Choosing a telescopic sight. Which one to buy?
Every hunter, after five years of owning his first smooth-bore weapon, is faced with the choice of purchasing a rifled rifle. Along with this decision it is often worthwhile to choose a rifle scope. Although the sight is bought repeatedly and it can be more than once. But each time the decision is connected with the complexity of choice for different reasons.
First reason – what sight to choose: collimator, optical, night sight? And moreover it is necessary to be reliable, good and not to be ashamed before friends… When the decision to choose the optical sight is made there are a lot of questions about its characteristics and various technical properties.
Types of telescope sights by magnification
Sights for driven hunting have magnification from 1 – 4, 1.5 – 6, 1.6 – 8 times, objective lens diameter from 20 to 32 mm, not big dimensions and weight
The universal sights for 100 – 400 m (medium range) have magnification from 2 – 7 to 4 – 12 times and objective lens diameter from 32 but not more than 50 mm. These are sights for medium range shooting. With them it is possible to hunt both in advance and in mountains and in the corral. They have a various choice of sighting nets.
Sights with higher magnification and greater diameter of the objective lens are sights for mountain hunting and shooting at long distances. Such sights differ with increased magnification from 10 to 50 and more multiples, while diameter of the objective lens is usually from 50 mm and in most cases from 56 mm. Dimensions and weight of the mountain sights are significantly greater than those of their “smaller brothers” and they look more powerful. Such sights are used by sportsmen and for hunting in the mountains. Depending on the manufacturer these sights have different range of magnifications, besides they often have subtle and important function – parallax adjustment and, depending on the equipment, possibility to use bullet drop compensators – “ballistic turrets”.
Each sight has its own tasks and purpose. Rear-firing sights are not suitable for high-precision shooting at long distances and vice versa. The right choice of sight is the key to successful hunting and getting satisfaction from a successful trophy.
Types of scopes according to their functions
Sports. Sport scopes often have an open-type reel for making adjustments during shooting. They may have a small correction step (click) of less than 1⁄4 MOA (7 mm at 100 m), further 1/8 MOA (3.45 mm at 100 m) and less.
Army. Army sights also have open reels and differ from sport sights with increased reliability of manufacture, a special kind of rangefinder reticle.
Hunting sights. As a rule, for the hunting sights the reels are closed, not to disable adjustment while walking through the woods or accidentally catching the branches.