Tell us of your experience with decent affordable spotting scopes

[BoydAllen]

The other day, while enjoying some time at the range, the topic of spotting scopes came up. The fellow that I was discussing them with told me that he had an inexpensive one that from his description was a piece of junk. I believe that it was of Russian manufacture. I told him of my old fixed power (interchangeable eyepieces) Bushnell Sentry that has been quite adequate, over the years for my usual use, looking at targets at 100 yards. My old scope allows me to clearly see .22 caliber bullets in the black parts of conventional targets at that distance, and evidently his does not.

MY point in bringing up this subject, of asking for your experiences is not to solicit information about expensive spotting scopes that average shooters are not likely to want to buy, but rather to find out about the gems that may be found in the under $150 price range.

After I got back to the range, I did a little looking around on the internet, reading reviews and found that there are several scopes within this price range that actually got decent reviews. Perhaps some of you can enlighten us about some more, based on your personal experiences. One thing that seemed to be a common theme was a fall off of sharpness and contrast toward the top of scopes' magnification range. This may not be as much of a problem as it might first seem, if it is remembered that if one has a sharp contrasty image at say 30x (the power of my old Bushnell) that that is sufficient for the purposes of most shooters, and any loss above that, can be written off to designing for advertising purposes to a maximum magnification that will not be useful, given its optical performance at that setting. In any case, I will be interested in what your experiences have been, both good and bad, because, generally, we do not have a way to do side by side comparisons of scopes, looking at targets while at the range.

 

[chkunz]

I think if I were looking for a scope to see 22 bullet holes at 100 yard and limited to $150 I think I would look for an old used scope like folks used 30 to 40 years ago. If you do not have to have the 45 degree eye piece you can probably find one in this price range. There were a lot of good scopes at the time that folks have now replaced with more "modern" and more expensive models. I still have a couple of the old ones that I loan to new shooters from time to time until they are able to buy their own.

 

[akajun]

We buy the Konus 80mm for our junior team. They have good enough clarity to read mirage, see 22,s at 200yds and have a warranty that they will honor should the scope break.

 

[Alex Wheeler]

Konus is very good for the $$$

 

[wolley]

I'll 3rd the Konus 80. Been using one for 5 years and so far it has held up fine.
It does have a 20-60x zoom eyepiece, however, the scope is pretty much useless when zoomed in above 40X.
Eye relief is decent and as a glasses wearer it is at least as good as the Kowa 8xxx with an 27XLER eye piece.
The Kowa will cost you $900-1000 with an eye piece and the Konus can be had for $200 if you shop around. 90+% of the Kowa for 20% of the cost.
I've never looked through one but quite a few people are finding the Celestron spotting scopes to be a good value also. Approximately $350?
I have never met anyone who was happy with a budget scope, less than $150.

 

[jimcasey01]

We buy the Konus 80mm for our junior team. They have good enough clarity to read mirage, see 22,s at 200yds and have a warranty that they will honor should the scope break.

A friend donated a Konus 80 for my wife to use to see what was happening. I am not familiar with others, but this works great at 200M. Can not use the higher magnification if I remember correctly, as it gets soft, but there is enough magnification for her to keep up with .22 and .243 holes.

 

[Dusty Stevens]

I have an old redfield rubber armored one that works well. Also got a free compact from burris with a scope purchase- it goes with me to spot moose to stalk as its small and i can clearly see bullet holes at 200. Bass pro always has nice cheap spotters- seen one that came in a hard case and with a flimsy tabletop tripod that was surprising how nice it was looking thru it at 300

 

[Berger.Fan222]

The low end Leupolds work well enough for bullet holes at 200 and scoring to 1000 yards.

 

[M14AMU]

Don't have any 'experiences' with spotting scopes!

That's why I bought a KOWA when they became available!!

