Article rating some spotters

[ireload2]

In this article the guy actually took a stab at rating the sharpness or resolution of the spotters. You will note some are very good and some are a total waste of money no matter how cheap.
http://static.birds.cornell.edu/Publications/LivingBird/winter98/scopeswi98.htm

 

[ms6852]

In this article the guy actually took a stab at rating the sharpness or resolution of the spotters. You will note some are very good and some are a total waste of money no matter how cheap.
http://static.birds.cornell.edu/Publications/LivingBird/winter98/scopeswi98.htm

Optic planet has an article on how to choose a spotting scope giving price points and how the scopes will produce at various distances to be able to see bullet holes. I used this article to buy my Nikon field scope from Cabelas which had a internet sale going on in which I paid less than $1000. Now this is an old article but a lot of good information for the novice shooter.
https://www.opticsplanet.com/howto/how-to-choose-a-spotting-scope-for-target-shooting.html

 

[Jimmy James]

I've had several from less than $200 to over $1000 including the big objective Kowa. I found that in high mirage, anything over 25X at distance just magnifies the mirage. I kept a Bushy Spacemaster that Bushy had to replace the original eyepiece on with a 15-45 mostly due to the fact I could not get anything for it. It works great at 50 to 100yds for resolving bullet holes and works well out to 1000yds for spotting for my shooting buds. Not near as heavy, or cumbersome, or as expensive as the big Kowa I had. Has a little black "hello kitty" sized padded back pack and all in I think it was less than $300. The current Kowa's are not as sharp as the old ones and the current one appear to have a plastic/polymer body where the old one's were all metal. Then there's that whole Prominar or not Prominar glass thing. There was a good write up somewhere about a Pentax with a 100mm objective that was the catz azz but of course they dont make it anymore. My friend from Sightron said that's not a spotting scope, its a telescope.

 

[ireload2]

In the boiling Texas mirage 25X to 27X gives about the best compromise of magnification vs mirage distortion in my old 1960s Swift Telemaster.
In bright light it is slightly better than my 22X Bausch & Lomb Elite.
Later as the sun gets low on the horizon the B&L is better.
The best I have ever used was the 77mm Kowa TSN-2 about 25 years ago. It had the 25X LER eyepiece. It was significantly better than my 24X and 36X Leupold BR scopes.

I've had several from less than $200 to over $1000 including the big objective Kowa. I found that in high mirage, anything over 25X at distance just magnifies the mirage. I kept a Bushy Spacemaster that Bushy had to replace the original eyepiece on with a 15-45 mostly due to the fact I could not get anything for it. It works great at 50 to 100yds for resolving bullet holes and works well out to 1000yds for spotting for my shooting buds. Not near as heavy, or cumbersome, or as expensive as the big Kowa I had. Has a little black "hello kitty" sized padded back pack and all in I think it was less than $300. The current Kowa's are not as sharp as the old ones and the current one appear to have a plastic/polymer body where the old one's were all metal. Then there's that whole Prominar or not Prominar glass thing. There was a good write up somewhere about a Pentax with a 100mm objective that was the catz azz but of course they dont make it anymore. My friend from Sightron said that's not a spotting scope, its a telescope.

 

[ms6852]

In the boiling Texas mirage 25X to 27X gives about the best compromise of magnification vs mirage distortion in my old 1960s Swift Telemaster.
In bright light it is slightly better than my 22X Bausch & Lomb Elite.
Later as the sun gets low on the horizon the B&L is better.
The best I have ever used was the 77mm Kowa TSN-2 about 25 years ago. It had the 25X LER eyepiece. It was significantly better than my 24X and 36X Leupold BR scopes.

This applies to about any type of scope but you are correct I was out by Terlingua a couple of weeks ago man was it hot, mirage and haze was really bad, by 2 p.m. It wasn't until 7 p.m. that you could really use higher magnification.