How much magnification?

[Ronald W Schaefer]

I have a 20X60 Viper Vortex Spotter and it really performs well--best spotter I've ever had. That said we have a LOT of mirage days down here in South Central Texas...so I bought a SME Bullseye 1 mile target camera. Now I can see impacts on my Surface Pro set up on the bench and even do a lot of data manipulation with the various displays. It was about the same price as a good quality glass and my bench shooting problems are now solved. Now if you're using it for glassing, obviously the camera set up will not work and you'll need to rely on the spotter/binos.

 

[bamban]

For lightweight spotter, I prefer the Carl Zeiss 85mm I use in matches, but for range work where you park not too far from where you set, the 100 Optolyth is unbeatable. Penalty, it is heavy.

 

[sp6x6]

Friend of mine got one of those 100,s from a bench shooter.WOW is all I can say.We would use it out west looking at antelope, you could see them in next county

 

[bamban]

Friend of mine got one of those 100,s from a bench shooter.WOW is all I can say.We would use it out west looking at antelope, you could see them in next county

Because of the weight it is not practical for me to use for a personal scope in matches. In team matches, it serves the coaches needs.

 

[yobuck]

Because of the weight it is not practical for me to use for a personal scope in matches. In team matches, it serves the coaches needs.

Back when Unertle was still building scopes they also built a very large 100 mm spotter called a team scope.
They like all Unertle products were excellent quality.
The military used them for their rifle teams also.
Anyway i have an old friend who repairs the WW2 vintage large optics.
He recently came upon 2 of these scopes that had been used by the Marines. They are in large wood boxes and in excellant condition. I believe each have 3 eyepieces of a different power and a tripod included.
Years back i ran into a guy who had 2 of them put together in a bracket. Problem was due to the way they were built they had to be placed in the bracket straight up, and not rotated to allow for inter eye relief.
This guys eyes were very far apart, which is the only reason he could use them.
Mind you, the Japs had large ship binoculars with up to 180 mm objectives, but on all of the larger ones the eyepiece housings rotate, allowing for proper inter eye adjustments.

 

[Wyo37]

Have you ever tested your fixed 30x against your variable set on 30x on the same things on the same day as for clarity?
If not you should.

I have. The 30x wide angle is better in every way.

 

[LRNut]

Not who you're replying to but if you have a reticle in your spotter you can use it to manually rangefind objects of known size. Like a rangefinder but a lot more magnification

Also good for judging if moose antlers are 50" (the legal minimum for non-residents). You know the range, you know the subtension of your reticle, you know if the moose is big enough...or not.

Obviously you can do the same with something like a NF MOAR reticle.

 

[yobuck]

I have. The 30x wide angle is better in every way.

Absolutely, any good quality fixed power eyepiece will be clearer than a zoom eyepiece set on the same power.
Its too bad that all but Kowa have gone to using zoom eyepieces exclusivly.

 

[yobuck]

Also good for judging if moose antlers are 50" (the legal minimum for non-residents). You know the range, you know the subtension of your reticle, you know if the moose is big enough...or not.

Obviously you can do the same with something like a NF MOAR reticle.

Well i for one wouldnt want to be using a reticle for judging wether a moose had 48" or 50" horns at say 500 yards with a reticle. But to each his own.