re: Scope Recommendations

quote:

---

This is why I was recommending fixed 3X, Why anyone not suffering from macular degeneration would need 7X at 150 yards or under is beyond me.

This tends to make folks think they can shoot far farther than the gun is capable of.

---

I'm by no means an expert on optics or rifles but I just can't get down with this line of thinking.

I have a 3-9x40 on my .35 and am thinking about going bigger. Not that I need it to effectively kill deer, most of my shots are under 50 yards with rounds capable of killing a bull moose, but having a higher magnification scope makes the yearly ritual of sighting it in much less stressful. I want to be able to cleanly identify the bullseye at 100 yards so I can be confident I am actually holding zero and not just pointing in the general direction. I want to remove human error as much as possible on the bench so that I know the difference in what the gun is capable of and then what I'm capable of. Even on a gun I know I won't be attempting a shot over 150 yards with, the higher mag helps me decipher if the gun is off or if I've just picked up bad habits in the off-season. Usually it's the later, when in my younger days I would have cussed the gun, scope, table, sandbags, and everything but my ability.

Seems like there's no gray area. Not picking on you in particular, but people either seem to be in the camp that wants a 20x or those who consider it a point of pride to use low magnification. I understand the concept of field of view, but to me being confident in my shot placement is worth having to adjust the power prior to the shot.

I like to use a spotting scope when sighting in guns. I'm not going to run a high mag scope on something like an AR15 just so I can sight it in. The same could be said about any gun you intend to run with low mag scopes, red dots or just irons when it comes to zeroing. Plus, if you just want high mag for sighting in, the spotting scope is a lot cheaper magnification for picking out holes in paper.

To this day I still use my grandfather's 30-30 when I'm hunting in the hardwoods outside of bow season. I use the original iron sights because I don't want to alter this pure American classic. As people have been saying on here, a 30-30 will shoot +150 yrds. However, its purpose as a hunting rifle is a brush gun. This means it was intended to shoot shorter distances through thick cover. I would make sure you won't be expected to make a +150 yrd shot on your hunting trip. After that distance, a 30-30 will start to see considerable drop.

Yeah If there's a chance I'll need to take a long shot, I'm sure my grandfather will have his .25-06 with us haha

I'm a huge fan of the .308. It'll do anything you need it to in the south east.

What's recoil like on a .270 and .30-06? I'm not recoil sensitive, but I don't necessarily want something that's gonna beat me up if I wanna target shoot it in the offseason if that makes sense.