Kowa 601 a decent scope for just using it to help read mirage? Or is it worth upping the price to the 82SV? Never used spotting scope to read mirage but might try it to see if it can help improve scores for me
Fclass spotting scope
- Thread starter savageshooter86
- Start date
A lower grade optic tends to show mirage greater than a higher end optic. Better clarity tends to see through it more.
We use both Kowa 661s with 27x LER and Swarovski ATS 65mm with fixed 30W and 25-50 eyepieces. All of these work very well for reading mirage, with a huge difference in price. Reading antlers at distance is easier with an expensive scope. Reading mirage is trivial and a far less expensive scope gets the job done just as well as the super-expensive scope. I'd stick with a 20-30X magnification for reading mirage and targets. The Kowa 82SV is a great scope at a great price: pick whatever fits your price and preference.
Thanks. Creedmoor has combo with 82sv with stand and polekat head. $1300
Liven The Dream
Gold $$ Contributor
yes 27 or 30 LEF eye pc. you be much happier
XTR
F-TR obssessed shooting junkie
Another supporter of lower power and long eye relief.
I have an old Leica 77 with a variable that I never take off the 20x setting on the line (i will say that 60x is nice for looking for holes in white paper at 600 yards if conditions support it) and an old Kowa Prominar TSN823 with a 27x LER eyepiece. I got the Kowa for the long eye relief to use on the line, that option doesn't exist for the Leica.
With regard to quality. My Leica was my first spotter. I've scored for people using their scopes, there have been times that I felt the Leica looked better even focused 400 yards from the targets. Quality glass will spoil you.
Scott's comment above comparing the Swaro to the Kowa, that Kowa is a good scope, just not a Swaro, so the below isn't in response to that.
I'm not so sure that quality glass looks through mirage better, I think it can do a better job of showing you layers of mirage. Last month at the Oak Ridge mid range was a 100% mirage readers match. The flags were pretty meaningless. On a couple of occasions we had a swirling condition, it caught me twice, and some others may not have known what was catching them. The sun shining on the ground and the target boards made it very easy to read the mirage in front of the targets at ground level, but several times I saw the mirage up on the targets go the opposite way as the mirage on the ground. It was harder to see but it was dominant. I'm not certain I could see that without good glass.
I have an old Leica 77 with a variable that I never take off the 20x setting on the line (i will say that 60x is nice for looking for holes in white paper at 600 yards if conditions support it) and an old Kowa Prominar TSN823 with a 27x LER eyepiece. I got the Kowa for the long eye relief to use on the line, that option doesn't exist for the Leica.
With regard to quality. My Leica was my first spotter. I've scored for people using their scopes, there have been times that I felt the Leica looked better even focused 400 yards from the targets. Quality glass will spoil you.
Scott's comment above comparing the Swaro to the Kowa, that Kowa is a good scope, just not a Swaro, so the below isn't in response to that.
I'm not so sure that quality glass looks through mirage better, I think it can do a better job of showing you layers of mirage. Last month at the Oak Ridge mid range was a 100% mirage readers match. The flags were pretty meaningless. On a couple of occasions we had a swirling condition, it caught me twice, and some others may not have known what was catching them. The sun shining on the ground and the target boards made it very easy to read the mirage in front of the targets at ground level, but several times I saw the mirage up on the targets go the opposite way as the mirage on the ground. It was harder to see but it was dominant. I'm not certain I could see that without good glass.
I have a Swaro 80 ATS...very nice but after scoring on the line with many Kowa 82's, I could have spent the extra money better elsewhere as the Kowa is a fine spotting scope for mirage and scoring. My mother has a 20+ year old Leica 60 something objective scope and like XTR said, it is the finest glass I have ever viewed through but overkill for a shooting spotter IMO. She uses it for birdwatching where true color representation is critical...at least a critical as one can consider issues in birdwatching
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.So my question is the 82sv going to be that much better than the kowa 601 at $400 more expensive?
IMO, for target scoring and viewing mirage, the 601 will likely be fine but neither have extra low dispersion glass. My current scopes and spotter do but the only spotter I have viewed through, besides a $5K older Leica, that does not have that glass is a Bushnell that was not very good at all. I can not say that the lack of the newer ED glass was the downfall or not. I suggest holding off until you can test a few different scopes in your budget. Also keep your eyes on the classifieds as you may find a bargain.
boltman13
Gold $$ Contributor
If all you want is to see and read mirage, why spend that much money?
