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American hunters have been brainwashed into thinking they want the brightest riflescope they can buy.
They don’t.
Light-gathering ability is mainly a function of objective-lens size, which means the brightest riflescopes would be too large and unwieldy to be much help in the places most of us hunt. Picture a 65mm or an 80mm spotting scope strapped to your rifle. Bright as hell, but hugely impractical. [ Read Full Post ]
From the flimsy to the fortified, this year’s field of 14 full-size binos and 4 mid-size binos have something for everyone. The most interesting trend is the continuing integration of electronics into hunting optics. Three binoculars feature rangefinders. See our review of the best new hunting binoculars on the market. [ Read Full Post ]
If you want to know whether your hunting optics are worth a spit, then look at them through the business end of a flashlight. A simple penlight – the smaller and brighter the better – will reveal flaws in coatings, indicate whether your optic was made in a competent facility, and whether you are getting your money for the glass.
This visual inspection is a skill that sharpens with repetition, but here’s how to get started. [ Read Full Post ]
The “mils” in a mil-dot scope refer to milliradians, which is a measurement of angle. If you picture a mil as an ice cream cone, with the tip originating at the shooter’s eye and an open end that gets ever wider the farther out it goes, you get the idea. So if the mouth of our imaginary cone is 1 mil in diameter, making it 3.6 inches across at 100 yards, it would grow to 36 inches at 1,000 yards.
Learning the principle behind mils (see illustrations), coupled with some homework on your part, can yield remarkable benefits to your shooting.
For instance, mils allow you to hold over (or hold off) a target without the need to adjust your scope turrets for elevation and windage. With a come-up at 375 yards of 15 clicks, for example, you can hold the crosshairs 1.5 mils high on the target for a direct hit.
It takes time, but once you master it, the mil-dot system is lethal and fast. [ Read Full Post ]
Top-flight shooting instruction has never been easier to come by, particularly with the proliferation of long-range precision rifle schools, most of which have been strongly influenced by modern sniper techniques. One of the keys to being more effective at long ranges is to get the most out of your riflescope, binoculars, and spotting scope.
Here's three tips from the pros. [ Read Full Post ]
The fastest growing segment of the sporting-optics market is electronic illumination of a scope’s crosshairs. And it may be the most useless hunting-gear gimmick since the DeerView Mirror, a backward-looking reflector for your treestand. Check out the lineup of new scopes at your sporting-goods store. I’ll bet more than half have a bulbous illumination knob above the eyebox or opposite the windage and elevation knobs, distorting the otherwise lovely lines of the optic. But illumination modules also add weight, as well as a mechanism to fail and a battery to die. [ Read Full Post ]
A newcomer to the crowded sporting optics field, Oculus brings a solid, utilitarian scope at a fair price. Our sample, in the versatile 4–16x44 configuration, featured a simple duplex reticle in a 1-inch tube and resettable turrets. Its side focus, a useful amenity for hunters who shoot at varying distances and magnifications, didn’t work well at low powers, and we noted some color fringing in this otherwise capable hunting scope. [ Read Full Post ]
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