and sometimes he has great prices on demo spotters, and often he has great discounts on new units as well. I am soon going to get another pr of higher power binos...the Leica 7x42 HD's I have are just not enough for some places I hunt and will get a pr of the 10x42 or 12x50..just not sure if they will be Leica HD's or Swaro's. Top end glass costs money but in my opinion..after having mediocre glass most of my life..it is worth every cent.

Agree it's worth every cent! Once you've lived in high quality glass you can never go back to cheaper crap. Or even decent crap. It's all just crap after you've seen and used the good stuff.

quote:

Originally posted by Fourtyonesix:
Agree it's worth every cent! Once you've lived in high quality glass you can never go back to cheaper crap. Or even decent crap. It's all just crap after you've seen and used the good stuff.

True enough. Optics are one of those things that you generally get what you pay for. More money, better optical quality.

But what I would do is first define the features you want then go to a store that carries several brands and try out every brand in your price range that have those features. For the most part forget about specific brand names and choose the model you like best. If done right you will enjoy a lifetime of use from that spotter.

That's what I did a few years ago when I wanted a pair of 10x42 binoculars. I went in with a bias toward Leica largely because of a lifetime in the aerospace industry. Its the most common brand of optical equipment in use by far and some of my friends had binoculars made by them. After testing brands I ended up with a pair of Swarovski SLC 10x42 HD's. They impressed me more and I haven't regretted my purchase.

I would say from my experience from all the optics I've seen. They each have a niche.
Swarovski makes the best spotters and binos.
Leica has the range finders dialed in.
Luepold makes great rifle scopes.

I have no loyalties to any of them, nor do I think one brand does them all the way I like them. But each person has their preferences. These are mind.

Well I never owned a spotter and after 50 years of hunting Not sure I have missed much.
Well I guess the binos with the coke bottle glass has done me well. Have all my Alaska game bears, moose, goats and sheep. Had good guides they had good spotters.
All in all buy the best you can swing but don't take away mamas pair of new shoes.