You don’t need to spend much to see bullet holes at 200 yards and even much further if you know what to buy. For anything 300 yards and under, my high power Trijicon riflescopes will easily see the holes. Can even see holes out further if conditions are good.
I have owned two different Meopta S2 HD 82mm spotters (one with 20-70 ep and one with 30-60WA ep), Vortex Razor HD spotter, and even the renowned Swarovski ATX with 95mm objective and 1.7x magnification extender. I sold all of them.
I used to do all of my load testing at 500 yards and have recently moved the target back even further to 635 yards for all my load testing. I have used the Meopta S2 and Swarovski ATX 95 to spot holes at 500 yards during testing. Both did well with a slight nod going to the Meopta because it handled any mirage and detail in low light slightly better.
So why did I sell those top of the line spotters with such great glass? Well I stumbled upon some old forgotten optics that will easily compete with the best European glass on the market today.
The answer to all you need is Nikon Fieldscope ED. But NOT the new Nikon stuff, the old Japanese built ED field scopes from 20-30 years ago. Those are the forgotten gems that can be found for very cheap prices online.
I purchased an old first gen Nikon 60ED P compact spotter a few years ago as a pack scope. It came with a fixed 20x eyepiece and a fixed 40x eyepiece. I paid only $200 for the whole setup straight from a seller in Japan. The glass is absolutely phenomenal with vibrant colors and razor sharp edge to edge resolution.
The last time I shot test loads with a 300 NMI rifle at 635 yards, all I had on hand for a spotter was the little 60mm Nikon ED spotter. I had never used it for spotting bullet holes in targets because it only has 40x magnification capability but it was my only chance so I set it up and dialed in on the target. With the 40x ep, the target focused in razor sharp and detailed as everything else does so my confidence was high. I fired my first 3 round group then got up and looked thru the little Nikon. To my surprise, the bullet holes were so clearly visible in the off-white color paper that it blew my mind! I fired another 3 shot group and looked again. The holes were even perfectly visible in the black lines of the little sticky target I had on the paper! Without a doubt, the little 30 year old 60mm Japanese ED spotter was showing bullet holes much better than I had ever been able to see with the Meopta S2 or Swarovski ATX 95mm. I just couldn’t believe it. How was this possible??? Such a small objective with only 40x magnification was outperforming the most expensive European glass with magnification capabilities of 70x or more!!! The Nikon wasn’t just a little better at seeing the holes, I mean it was NIGHT AND DAY difference! Not kidding in the least.
I continued my shooting session testing loads and hand mapping out the groups with a pen and paper to keep track of impact points. The little Nikon could pick out the holes so clearly that it seemed nearly effortless for the glass. Absolutely unreal!
I have since purchased another old Japanese built Nikon 78mm ED Fieldscope. It is equally amazing. Got it with a 25-56x zoom eyepiece and fixed 75x wide angle eyepiece straight from Japan again for only $599 shipped. In all my years of playing with some of the best optics in the world, I have never seen such amazing glass for such a cheap price as these old forgotten Nikon ED spotters. Even with price not being a consideration at all, I would put this glass up against the best European optics in the world in all situations and I know it would easily perform right there with them and even better in many situations.
After my surreal experience spotting holes at 635 yards, I looked up old reviews on the Nikon ED spotters from back in the day. This was back before any of us even really knew what ED glass was. I wanted to make sure I didn’t have some extremely rare cherry glass and/or confirm I wasn’t going crazy. Lol.
I was not very surprised to find that many bird watchers revered and treasured the Nikon 60mm and 78mm ED spotters and hailed them as the glass benchmark by which all other spotters were judged. Even when compared to the Swarovski ATS/STS HD spotters that were new to the market during the reign of the Nikon, the old Japanese Nikon ED always matched or bested them in any lighting or weather situation to maintain their reputation as the spotter to beat. In my experience so far, I would say that they are still one hell of a high benchmark for any modern spotter to meet or compete with.
Here are som pics of me spotting bullet holes with the little 60mm Nikon ED and one of the targets with a ladder test while shooting at 635 yards. The load in the pic hasn’t been fully tuned for accuracy but it has good consistent POI across the charge weights with N570. Need to tune seating depth to hopefully find better accuracy.
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