Low light scope expectations. How much better are they than the Leica I might return?

[Tl15]

I never bought a Polar because I demand illuminated reticles for hunting black pigs in dark brush and the ridiculously stupid seperate illumination control that S&B uses confounds mounting the scope easily and looks incredibly impractical. When they fix that, I would consider buying one just to see what the fuss is about.

As to the Magnus, if you go by the product literature, the Fortis actually surpasses the Magnus line now in theoretical performance. That tracks considering how old the Magnus design is.

 

[KenLee]

A couple weeks ago europtic had some of the t96 marked way down. I’m not sure how the glass in the Leica er5 compares to the amplus but, I have a er5 4x20x50 & a leupold vx5hd 3x15x56. The vx5hd is the better low light & through the magnification range.

ER5 3-15x56 is just as good with light as the same VX5 HD, and more dependable. Amplus is a little better and has illumination.

 

[stevevan]

ER5 3-15x56 is just as good with light as the same VX5 HD, and more dependable. Amplus is a little better and has illumination.

Guess my experience is different. I have 3 of the 3.5-15x50 Leica Amplus6 scopes and they work real well past legal shooting light.

 

[KenLee]

Guess my experience is different. I have 3 of the 3.5-15x50 Leica Amplus6 scopes and they work real well past legal shooting light.

What did I say that was different than your experience?

 

[ChrisAU]

I used a 50mm Amplus 6 some last season and looked through a 56mm on a friends rifle. I can't fathom anything being noticeably better to the point that a no-shot scenario becomes a dead animal.

 

[Spoobs]

This thread might give you some ideas:

Low light comparison of 17 scopes

There are always constant threads of discussions about “glass”, low light use, etc of scopes here. The last couple of week I have gotten many more questions about it (due I believe to SWFA being back in stock), so while working with a couple of scopes on other things, I brought out 10 different...

rokslide.com

lol, I'm exactly his audience. The only model I see in here that's consistently highly recommended for low light from my research is the S&B 8x56. It's interesting to see this users report: "Conclusions at legal sunset: “glass” differences in the timber made no difference in ability to make a shot- none whatsoever with these scopes. Reticles however, made a very large difference."

If the 8x56 is a good as people say, it's likely the more premium optics are going to be similar.

If you don’t need to dial for range, the 8x56 Schmidt and Bender is as good as it gets.
The 2-10 Trijicon would be my best bang for buck pick. We can legally hunt one hour after legal sunset here in SC, and the Trijicon is a very popular scope for guys trying to stay in the stand till the very last minute.

Honestly I don't really care about BDC for my hunting rifle. I'd be lucky to get an opportunity to shoot pass 200 yards. The 8x fixed zoom is a problem for me tho, I suspect I'll mostly be around the 2-6x zoom range as I want large FOV.

Can you still get the magnus in the US?

Not from a retail distributor. I've seen one on gunjoker with the zeiss rail mount option, and there was a user here who had one for sale in the classifieds about 6 months ago. Pretty rare I see these on second hand sites.

 

[Spoobs]

Can’t buy your way around physics. Exit pupil is everything. All the bigger objective is buying you is the ability to run higher magnification at the same apparent brightness.

That said, coatings and light transmission DO make an objective difference in the last few minutes, but that’s really what we are talking about here, minutes.

Interesting, I was under the impression objective size collects more light and thus results in a brighter image. The Amplus 6 2.5-15x56 has the same exit pupil as the 2.5-15x50 at the lowest magnification (11.6mm) and at max magnification the exit pupil is 3.7mm and 3.4mm respectively. The difference doesn't seem that huge and I honestly only seeing myself using magnification above 10x at the range in daylight. If this is true I may have been better off getting the x50 so I can get lower rings.

54 or 56mm Polar at 2-3x the price is your choice if you need better low light performance than a 56mm Amplus.

I got the Amplus 6 for $1179+tax, with the T96 on sale their price difference has never been so close. If they are getting discontinued it's possible they may go on clearance, but not before my return window on the Amplus runs out.

if you go by the product literature, the Fortis actually surpasses the Magnus line now in theoretical performance. That tracks considering how old the Magnus design is.

The magnus was on my radar first. I had an unjustifiable bias to try a Leica, one of the reasons I got the Amplus to begin with. It really is the best scope I've ever looked through, but I guess my expectation for low light was really high. The fortis has the same availability situation in the states as the magnus unfortunately. No US distributor offers them, I heard it was because of patent infringement but I never looked deeper to confirm this story so take that with a heavy grain of salt.

I used a 50mm Amplus 6 some last season and looked through a 56mm on a friends rifle. I can't fathom anything being noticeably better to the point that a no-shot scenario becomes a dead animal.

Your friend had the 56 version of your scope? Was there any brightness differences at low magnification?

 

[Southern Lights]

Square area of a circle shows potential here as a rough guide:

50 mm Objective Area: Approximately 1963.5 mm^2
56 mm Objective Area: Approximately 2463.0 mm^2
Increase in Light Gathering (56 mm vs. 50 mm): About 25% more.

If you want best low light, ignoring other factors, look at larger objective first. It's always possible the rest of the scope design compromises the objective size light gathering, but all else equal: Aperture wins.

Second factor is going to be using low magnification. With telescopes, higher magnification results in a dimmer view even on large aperture scopes.