Having a 1.5-5 on a plains game rifle is a handicap.
A 375 is capable of 300+ yard shots. Some plains game is small too.
Not so much a handicap as a compromise. Now, the new crop of 6x zoom range scopes eliminate a lot of the fringe areas by virtue of their wide range of zoom, but there is a significant trade off. The VX6 2-12x shows an MSRP of $1819.99 USD on the Leupold website and even their 5x model in 2-10x lists at $909 which will work out significantly more expensive once it makes it's way across the border. So much so that I wouldn't anticipate seeing any in the wild until oil gets back up to the mid $60/barrel range. Then there is the weight and sheer bulk of the VX5 and VX6 scopes. They're 5 ounces heavier than the 2.5-8x and, personally, I hate 40mm objectives on hunting scopes (though not as much as I hate 50mm objectives). They have to be mounted higher giving rise to a poor cheek weld and, the higher your max magnification, the larger objective you need to keep the image bright. Ounces equal pounds and pounds equal pain. The farthest I have ever walked while hunting was 25km in Zimbabwe, carrying a 375 the whole way. By the end of that day I didn't want any more weight to contend with.
To me the bottom end of the magnification range is more important than the top end. Sure you might give up some distance that you can make a shot, but if I can hit an 80 lb 3 foot high springbok at 313 yards and kill him stone dead with the first shot, I'm likely not going to have to reach much farther. But you'll find it much more problematic to get farther away from something that pops up in your lap (as duikers love to do). In fact, if it hadn't been nearly the end of the day we probably could have stalked much closer. And, let's be honest, it's a springbok. You'll see another one in a half hour. In Zimbabwe I think the longest shot I had was on the buffalo and when you're in bush like that you want more room on the bottom end in case he doesn't oblige and fall over in a nice clearing.
Now, the vast majority of 375s in this country are living in gun safes and being used to frappe moose, bears and the occasional bison. In that context I wouldn't
hate to have a 3.5-10x mounted, but as with any old Fudd, I'm more comfortable with what I'm comfortable with. The moose I have shot would have been shot just as well with a 3.5-10x as whatever I had on the rifle at the time (likely a 3-9x) and my bison was shot with iron sights at duelling range. Further, I like to plan for the worst which, to me, is embodied by the BC moose that ran over Steven Rinella on an episode of MeatEater, after it was wounded and went into the thickness. Or a bear under similar circumstances. Either one is no bueno and if I have to walk into a patch of alders or a willow slough following something that I want to put in the freezer, I want damn sure to be able to see clearly what I'm looking at.
