School me on how to evaluate the quality of rifle scope glass

[gohring3006]

Not going comment on clarity because it's subjective, but this is a good guideline to build quality.

 

[Australia]

I have Kahles, Zeiss, Burris eliminators,Sharowski, and a Tasco and from a performance for a professional point of view the best light gathering scopes have a 56mm objective lens and once you adjust the rear of the scope to your eye so as to get a complete round picture then you will find a lot of the modern scopes perform very well - The cheep Tasco scope has a 56 mm objective lens and it is just as good as some of the expensive scopes however for back up service Zeiss so far has been good for us as we are hard on scopes and rifles in this business - one scope that is impressing us a lot for longer shots is the Burris eliminator mk3 on a Remington 300ultra mag - worth a look

 

[blueprairiedog]

Try and find best scope or front rest and all you will find is pew pew on pew pew Tactical and go to the next web site and they will have the same Caldwell and Nikon and so on and where is the middle ground stuff

 

[jd126]

Try and find best scope or front rest and all you will find is pew pew on pew pew Tactical and go to the next web site and they will have the same Caldwell and Nikon and so on and where is the middle ground stuff

Looks like I'm not the only one having a drink this fine evening.

 

[Richard Crain]

I have a laminated military chart 127 yards from my porch. I use it for determining which scope has better resolution. There 13" wide deer antlers in the woods 131 yards from the porch. I use it for low light comparisons. Before this I thought my Bushnell 6500 4 1/23-30X50 was as good as my Nightforce 12-42X56. In those days I used twigs and leaves on the trees about 125 yards away. What a wakeup. I discovered one does not get what one pays for but what one shops for if they want quality. This is based on my side by side with gobs of brands including Swarovski, Vortex, Schmidt & Bender. S&B have great glass.

If someone wants a copy of this chart I could try to email it. I'm not very computer savvy.

IOR has the best glass I have ever seen.

 

[fiftybmg]

When I went shopping for a long range scope, I took my Leupold VX1 3-9 along.

I compared a number of scopes by focusing on distant brickwork. Exposed brickwork has a regular pattern, which at a distance it's easy to see if the lines stay true under magnification.

The final test was the sight picture compared to the Leupold. If it didn't look as good to me, I discarded it.

When you evaluate scopes, have something to reference against. Any scope on it's own seems like it could be ok, it's only by comparison that your eye registers the difference.

 

[tomsd]

I love this topic! Since I'm not an expert it's an area with lots left to learn! Like most engineering problems, I want narrow the topic to simplify. Best glass is to subjective. We need to get more specific.

The article I published at Revic Optics breaks down the major optical aberrations we deal with in rifle scopes. The truth is as a consumer most of those don't mean anything to me. In other words, even the cheapest scopes seem to do good enough. Only a handful of these aberrations seem to differentiate all riflescopes.

I would suggest a different approach to this forum discussion. Rather than the global vague and subjective discussion of which glass is best, why don't we rank our top 5 optical aberrations in order of importance and why.

Then we can have a very much more objective discussion about how scopes rank on these individual, sometimes measurable parameters.

The end result is that for most scopes, the optical designer had to make decisions and trade-offs to get the system that he felt was optimized. Engineering problems are always about optimizing trade-offs for the desired outcome.

I personally would suggest that you could bracket scopes into 3 categories. Sub 800, sub 2500, and spendy! Most optics in these classes will be of similar class, although there are surprises out there.

I think $2,500 is spendy !

 

[Lenny Foffa]

Great info from Everyone. Thank you all. My 30X ; 35 X and 45 X Leupold Bench Rest Scopes all seem just fine at the range for 100 yard group and score shooting . I also have a 36 X Sightron that's pretty sharp and clear as well. However, Hunting Deer , at 5;30 Pm , in November , in West Virg, my Leupold Vari X 3, 2.5x to 8 x 1 inch tube , 40mm obj. lens scope is not as bright and sharp as my friends Swavarski ( spelling ) . All day long the VX 3 is just fine for me , but sitting in the blind , together , the difference in clarity and sharpness ,at very low light , was amazing . This past year, I purchased a VX 3 4.5x to 14x , on a 30mm tube, 40 mm Obj. Lens ,for that deer rifle . I hope the 30mm tube will be a slight improvement for that last 20 min , but I wont know that for sure , until November.

 

[FEENIX]

View attachment 194348
Not going comment on clarity because it's subjective, but this is a good guideline to build quality.

LL!

 

[Rich Coyle]

Great info from Everyone. Thank you all. My 30X ; 35 X and 45 X Leupold Bench Rest Scopes all seem just fine at the range for 100 yard group and score shooting . I also have a 36 X Sightron that's pretty sharp and clear as well. However, Hunting Deer , at 5;30 Pm , in November , in West Virg, my Leupold Vari X 3, 2.5x to 8 x 1 inch tube , 40mm obj. lens scope is not as bright and sharp as my friends Swavarski ( spelling ) . All day long the VX 3 is just fine for me , but sitting in the blind , together , the difference in clarity and sharpness ,at very low light , was amazing . This past year, I purchased a VX 3 4.5x to 14x , on a 30mm tube, 40 mm Obj. Lens ,for that deer rifle . I hope the 30mm tube will be a slight improvement for that last 20 min , but I wont know that for sure , until November.

It will only be better if the glass or coating is better. Tube size is irrelevant.

 

[XSIVSPD]

@Will16 has good images of what I look at. Chromatic aberrations, resolution of fine details, and color accuracy all make a huge difference in being able to pick up game in low light, or in shadows on dark days.

That being said, I'm perfectly happy with my vipers pst scopes, and sold off my khales to buy other things. There was a very noticible difference in glass, but for me 5he extra cost wasn't worth it. The khales might have been amazing, but the Viper pst are more than "good enough" for me. If I was trying to shoot game at twilight from 1200yds I might feel differently, but I'm likely to be 1000yds closer than that in my hunting situations

 

[Tommo64]

Low light conditions is what separates the good from the mediocre. The better the glass, the better the light transmission at the end of the day. The quality of the coatings is another factor. And finally, the overall build quality. Much like anything else, you gets what you pays for. All boils down to what your intended use is and ultimately, for most of us, your budget and how much you are prepared to pay.

 

[Rich Coyle]

Much like anything else, you gets what you pays for. All boils down to what your intended use is and ultimately, for most of us, your budget and how much you are prepared to pay.

I do believe this is an internet myth. I compared a Leupold VX-5 3-15X56 ($1,100) with Swarovski v5 5-25X52 ($1,550), Leupold VX-6 4-24X50 ($1,350), and Bushnell 6500 4 1/2-30X50 ($850) on 13" wide deer antlers 131 yards away in the woods. The VX-5 lasted six minutes longer than the other three; which all went down in the same minute.

 

[5.56×250]

I like this idea. Now if it was the hundred dollar bill test, I wouldn't be able to set that one up.

Yea, i was thinking more along the lines of a shiny penny test. Stick it in some pine bark 100 yds away in a dark creek bottom. Scope that finds it WINS !