Rifle Scopes Best Hunting Scope ?

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wapiti16b

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Mar 16, 2014
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New Mexico
#1
I know this has probably been beaten to death , but new choices may have arrived since last asked so here we go .
What IYHO would be the best optic for let's say a 300WM shooting 200grain and up projectiles out West !
Specifically :
Low light performance
Reticle
1st or 2nd focal plane
Repeatable turrets
Quality of build & warranty

I'm tired of swapping my GEN II Razor between rifles so I'm in the market for a new scope .
Thanks !
 
#4
wapiti16b said:
I know this has probably been beaten to death , but new choices may have arrived since last asked so here we go .
What IYHO would be the best optic for let's say a 300WM shooting 200grain and up projectiles out West !
Specifically :
Low light performance
Reticle
1st or 2nd focal plane
Repeatable turrets
Quality of build & warranty

I'm tired of swapping my GEN II Razor between rifles so I'm in the market for a new scope .
Thanks !
Click to expand...
Budget?
Weight of rifle?
How far you typically shooting?
 
#6
I think the Swarovski Z3 3-10x42 or the Leupold VX-5HD 2-10x42mm will do you well. Maybe a Vortex Diamondback HP if your budget is tight. I recommend these scopes based off of weight, low light performance, and ruggedness/warranty. The The Swaro will outclass the Leupold and Vortex all day, but money can be tight, and the Leupold and Vortex hold their own at short ranges. I also like covered turrets for hunting scopes; one less thing to worry about getting dinged while hoofin' a hill, and [insert long rant about why "long range hunting" isn't really hunting].
 
#8
Dirty8404 said:
Care to expand on that thought?
Click to expand...
Sure, I'll give the sober version: I deem long range shooting (shots taken from distances greater than 500 yards) to be unethical and more like shooting rather than hunting.

I believe long range hunting is unethical because the shooter is statistically more likely to injure the animal or outright miss. Despite the technology available to us, hunters should make every effort to take the most ethical shot possible; which implies getting within a range that you can, beyond reasonable doubt, make an accurate and clean shot at the animal. The neuance to my stance is that experience levels of all hunters varies greatly, and that the acceptable "kill range" for one may be much shorter than the next. I also hold a special exemption to sheep and goat hunters. The terrain, opportunity and money involved with sheep hunts necessitates a level of marksmanship that far exceeds the average midwest white tail hunter.

Outside of the exception of sheep and goat hunting, I also believe long range hunting is more shooting than hunting. Hunting involves stalking, deceiving or otherwise evading the detection of the animal being hunted. By avoiding this primal engagement with one's prey, I'd argue that you're doing no more than shooting at a live target.

Can someone have have the skill and confidence to kill an elk from 900 yards away? Sure. Will that put meat in that shooter's freezer? Of course. Do I care about how that guy killed that elk? Not in the least. My stance on long range hunting is my own. I keep it to myself, and I don't judge how others hunt because it's none of my damn business.
 
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#9
Hippy_Steve said:
Sure, I'll give the sober version: I deem long range shooting (shots taken from distances greater than 500 yards) to be unethical and more like shooting rather than hunting...
Click to expand...

Sound like you might be confident in your stalking skills. I've done quite a bit of belly crawling myself and take pride in a few that I have done. However, if 500 yards is long range:

1. Welcome to the Hide
2. Pour through this forum to learn why people choose certain scopes/features for "long range" shooting
3. Carefully study the advanced marksmanship section. Ask lots of questions
4. Learn what well made rifles are capable of
5. With number 4 in mind, take my word for it that the trigger puller is the weakest link in the system
6. With number 5 in mind, bring a good rig (and a fine bourbon to share with the instructors) to a class from the likes of: https://kmprecisionrifletraining.com/training/
7. Take the humble pie you just tasted to the range and chew on it, a lot.
 
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#10
ATACR

This 300 Win Mag loves 200gr ELD-X. It also loves to be out west, though the next time it gets on a plane it will be to Canadia (exactly 100 days from now, but who's counting?)

If I need to shoot in less light with it than I already have then I'll need to attach a PVS 30
What more can be said about NF turrets?
Quality of build and warranty... again, it's NF


 
Last edited:
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#12
MosesTheTank said:
Sound like you might be confident in your stalking skills. I've done quite a bit of belly crawling myself and take pride in a few that I have done. However, if 500 yards is long range:

