Best spotting scope?

[Tempest455]

Under $200. Any input???

[Guest FroggyOne2]

Ummmm .. save your bucks..

[Oh Shoot]

I bought a $40 Bushnell 20-60 power, one with the long eyepiece, like a telescope, since the short eyepiece optic ones are generally more.

Piece of crap, but I can see .22 bullet holes in lighter colored paper at 200 yards, which was all I was after. So mine is "good" for needs/price and quality expectation.

- OS

Edited June 26, 2010 by OhShoot
dial up woes

[Kenstaroni]

I was at the range a couple weeks ago and a guy had a spotting scope / binocular combo with a padded backpack that he got from Gander Mountain. It all came as a "kit". Not the best spotting scope, but it was ok and worth the price he paid ~$100 on sale, I think they are regularly $200. It's hard to find a good quality spotting scope for $200. You'll either have to settle for a cheapo to get you by, or maybe buy some binoculars since you can use those for other things as well.

Bass Pro has a Redhead spotting scope that's pretty affordable. All Redhead products have lifetime "bring it back and we'll give you a new one" warranties. If it sucks, you can return it.

Good luck!

[wareagle]

Check ebay for one of the older Tasco World Class armor covered scopes. Taiwan or Korean optics. Their optics aren't that bad. I paid $99 for mine about 20 years ago. I was thinking about upgrading, but decided it was good enough givent he price.

[Guest FroggyOne2]

Well I have an Alpen 80mm and I have a Unertl.. I love the Unertl.. shop around you may find one on the cheep! The one to look for is the 24X63 streight or 45 Degree angled one (which are rare). I had a Kowa 821 but it was stolen.. My next one is the Kowa 82SV with a 25X LER lens.. you can pick one up for around 900.00. other than that, they get really rediculious in price.. the next one that I would consider would be Vortex Razor HD.. which sells for 1500 or so.

[fastbs]

My vote goes to the Celestron Ultima 60.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Depends on application of course, and ya get what ya pay for.

I looked thru this Winchester 12-50X50 at the store, and it wasn't bad for $99.

Cabela's -- Winchester Compact Spotting Scope

I'm blind in one eye so binoculars seem somehow wasteful. Have been looking for a zoom scope small and low-powered enough for handheld, but with optional higher power for tripod use. For handheld use, power much higher than 12X is kinda wobbly.

That Winchester seemed to focus and zoom well, and the image was pretty good for the money. Main issue is that the eye relief is pretty short-- Which means you get a good field of view without glasses with the eye close to the eyepiece, but you can't see much of anything if you are wearing shooting glasses. Since I'd prefer to look at targets without removing the shooting glasses, that is the problem that would keep me from getting the Winchester, though it is nice for the money otherwise.

Virtually all zoom scopes (even astro scopes with expensive zoom eyepieces) have a small apparent field of view at low power, and the apparent field of view gets bigger as you zoom to larger power. So at low power, it can look like you are peering thru a soda straw. Then when you zoom in, the visible field gets much bigger. The low-power AFOV of that Winchester was pretty wide compared to the soda-straw narrow view that some zoomed-out binocs and scopes can give, and the AFOV was pretty nice zoomed-in.

====

The Leupold Gold Ring 10-20X40 looks almost ideal for handheld use, and the specs have an eye relief that ought to be long enough to use without taking off the shooting glasses. But they are $350

Cabela's -- Leupold® Gold Ring Compact Spotting Scope

Haven't had a chance to try that Gold Ring. It costs money, but OTOH is cheaper than a fancy red-dot. Its about the cheapest Leupold USA-made. Leupold sells an import Sequoia line, but reviews of the imports are not as good as reviews of the USA-made Leupolds.

Something that small and convenient probably wouldn't have enough magnification to score targets past 100 yards.

If you really need high magnification, its a good idea to get at least an 80mm objective. Otherwise the high-power image will be disappointingly dim, even in the daytime. Its a hassle dragging a big scope along with pistols and rifles and ammo to the range. I have 80mm and 100mm refractors, but they wouldn't be a convenient tote to the range just to peek at a few targets.

[fastbs]

The tote around factor mentioned by Lester is the reason I suggest the celestron ultima 60 and not the bigger 80. I have and use the 80 but it is a chunk. After talking to people on forums I'm convinced the 60 would be a better all around option. The picture through my 80 is pretty darn nice for the price. The only thing I have not seen mentioned is mirage. For the range on a warm day the heat coming off the ground shows up on all spotters regardless of price. On these warm days mirage will render a 1000 dollar spotter useless just as much as a 100 dollar one.

[Guest Billetproof]

I like this Celestron 18-55x65, just over $100;

Celestron Ultima 18-55x65 Spotting Scope - Spotting Scopes at Spotting Scopes

[Tempest455]

Thanks for the feedback. I'm glad I looked at some stores rather than just buying on-line. I compared various models an asked questions of each model. I ended up with a Bushnell that fit my objectives. Interestingly enough, I compared it to a much higher priced Leupold scope and it was much sharper and brighter.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Thanks for the feedback. I'm glad I looked at some stores rather than just buying on-line. I compared various models an asked questions of each model. I ended up with a Bushnell that fit my objectives. Interestingly enough, I compared it to a much higher priced Leupold scope and it was much sharper and brighter.

Hi Tempest

Do you recall if the Leupolds you tried were Gold Ring or Sequoia models?

Online reviews seem quite flattering of the USA Gold Rings, and not so flattering on the import Sequoia models. I haven't been in a store yet that had any Gold Rings to try.

Online scope reviews seem a good resource if one can find enough reviews on the model of interest. Also actual hands on examination. Every time I've had a chance to examine a scope that had generally bad online reviews, my hands-on verdict was that yes the scope really did suck as much as the reviewers said.

Celestron makes some really nice for the money big astro scopes. I have a couple of those and like em. Their refractor small spotting scopes are probably fine too, assuming they are about like their small refractor astro scopes.

Celestron makes pretty nice for the money big mirror catadioptric astro scopes, and some small and mid-size catadioptric spotters. Maybe the catadioptric spotters are best for bird watchers, dunno. They make 130 mm and 90 mm cats that get not-awful reviews, and sell a really inexpensive cute tiny 65 mm cat that gets universally bad reviews.

I saw a 65mm Celestron cat at a camera store new in the box. Asked to see it and they took it out of the box, and the dern thing was broken brand new. They hunted up more and after opening 3 boxes we found one that worked, but after that I was gunshy. They are small and ought to be great for some application, but that kind of design has too much magnification and too narrow a field of view, even if the dang thing was built properly.

Last weekend examined a $350 Bushnell folded design. It had great eye relief, crisp image, and focused great, but the zoom was broken and didn't work at all. Not encouraging. Maybe that example was the only one of that model in the whole world with a faulty zoom.

Scopes generally come from China, Taiwan, Japan, and Russia. A betting man would bet on Japan first. Russia sometimes makes real nice optics. Sometimes not. Taiwan seems competitive with Japan on the high end. China is technically capable of making good scopes, if the budget is big enough. But even China can't make a good mechanically solid optically adequate scope for chump change. Most 'affordable' scopes are Chinese.

Edited July 3, 2010 by Lester Weevils