Help Needed: Dedicated Hunting Scope

[Greenbeard]

Hi All,

New user and relatively new rifle shooter. I’m looking for a dedicated hunting scope that will top everything from a .50cal muzzleloader to a Tikka 6.5cm to (hopefully) a custom 280ai build, that will be used primarily for deer species including whitetail in New England forests to (again, hopefully) mule deer and elk out west. I took my first buck last fall with an Athlon Ares BTR Gen2 4.5-27, which I had bought for long-range target shooting, and I was to upgrade to a dedicated hunting optic. I’m looking right now at the following options:
- Trijicon Credo HX
- Maven RS1.2
- Nightforce SHV F1
- Toric UHD
My budget is around $1-1.2k, and lower/upper magnification should be somewhere around ~2.5-4 to 14-18. My preference is FFP for a do-it-all hunting optic, but it seems like FFP reticle leave a bit to be desired in low light at low magnification.
The two most important factors to me, as a newish hunter, are low light performance and durability. Any thoughts about the options above, and are there any others I should add for consideration?

-Tenaciousjeebs

 

[KYFRED]

Are you looking at moving the scope between rifles? That seems like a lot of work and most would probably advise against the practice. I would save a little buy once and cry once. You can look in classifieds and find 2 decent scopes for that price range or wait a bit, save a bit and but 2 nicer scopes. There are a lot of sales out there too. Reticle is really shooter preference for me. I am older at 60 and too many lines just blur. I have liked Zeiss for some time and prefer keeping magnification to a level that I am not messing with a dial for distance and focus. Just me, but I do not shoot as much as I'd like and want to limit things to aim, trigger. Then again, I could be wrong on all of this.

 

[Greenbeard]

Are you looking at moving the scope between rifles? That seems like a lot of work and most would probably advise against the practice. I would save a little buy once and cry once. You can look in classifieds and find 2 decent scopes for that price range or wait a bit, save a bit and but 2 nicer scopes. There are a lot of sales out there too. Reticle is really shooter preference for me. I am older at 60 and too many lines just blur. I have liked Zeiss for some time and prefer keeping magnification to a level that I am not messing with a dial for distance and focus. Just me, but I do not shoot as much as I'd like and want to limit things to aim, trigger. Then again, I could be wrong on all of this.

I was looking at the conquest v4, it’s in the same price range, but it failed the drop tests pretty conclusively. I know that’s not as important in a dedicated hunting optic as it would be in more tactical scopes, but I don’t want to be constantly thinking about babying it. I kinda wish I had never discovered the field evaluations, but what’s done is done.

 

[Rich M]

Euro Optics, S&B Polar T96 will give you low light and durability but not dialing. Trijicon is another beefy scope. I have a Huron, it is so-so for low light.

Get a scope for every gun. Don’t bounce them around and rezero every bounce.

The ML season is about a week, you can do without a $1,000 scope on that. Burris Fulfield 2 is decently durable, would work nice and is very reasonably priced. I have one on my Optima .50.

As for the concept of babysitting a gun. Just don't throw it around like yer mad or in a hurry and things will be fine. No reason to be rough with your rifles.

 

[gr8fuldoug]

Take a look at the Telson Toxin 3-18×50 IR FFP Gen 2 MRAD ED
Key features
One Piece 30mm main tube, 6061-T6 Type 3 Anodized Matte finish.
50mm Objective lens for exceptional light gathering and image quality.
6x optical system.
First Focal Plane PH1 & PH2 reticles for precise long-range hunting and competition.
Japanese Apochromatic Plus ED glass with 99.8%
AR Coating Efficiency.
New Proprietary UHD Fully multi coated lens coatings.
Enhanced Stainless Steel competition turrets w/ zero stop, audible clicks & 2 turn indicator.
Excellent eye relief and Eye box w/ side Parallax focus adjustable to 15 yards.
100% sealed dry Argon purged for all conditions.
IP67 Certified waterproof, dust proof.
50 BMG Rated.
Precision construction, assembled and calibrated in a static free clean room for superior reliability.
ARD sunshade