Fair enough, and since you can't seem to find my earlier posting on the other thread to which you posted your challenge, I'm repeating it here.
I made a special trip to the store in order find the current issue of Sniper, from Guns and Ammo. I’m now sorry I did that and rifleman700 owes me $9.73 and I’m not including the cost of me writing this post.
The article is written by Tom Beckstrand. I’ve seen his name before, and probably even read some of his earlier prose but after reading his article “I Object!” I think I’ll give him a wide berth from now on.
His opening paragraph is where he commits his biggest mistake when he says that the statement “a bigger objective lens gathers more light” is wrong. He does not take exception to the use of the word “gather,” which I could understand and agree with, he just says the statement is wrong, but he doesn’t quite come out and say WHY he thinks it’s wrong. Certainly not in the opening paragraph and not in the second paragraph.
In the third paragraph he starts talking about the fact the objective lens size determines the size of the exit pupil but then brushes that aside for now. Strange, because he just contradicted himself. A bigger objective lens produces a larger exit pupil. That would mean that a larger objective lens let in a more light than a smaller objective lens because you need light to create a bigger exit pupil. I guess he was absent that day in optics 101.
From that point, the rest of the article is aimed at (pardon the pun) snipers and snipers-wannabees. He talks about how you actually want the smallest possible exit pupil because you’re more certain to be properly behind the rifle to take the shot. He also talks about glass quality and he seems to have recently discovered something called ED glass. He insists that nothing under $2,500 is worth anything (not that I disagree completely with that,) but the thing of it is, I am not a sniper. I never was a sniper and I will never be a sniper nor do I have any delusions or illusions of being a sniper. I am a long range F-TR competitor, period, end of story.
As a competitor, I will spend quality time looking through my riflescope and my spotting scope. My March-X 5-50X56 produces an exit pupil of between 1.4 and 1.12 millimeter depending on whether I’m at 40X or 50X (my two commonly-used magnifications.) I would not enjoy smaller exit pupils. I spend most of my time on the line looking through my spotting scope (exit pupil size of 3.04 @ 27X,) or the general conditions. When I finally make my wind call, I need to quickly transition to my riflescope and get the shot off. An even smaller exit pupil would make that more difficult.
Mr. Beckstrand also makes allusion to the fact looking through a quality riflescope for hours on end (as he says snipers do, but I have no clue, so I’ll take him at his word,) does not cause them to get headaches. That I can understand, lousy optics will strain your eye and can lead to headaches. But I would think that having a very small exit pupil as he recommends, would cause some strain on the shooter looking through that scope. A bigger exit pupil allows you to relax a little bit for the long haul. But again, I’m not a sniper, never have been and never want to be. Besides, I’m way too old.
Since this magazine is for snipers, the magnifications he discusses are 25X and under and several of his comments and statements do not apply or are iffy when we get into 40X and above.
All in all, once you get through the massive self-contradiction with respect to the amount of light, the article is probably ok for snipers, but falls short for long-range competition with high magnification scopes.
You still owe me $9.73, rifleman700.
Oh, and BTW, I didn't see anything about "commonly repeated light transmission theories," but I may look again.
