Kinda late to this thread but most of us older hunter shooters are still looking for the holy grale of 16X scopes. So far to the best of my knowledge I agree with Don, they don't exist. Years back we had a hunter shooter that had his scope doctored from 12x to some where around 24x. It wasn't discovered unti this guy got exited by AFFTA for boosting his rifle power in the middle of a National. It wan't until he sold this scope that it became know by the buyer that it well exceeded the 12x limit of the Hunter class. So there is really no way to verify actual scope magnification other than viewing the power setting and I have never seen or heard of any official in a big match doing that.
I have always believed that shooting the match at known yardages for everyone would be the fairest way to play this game. We still have one's own skill and the wind to keep us humble. This would eliminate a need to waste money on top dollar scopes that just don't rangefind at 16X. Take away advantages of home range and like it or not there is an advantage if you are helping set out targets or shoot the course enough to recognize range land marks. If you think this doesn't happen then carry on and Good Luck!
I partially agree with you about known distances.
An example......
All the way back to 2020 when we first started having monthly high power field target matches, we've posted the distances. It's been great-much cheaper to play the game, and even be competitive. I've won matches with cheap 20x SWFA scopes. The hassle and frustration of ranging by focus simply isn't there.
As part of the early discussions and shooter votes to establish high power FT, we wanted to avoid a fragmented pool of shooters with sometimes only 2 or 3 shooters in each of 6 different classes/divisions like we see in AAFTA. The only "divisions " we had/have are pellet/slug/rimfire. Pellet class has typically been the largest class. No separation of classes by scope like we see in AAFTA, which I personally think is great and adds to the inclusive nature of how high power ft is structured. Luckily those who took-over high power ft chose to continue keeping everybody in the same class, scope-wise, for the nation wide "GP series."
The flip side of that coin is that unknown distance is just part of the game of AAFTA type matches. Going back decades, it's just part of what makes field target what it is, like kneeling and offhand shots, just part of the game. And yet another aspect that a successful ft shooter has to figure out. Of course, it drives up the cost of being competitive, with guys perpetually chasing the perfect 16x scope, usually spending more and more with each new "try." If I didn't know better, I'd almost think there's scope companies behind this, an effort to drive up sales. But the truth of it is that only a couple of scope companies are even aware of the ranging by focus that we do in ft. So we're trying to make scopes do something their designers and manufacturers never intended for their scopes to do.
Anyway, high power ft, as an example of a flavor of field target where we omitted the unknown distance factor, is doing just fine without ranging by focus. Sure doesnt take away any of the fun factor. While sub20 AAFTA shooters (specifically Hunter class) are perpetually on the hunt for a scope that excels in doing something that most scopes aren't designed to do. Lol, makes perfect sense. "Field target sense", if you would.