1. Welcome to the Hide
2. Pour through this forum to learn why people choose certain scopes/features for "long range" shooting
3. Carefully study the advanced marksmanship section. Ask lots of questions
4. Learn what well made rifles are capable of
5. With number 4 in mind, take my word for it that the trigger puller is the weakest link in the system
6. With number 5 in mind, bring a good rig (and a fine bourbon to share with the instructors) to a class from the likes of: https://kmprecisionrifletraining.com/training/
7. Take the humble pie you just tasted to the range and chew on it, a lot.
Click to expand...
X2
Before I started building my rifles and competing I probably would have agreed with the hippy. I was a box of cartridges per year hunter, and half of those were a check zero. That was tens of thousands of rifle rounds ago. Now I am completely confident of a clean kill @ 800 yards, and considerably further if environmental conditions are favorable.
You just can’t take your pencil barrel hunting rifles, go to the range, and blow off 200 cartridges. You’ll burn it the hell up in under an hour, and it’ll start stringing in a couple of shots. That’s really why it’s so much easier to become a good or a great marksman with a comp rifle with a heavy barrel. You can shoot it enough in one sitting to understand it. Think of how many years more it would take if you had to wait ten minutes between shots for your barrel to cool. Hell, most matches are around a hundred rounds per day. That could take 20 years to shoot that much for many or most hunters.

I’m a hunter. I’m just not a Fud. Though I do feel like I’m being discriminated against when marksmen and Tactical Tommy’s go off on Fuds. Perhaps I’m owed reparations...
 
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#13
MosesTheTank said:
ATACR

This 300 Win Mag loves 200gr ELD-X. It also loves to be out west, though the next time it gets on a plane it will be to Canadia (exactly 100 days from now, but who's counting?)

If I need to shoot in lower with it than I have I'll need to attach a PVS 30
What more can be said about NF turrets?
Quality of build and warranty... again, it's NF


Click to expand...

My hunting set up is very similar.
2C70438B-6155-4D6C-8F22-D706A439D278.jpeg
 
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#18
B-P-UU said:
Budget?
Weight of rifle?
How far you typically shooting?
Click to expand...


Sorry I omitted some vital information , My rig weighs 11.5 lbs sans scope .
It's a laminated stock I inletted long ago but had pillar bedded by a very good gunsmith .
26" Broughton 1n9 twist 5RC .
My shot ranges vary depending on the unit I draw and can range between 50 yards and 1,000 yards .
Cost is important but I seem to never cheap out on glass so anywhere between 2&3 K would be OK
Weight is important but not as much as low light performance & reticle ( MOA I'm old school ) & warranty !
I already have a 3x18x50 GEN II RAZOR as previously mentioned and love it's reticle .
I wonder if I need more magnification ?


I'm confident in my abilities and equipment for long range hunting so no soap box's please and I do not say this to offend anyone !

Thanks Again !
 
#19
wapiti16b said:
Sorry I omitted some vital information , My rig weighs 11.5 lbs sans scope .
It's a laminated stock I inletted long ago but had pillar bedded by a very good gunsmith .
26" Broughton 1n9 twist 5RC .
My shot ranges vary depending on the unit I draw and can range between 50 yards and 1,000 yards .
Cost is important but I seem to never cheap out on glass so anywhere between 2&3 K would be OK
Weight is important but not as much as low light performance & reticle ( MOA I'm old school ) & warranty !
I already have a 3x18x50 GEN II RAZOR as previously mentioned and love it's reticle .
I wonder if I need more magnification ?


I'm confident in my abilities and equipment for long range hunting so no soap box's please and I do not say this to offend anyone !

Thanks Again !
Click to expand...

No soap box here. With that price range, you're looking at almost anything. Two of my favorites are the 4-16 ATACR and AMG. If SFP is your preference, the 4-16x50 ATACR would be a good choice. Unless you tend to use your scope as an observation device as well, I personally like 15-18x on the top end for hunting rigs since they are generally shorter/more compact. I've had bushy LRHS, S&B US, TT315M, 2.5-10 NXS in the category... if you forced me to pick one scope to run on all my hunting rigs, it'd be a 4-16 ATACR. It's just a very well executed optic in my opinion.


Having 3k to spend on a hunting optic is a good problem to have... ha
 
#22
If you already have the razor and like it but want to go up in magnification and cut weight. You need to take a serious look at the vortex amg recticle is almost the same the as the razor but it is lighter has better glass for low light and lower level locking turrets
 
#26
wapiti16b said:
The AMG is definitely on my list as is the ATACR , how does the Kahles stack up for low light performance among these three ?
Click to expand...
I own a Kahles K624i gen 3. It is my go-to scope for load development with the SKMR reticle.
While I do not own a Razor AMG or ATACR F1, I have shot behind several of each. I think my Kahles is clearer/brighter than a Razor AMG, and on par with the ATACR F1. Some people refer to CA, but I have never even noticed it in my Kahles.

But the AMG weighs about 5oz less than the Kahles, which weighs about 3oz less than the ATACR F1. The March F weighs 4.4oz less than the AMG as well.
 