 

[normmatzen]

When I first got into long range shooting back in about 2008, I
bought a Celestron Ultima 80. This was rated slightly below the Konus I believe.
Well, I was ultimately disappointed as I couldn't see all bullet holes at 300 yds! Then I found out some of the premium scopes have problems depending on target color.
Now I am shooting F Class to improve my wind reading skills and I would like a better scope to see mirage.
I wanted a large eye relief single power eye piece to monitor Mirage. I quickly found that Celestron doesn't offer optional eyepieces for the Celestron Ultima that I have.
I got ahold of a techi at Baader Optics in Germany and found that they are a rep for Celestron in Germany and they know more about Celestron optics than Celestron does!
Baader said that lower priced scopes like my Celestron Ultima have pretty good main optics but have very poor eyepieces.
And, Baader makes a quality zoom eyepiece that fits my scope but it costs nearly $300 which is more than the scope cost! They also make an adapter and fixed eyepiece with a total price slightly over a hundred bucks. I did it, and I'm happy. Some of my friends at the range were surprised as my low end scope is as sharp as much more expensive ones.

Check out my thread in the optics area on how to do this adaption.

 

[BoydAllen]

http://forum.accurateshooter.com/index.php?topic=3881468.0

 

[normmatzen]

thanks Boyd

 

[dkhunt14]

I am surprised nobody mentioned Bushnell Spacemaster. With a fixed eyepiece they are not bad for the money. Lots of them used for Bigeyes. Matt

 

[BIGMAC]

I am surprised nobody mentioned Bushnell Spacemaster. With a fixed eyepiece they are not bad for the money. Lots of them used for Bigeyes. Matt

1+ for Bushnell Spacemaster also like the Vintage Bausch & Lomb Balscope SR. with 20X OR 30X eyepiece. can find them listed on ebay from $100 TO about $300.00

 

[boltman13]

My Buris Landmark 15X45 long eye relief which I bought about 20 years ago for about $100 shows 22 cal bullet holes at 100 yds and 30 cal holes at 200 yds. It does not have an angled eye piece so it is not as easy to use in the prone position but off the bench it is all I have ever needed. I do not know if Burris still makes this model or how much a new on would cost.

 

[broncman]

I used a Walmart Simmons, briefly.... I squirreled away a little more and picked up the Konus 80. Been extremely pleased. Kowa is on my want list, but the Konus has helped me see mirage and so I ended up using the spotting scope for shooting FTR instead of just watching flags, and using a scope to score with.

 

[cdparker]

Did you folks know that the Bushnell Spacemaster was made by KOWA? I have an adaptor to use the old Spacemaster eye pieces on my TSN-3. I carried it in my shooting stool for years--- just in case! Luckily, I never was forced to use it. I made a waterproof eyepiece protector for my LER lens. My thought is that for range shooting, the LER lens is a very handy thing to have. A while ago, when you looked down the line at Perry. almost all the spotting scopes were KOWA's on a Ewing stand.

 

[crash]

I just bought a konus 20-60x80 for $140.00 from advor.com. i'll let you all know how it goes

 

[carlsbad]

I have a background in astronomy where we look at optics a bit differently. We measure optical precision in wavelengths of light. Anyway, Celestron and Meade are the two big consumer names in astronomy. both make good stuff, both import some junk. Avoid the super cheap low end stuff in either name. I've found that the 5" Celestron Schmidt Cassegrain adapted for bird watching will pretty much keep up with any $3000 spotting scope and it only costs $400 if you shop around. It's a bit bulky and some guys just don't like the look of it. But if you can get past the looks and you're at the range it is no harder to set up than any other scope. Additionally it has a finder scope which makes it easy to find the target very quickly at high power.

When you get it, google the procedure for collimating it. Best way is at night looking at a star.

--Jerry

 

[WindSurgeon]

My Buris Landmark 15X45 long eye relief which I bought about 20 years ago for about $100 shows 22 cal bullet holes at 100 yds and 30 cal holes at 200 yds. It does not have an angled eye piece so it is not as easy to use in the prone position but off the bench it is all I have ever needed. I do not know if Burris still makes this model or how much a new on would cost.

+1 on the Burris Landmark. I have the 15-45x60. Purchased 4 or 5 years ago. Originally bought it for hunting but use it for competition shooting now as well. It cost about $165 at the time. Optics are very good for the price. I think it was made in Japan.