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What scope are you using for competition BR?

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jps2486

jps2486

Member
Apr 20, 2015
3,380
2,361
Onalaska, WI, United States
I'm compiling a spreadsheet with specs of scopes that my fellow shooters are using in air rifle benchrest. Can you please reply as to what scope you are using by make, model, magnification range? Thank you. When I get this done, I'll post the spreadsheet for all to see.

BTW, I use a Mueller 8-32X33 target dot on both my HV and LV rifles. I'm considering a Sightron SIII 10-50X with crosshairs for a new long range gun that's coming down the road.
 
I was always puzzled why army sub MOA Designated marksman rifle uses 10x scope and is good to 600yards.

And why 2-3 and more MOA air rifles are using 30-50x?

One explsnation that I heard is that huge magnification lets use bad scope as good sub 100yard rangefinder. Buf for Bench rest? I thought theres planty of time to use laser rangefinder and targets are not moving?
 
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"peole"I was always puzzled why army sub MOA Designated marksman rifle uses 10x scope and is good to 600yards.

And why 2-3 and more MOA air rifles are using 30-50x?

One explsnation that I heard is that huge magnification lets use bad scope as good sub 100yard rangefinder. Buf for Bench rest? I thought theres planty of time to use laser rangefinder and targets are not moving?
Click to expand...

I think it's because the army shoots at completely different sized targets. They shoot at human sized targets, we shoot at a 3cm circle. It also makes a difference whether you're hunting or target shooting with your airgun. During a hunt, hitting anywhere within the 3cm is ok. During benchrest, hitting in the exact middle of the circle is key. In order to see the exact middle of the circle you need magnification.

The reason that bad scopes with high magnification are usable is nonsense I think. Ever looked through a bad scope at high magnification? Your eyes will get very tired of looking at a poopty image and they try to compensate everything that's wrong. You'll probably end up with a headache after 1 hour of shooting.

And I think most benchrest shooters are also sub MOA shooters ;) otherwise you won't shoot a 250 score on a 25 meter target.


For benchrest I'm using a meopta meopro 6-18x50 for 50 meters and a bushnell legend ultra HD 4,5-14x44 for 25 meters, both with mildot reticle.
 
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"broekzwans"

I think it's because the army shoots at completely different sized targets. They shoot at human sized targets, we shoot at a 3cm circle. It also makes a difference whether you're hunting or target shooting with your airgun. During a hunt, hitting anywhere within the 3cm is ok. During benchrest, hitting in the exact middle of the circle is key. In order to see the exact middle of the circle you need magnification.
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isn't 1" circle pasted on elephant bigger than 1" circle pasted on squirrel? 1 moa rifle will send 3 bullets inside 1" at 100 yards be it elephant or squirrel. Thats moa accuracy by definition. Accuracy is attribute of hardware, not operator.

10x scope is good to do single .224 hole at 100 yards There always 4-5 well equpeed guys at any local range doing it every evening. Given good hardware - no super skills required for that.

To my knowledge Leupod, Zeiss, Leica, Swardowski - none is making anything more than 30x.

What makes 40x scope used at 25yards with air gun such a nessesaty?

 
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To my knowledge Leupod, Zeiss, Leica, Swardowski - none is making anything more than 30x.

What makes 40x scope used at 25yards with air gun such a nessesaty?

Click to expand...


I shoot 25M benchrest. In benchrest you're watching the flags with one eye and the holding off with the other. A 24X didn't quite cut it for my over 50 eyes, so switched to 36X which is noticeably better.

Most at my local range use Weaver, Sightron, and Leupold, with others here and there. Best to try before you buy.



Leupold makes 45X for benchrest. Sightron, Weaver, and possibly others 36X.
 
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With a top quality lenses for a scope you don't need more than 10 X up to 100 yards.
Army snipers are trained to use fixed 10 X at MOA targets.
They don't train to shoot body size targets.
They train to shoot in very specific POI on the body size target. (an eye for example) at 200 yards and a head at 1000 yards.
If your scope don't have top quality lenses of course you need more magnification.
Just compare a Smith & Bender scope side by side with a Zeiss both set with 10 X at a 100 target you will understand.
 
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If you can't see it, you can't hit it.
The biggest problem with lower magnification scopes (say, 10x) is that very often the crosshairs are way too thick, which covers too much of the target.
I don't know any serious BR shooters who are using 10x scopes. For BR, more is better.The X will be completely covered behind about all crosshairs of a 10x scope. Nuff said.
You can always dial back with a variable scope, so you can adapt your scope to the circumstances. (e.g. mirage)
10 years ago, I have shot 50mm 10 shot groups at 300m with my Steyr SSG 308 with a 12x scope. (With very fine mildot reticle)
When I would have had my 25x S&B or SIII 50x at that time, I know for sure this would have brought me even smaller groups.
 
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Nikko Sterling Diamond Sportsman 10-50x60 on my bench rest and field target rigs. It's crystal clear, bright, and easy to see the pellets holes from 10-55 yards. It also has very repeatable turrets (I was trained as a turret dialer, not a hold over/hold beside guy) The 1/8 MOA clicks on this scope let you dial to put the pellet exactly into the center of the cross hairs. I'll show you.....

The below is my turret tape from one of my guns (you see it in my avatar every post). See how from 18 yards up to 36 yards all the numbers are right beside each other? Those are 1 click apart on the 1/8 MOA elevation turret.

A 1/4 MOA would be fine for say going from 14 to 15 yards or 42 to 43 or 47 to 48 or 49 to 50. But from 16 to 17 you'd be off by a little bit. Same for 17 to 18. And if you had a 1/4 MOA turret, everything from 18 to 36 would be a little high or a little low on a 1/4 turret.

For BR and FT, this get you as close to the center as possible with as little manual compensation as possible. For hunting, this makes hitting your target almost boringly easy with something like Strelock and a wind/weather meter.

For example, the green numbers are the actual clicks. So I'm zero'd at the max of the trajectory (all my air and powder rifles are setup like this). On this gun, the max is the point at "0" at around 28 yards. Everything else is dialing back down the scope from the zero. So on Strlock Pro, when it says something like '80 clicks for 110 yards" I do one full rotation of the elevation turret (to 0) then 5 more clicks to the green 80 and the pellet is dead on at 110 yards in the center of the cross hairs. 

For 9 yards, dial back past 10 to 9 (purple) then about a half rotation to 8, 7, and 6 yards. I stopped at 6 as that is the exact distance from the dining room window to the bottom of the bird feeder where I train squirrels with bad eating habits. 


 
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