Good advice is to always buy as much quality as you can afford. Sometimes prevents a second purchase 6 months or a year later. Yes, the HD, ED glass is fantastic, but may not be worth the extra $ if the pocket book is light. I would strongly recommend that what ever scope is bought, that it have the ability to accept the fixed about 30x power LER eyepiece. If you have to pay a little bit more to get into that class of scope then worth it. My 2 cents.
Killshot
X's matter....but 10s win (but damn, Xs feel good)
I bought a gently-used 661 with a 30x wide-view eyepiece after eyeing and using friends 82s. Paired with a Ray-Vin F-Class stand I'm very happy - perfect for viewing mirage and the adjacent targets at 600 & 1K.
I don't shoot in low light, so the smaller objective isn't an issue and the smaller body is easier to get next to your off-scope eye.
Kowas are worth every penny IMO. I'd recommend it.
I don't shoot in low light, so the smaller objective isn't an issue and the smaller body is easier to get next to your off-scope eye.
Kowas are worth every penny IMO. I'd recommend it.
Could
Could you tell difference in 82 vs your 661?
We are unable to tell the difference between my 65mm Celestron Regal ED ($425, or so) and my friend's 82mm Kowa Prominar ($2500, or so) in anything except the darkest of conditions (very early or very late in the day). We've decided that is simply a matter of size rather than quality of the optics. I would not go smaller than 65mm, but, it's your money.
I have a Kowa 82A spotting scope for sale with cover and original box. $700 shipped and insured. USA sales only. Certified funds only. Contact me by PM. Thanks for looking.
Jim G
Here is a deal.
http://forum.accurateshooter.com/th...-scope-with-27x-long-eye-relief-lens.3913668/....
Jim G
Here is a deal.
http://forum.accurateshooter.com/th...-scope-with-27x-long-eye-relief-lens.3913668/....
Turbulent Turtle
F-TR competitor
LR shooting is a very specific application for spotting scopes. We are not interested in color separation and rendition because our targets are black and tan and the spotting disks are white and scoring paddles black or similar. So contrast is not critical either. As long as we have enough light coming into the scope, most people cannot distinguish between run-of-the-mill and high quality glass. for our purposes.
Photographers, on the other hand, and pursuits like birding and so on, will require higher quality optics because these things that I talked about earlier and many others affect the quality of the end product.
That said, there are reasons to get better quality optics for our stated purposes. For spotting scopes, the issue is one of eye fatigue. When I'm scoring, I don't really care what optics I'm using as long as I can make out the score and the shot. I spend very little time looking though the spotting scope when I'm scoring. On the other hand, I have looked through a whole panoply of spotting scopes, and I can discern quality optics.
When I'm calling wind for the team, I will spend a great deal of time looking through the spotting scope, if there's something to watch, of course. This is when quality optics come into play. I find that my eye is not fatigued when looking through quality optics; I've progressed over time from the cheap piece of junk on up over the decades. My Kowa 82SV is fine for my needs now and I doubt I would want to spend any more money for the single purpose of LR shooting. Actually the Kowa 6xx that I hade before that was excellent and in some way better suited to this single purpose.
Recently, I started digiscoping with my 82SV after finding all the parts I needed and I also use my Kowa for other things purposes besides just LR shooting purposes. If anything, it's these other purposes that would push me to upgrade from the 82SV, but I don't see that happening any time soon. I have 2 eyepieces for it, the LER and the zoom, and I'm thinking about getting the WA one. I have the d/s adaptors as I mentioned earlier and will continue exploring that aspect.
One final note. For the riflescope, there is no question that quality optics are de rigueur; higher quality help enhance the performance.
I started a thread on the optics column a while back about how I found a new eyepiece for my Celestron scope. I wanted to use it for F Class to monitor mirage and the standard zoom lens did not have enough distance from eye to eyepiece. I found from a true optics expert that inexpensive scopes do not really have a problem with the quality of the main lenses in the scope but do with the eyepieces. So, I found a company named Bader Planitarium in Germany that made combinations of their eyepieces that would fit my scope. I used their Classic Ortho 18mm eyepiece as well as an adapter to fit it to my Celestron model. Some of my shooter friends looked through my "new" scope and couldn't tell any difference to their expensive scopes.
I have since found that the Bader zoom lens for my Celestron was equally good. However, my eyepiece and adapter combination cost about $100 total and a new Bader zoom is about $300!
I have since found that the Bader zoom lens for my Celestron was equally good. However, my eyepiece and adapter combination cost about $100 total and a new Bader zoom is about $300!
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