A lot depends upon your natural eyesight and your age. After age 40 you begin losing night vision cells and need more light to see well.
There are several things that affect the amount of light that exits a rifle scope to the eye, but the one unfailing fact is that you cannot get out more than you put in. If you only put one gallon of gas in your truck there is no reason to believe you got more than one gallon. You just can't get out more than you put in. By age 58, I could not see antlers at 300 yards with 30 minutes of legal light left while using a 40mm objective.
Now then I am not the greatest hunter who has every walked the face of the earth so I just do not see a lot of big trophy deer walking around in bright sunlight. Consequently, I use a big objective lens and try to get a shot early or late.
You are correct on the Leupold variable power range. I am on the fence concerning light. Hunting at altitude in the Nevada mountains rarely is a problem with light. Of course, we have daylighht hunting restrictions, And at altitude there is normally enough twilight within those hours for the parting shot. However, I cannot afford both a quality spotting scope and the rifle scope this year. The 50 mm would help with scanning the mountain during those low light times (in conjunction with my Nikon Monarch 8X42 bionocs - highly recommended). But I am concerned about parallax error at longer ranges.
I do not know, but I hear, that the Sako 75 platform is capable of the "mystical 1000 yard shot". But keep in mind, if you shoot it you must go get it. A friend of mine took a 900+ yard shot One Time in NW Colorado. The deer just vanished...After several hours of cross country he reached where the deer had stood. It had been on the edge of a vertical cliff. It was now about 500 feet down, unreachable. His tag was filled, and he had no deer to take home. There was no way to tell a cliff was behind the deer from the shooters position at distance. He said he would never take a shot like that again. I never intend to take a shot over 600 yds in the mountains, but antelope in the high desert plains may be a different story.
Shiredude,
All right! another STW fan. I'll have some good questions for you when I get this Sako 75 platform up an running. I will post those questions of performance and tweaking in the Rifles, Bullets, Barrels and Ballistics section. Keep an eye out for me. I reload my own.
Although I intend to stalk big game to within 600 yds. I intend for this to be my new mountain lion and antelope rifle...AT&T -"Reach out and touch someone" to quote a phrase. I do not have a problem with the rifle weight in the mountains. With that wind whipping at 50+ MPH added weight is often more of a help rather than a hinderance.
Excellent point! Vision over the years, that - I had not thought of. That is a scored point on behalf of the 50mm. I intend to run this rifle until I can no more. Planning for future capabilites is important. I do not want to have to buy a scope twice.
Along the lines with what BB said, I found a monster (110"+) Coues deer a few years back, right at dark. He was about 375 yards out, and I put my spotting scope on him and could tell right away he needed to die. I didn't have time to move, and the grass was high enough that I couldn't shoot prone, so I took the scope of the tripod, put on my "shooter" to shoot off the tripod and tried to find the buck. I had hold over dots on that scope so i needed to be on full power for them to work, and i couldn't find the deer. Put the spotting scope back on, found the buck, hurried to put the gun back up, no buck. This little circus went on for a while and eventually it got too dark to see and the buck walked. This was the last day of season. Now hindsight being what it is and the fact that this was a few years ago I think i would have killed that deer today (dialed the scope down and figured the drop, I also use turrets now so i could have dialed down and dialed in and whacked him) but i just couldn't see him in my rifle scope. I'm not sure if an extra 10mm would have gotten that buck killed doing it the way I did back then, but it sure does sit in the back of my mind a lot. Nowadays I figure better safe than sorry
I agree with the 50mm choice. Also you mentioned being concerned about parallax error and I concur if you're going to start practicing stretching the range, so the LR version with sidefocus is the choice.
That said, I know you said you're set on brand choice and if so, that's fine as the above is a very decent scope that will serve you well. However, your first post makes it sound like optical quality is quite important to you. You even said you'd carry a bit more weight for better optics. You also said you'd want to use it as a spotting scope substitute (though I must say only do that on already identified targets--no "scanning"). And if you're really worried about a scenario such as the one Coues Sniper describes and want to hedge your bets, even with a 50mm objective there are other scopes that will do better.
Given all that, I'd really have to look at other brands. This is after owning/using the exact scope described above so I know it well. If you're limited to a similar price, I'd give a hard look at choices such as the Conquest or even one of the new 6500s. If you can spend a bit more, an IOR or Nightforce is going to get the job done better. I really just think you'd be happier in the end.
I agree with the 50mm choice. Also you mentioned being concerned about parallax error and I concur if you're going to start practicing stretching the range, so the LR version with sidefocus is the choice.
That said, I know you said you're set on brand choice and if so, that's fine as the above is a very decent scope that will serve you well. However, your first post makes it sound like optical quality is quite important to you. You even said you'd carry a bit more weight for better optics. You also said you'd want to use it as a spotting scope substitute (though I must say only do that on already identified targets--no "scanning"). And if you're really worried about a scenario such as the one Coues Sniper describes and want to hedge your bets, even with a 50mm objective there are other scopes that will do better.
Given all that, I'd really have to look at other brands. This is after owning/using the exact scope described above so I know it well. If you're limited to a similar price, I'd give a hard look at choices such as the Conquest or even one of the new 6500s. If you can spend a bit more, an IOR or Nightforce is going to get the job done better. I really just think you'd be happier in the end.
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