school me on spotting scopes

[broncoo]

looking for one for range and hunting use

my 8x42 vortex vipers are great for spotting the animals but no so great for identifying if they are legal or not. the wife (my hunting partner) has expressed an interest in carrying the spotting scope so light is good probably a model with an angled neck. do most come with a tripod?

im not even sure on what kind of magnification range i would like. i generally spot with my binos to about a kilometer

budget is under a grand

(selling all the ipsc stuff and getting more into hunting)

 

[Grapeshot]

Not a spotting scope, but you're probably looking for something with a ranging reticle like this.

looking for one for range and hunting use

my 8x42 vortex vipers are great for spotting the animals but no so great for identifying if they are legal or not. the wife (my hunting partner) has expressed an interest in carrying the spotting scope so light is good probably a model with an angled neck. do most come with a tripod?

im not even sure on what kind of magnification range i would like. i generally spot with my binos to about a kilometer

budget is under a grand

(selling all the ipsc stuff and getting more into hunting)

 

[Hungry]

Having used spotting scopes in competition circles for over 25 years, I've learned that "Ya gits what ya pays for!"

Honestly, find good glass for your money! That's where you find the value. It's gotta work for your game.

Waterproof is essential
Large objectives can/may be heavy to carry
Rubber armour helps for your hunting needs
Both you and your wife should test the optics inside the store (I like Bass Pro because they have lots of room to test the optics... read: far away beams and rafters).

Ensure the optics are comfortable to look through for a long time (read: headaches suck)
Bright optics or "Holy shzyte!" factor really is nice (like my Kowa TSN 82SV)

Hope this helps!

Cheers,
barney

 

[Mystic Precision]

A few years back, I found the best value in a waterproof smaller spotter as the Pentax 65ED with a fixed power eyepiece (the included zoom is functional but mediocre if you really want to see).

If big is ok and you do not need super watertight, celestron is great value but it is BIG.

From there, you have the upper end bodies like Kowa/Howa, bigger pentax, leica, swarovski.

If you really want to see at LR, you will likely need to buy used to stay within your budget. Many times, the eyepiece is $300 to 500 alone.

If you are near an F class match, see if you can look through the many spotters there. Real easy to make educated decisions then

NO idea if waterproof but the Kowa 661 is used by a few shooters and with the long eye relief, optics are real nice. How much????

Jerry