#30
I don't have enough experience behind my leupold VX-5HD with firedot reticle. However, I am extremely pleased with Leupold VX3i series scopes. Great glass, CDS dials from 100-600 or 200-700 yards. Works great for hunting as I don't trust my self to shoot past that when hunting. Where I hunt a 600-800 yard shot is hard to find due to all the brush. Average shots are 200-400 for caribou and 100-200 for Moose.
 
#31
I like these in no particular order, each has plus and minuses:

Leupold Mk6 3-18x50, Mildot or TMR, compact and light, shoot to ensure repeatability
IOR Recon 4-28x50 (field of view at 4 pwr is better than Mk6 3-18 at 3 pwr because of the 40mm tube), heavy but can double as spotter.
S&B PMII 3-20x50 Ultra Short, with P4L (NOT FINE) reticle or P3 Mildot

All these I feel have thick enough crosshairs to see a deer or elk jump up at 40 yards among the trees, while your on the way to a good long range position, to put the animal in your crosshairs and shoot. Many FFP scopes have way to thin of crosshairs and dialed back to low power (3-4) one can have difficulty seeing them. You could just aim center mass and shoot and not worry about crosshairs but I just like to see them myself. I have spent a lot of time and money trying to find the best scope for me, that will shoot close and long range.

my 2 cents
 
#32
S&B 4-16x56 PMII Ultra Bright would get my vote. I've looked through these scopes in person and they are amazing at long range. It almost feels like you can get away with less mag because the glass is so clear at the 1000yd+ range. This or a straight T96 (3-12 or 4-15) polar would be my bucket list scopes on a Christensen 300wsm Ridgeline.

http://www.schmidtundbender.de/en/p...litary-forces/4-16x56-pm-ii-ultra-bright.html
 
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#33
+ another one for Nightforce. Have two and scheming on a second ATACR F1. If Swarovski would get their head out of their ass and give me a F1 mil turret and reticle I might change my tune cuz I absolutely love their glass. Have a z5, 5-25 with a BRX fine reticle that is the shit until I have to use the reticle mil off sets at full magnification when 10 woulda been sweet. Love the F1 features available out there and it doesn’t have to be any of the above, so long as it tracks and the reticle and turret match. Another thing I don’t like about my Swaro?
 
#34
Zeiss Conquest 3-15x42, SFP, with Rapid-Z 800 is a great option, run the number on their ballistics App, have two or three power settings written down based on input data, temperature, etc. to match the reticle hash marks out to 800 yards with your ammo. I find 338LM in 250 gr matches well, within 5 yards on all marks. Tested it out shooting steel at 680 yards, first shot, was just over it, then adjusted for down hill slope (680 yards line of sight, but with drop it was 650 yards as the bullet sees it), second shot hit, gave rifle to my dad, bench sand bags, first shot hit. This is after flying the rifle from Georgia to Oregon and taking it up into the coast mountain range to try it out. Anything inside of 300 yards (sight in at 200) hold on and shoot. Anything past 300 yards, range it with angle comp, turn the power setting (usually 12-13.5 power) from your range card, and use hold over marks to shoot. Simple and light weight system to shoot out to 800 yards. Put this set up on 338LM for my dad to use elk hunting this fall.

Christensen SS Classic in 338LM, 7.5 lbs plus scope/ammo
 

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#37
Hippy_Steve said:
Sure, I'll give the sober version: I deem long range shooting (shots taken from distances greater than 500 yards) to be unethical and more like shooting rather than hunting.

I believe long range hunting is unethical because the shooter is statistically more likely to injure the animal or outright miss. Despite the technology available to us, hunters should make every effort to take the most ethical shot possible; which implies getting within a range that you can, beyond reasonable doubt, make an accurate and clean shot at the animal. The neuance to my stance is that experience levels of all hunters varies greatly, and that the acceptable "kill range" for one may be much shorter than the next. I also hold a special exemption to sheep and goat hunters. The terrain, opportunity and money involved with sheep hunts necessitates a level of marksmanship that far exceeds the average midwest white tail hunter.

Outside of the exception of sheep and goat hunting, I also believe long range hunting is more shooting than hunting. Hunting involves stalking, deceiving or otherwise evading the detection of the animal being hunted. By avoiding this primal engagement with one's prey, I'd argue that you're doing no more than shooting at a live target.

Can someone have have the skill and confidence to kill an elk from 900 yards away? Sure. Will that put meat in that shooter's freezer? Of course. Do I care about how that guy killed that elk? Not in the least. My stance on long range hunting is my own. I keep it to myself, and I don't judge how others hunt because it's none of my damn business.
Click to expand...
Agree
 
#40
I planned on using the 4.5 Razor I ordered for hunting also but now I'm second guessing just making a sole hunting rifle. Super light weight with a scope more focused on low light performance.
 
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