What would you recommend for a $1000 spotting scope?

[elsb0048]

Based on similar motivations to yours I bought a Leupold GR HD 12-40x60. Spent ~$700 on eBay ~4 years ago.
I don't have any experience with any of the alpha compact spotters (kowa/swaro) but the slightly lower magnification has been good for me to start learning to use a spotter. The leupy especially has great eye relief which is nice for getting started. Can be a little challenging with digiscoping adapters but I got mine sorted out eventually.
I use mine primarily for determining mule deer legality in 3 pt minimum units.

I definitely agree that it's mostly opinions. And I also think that different people have very different 'success' criteria and I'm beginning to suspect that for many folks use case the glass resolution is not necessarily the biggest factor. Makes me leery to rely too much on what an optics reviewer says since I suspect many of their priorities are different than mine.

Before I bought my budget leupold my friend and I borrowed his dad's Swaro ATS (80 I think although could've been 65, it's been years....)
The field of view was so narrow & eye relief so tight that between that and the learning curve of the angled eyepiece we both had such a hard time getting the damn thing aimed at 20x minimum power at something we'd identified in binos that it drove us nuts. That weekend the haze and mirage were so bad that nothing was usable past 40x anyway. The combined weight of the optic and the matching swarovski tripod (standing height) was more than either one of our rifles and both of us concluded that we would not bother packing that setup again.

since then I bought the used leupold 12-40 & a sirui carbon tripod+va5 head for a total of like $1000 all in and for my level of glassing skill and needs it is a MUCH more useable solution for 1/4 the price & 1/2 the weight... 12x low end with long eye relief on a straight spotter made me so much faster at getting it aimed where the binos were without adjusting the tripod at all.
But I'm a novice level glasser (I assume, based on my struggles with the best of the best glass....)
And I'm only trying to count muley tines out to ~1000yds, primarily to determine legality and take some photos, rather than assess 150 vs 180 class bucks or viewing much of anything 1 mi +

Now that I've got a few years behind my leupy I'm really keen to compare it back-to-back to some of the alpha competition like the kowa & swaro compacts as well as some of the more 'do-it-all' optics like swaro/kowa 65/66 to see if I feel differently with a bit more experience and if I would want to consider better glass for everyday hunts or bigger+better glass for an optics-heavy opportunity like a goat or sheep.

Not from any of the spotters on your list but with my leupy 12-40

~700-750 yds, no digiscoping adapter
View attachment 941954

~400 yds
View attachment 941955

~650yds
View attachment 941956

Edit: these goats are 2000-2100 yds
View attachment 941965

 

[Jfjfrye]

Kowa or Swaro.

Save your money until you can get either of these. Otherwise you’ll be wishing you did. I have a razor hd I’ll sell to add to my saving for one of these listed above. It’s a real thing.

 

[braydencase7]

I went through the same thing a couple years ago I ended up with a old nikon 82ed field scope, no regrets

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[flyfisher117]

A used Kowa 553 or 554 would be hard to beat with that budget.

I should have went this route.

I got a 60mm Razor Gen 2 and sold it almost immediately. It did not get me anything that my 10x + 15x Bino combo couldn’t already do. Other than it was heavy, dark, and the top half of the mag range was useless in any conditions.

 

[HookUp]

I have a Nikon Monarch

I went through the same thing a couple years ago I ended up with a old nikon 82ed field scope, no regrets

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Same. I have a Nikon Monarch Ed 82mm I got for $1100 does everything I need it to.

 

[htlt_surfboards]

Another vote for used Kowa 554

 

[7mm-08]

I went through the same thing a couple years ago I ended up with a old nikon 82ed field scope, no regrets

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Heck of a spotting scope that is not widely recognized for its superb optical qualities. The problem for me with that scope is the weight penalty for backpack hunting.

 

[MoeFaux]

I’ve had a spotter and 15x binoculars, sold the spotter and went multiple seasons before buying a really good spotting scope. A spotter has uses but it’s the lowest use of a hunting optic.

Were you out glassing your guide with mid tier 10x or just seeing what they already found?

There were so few bears spotted on that trip that there's really not much of an answer to that question. Across my two trips, there was never a time when glassing that a guide found a bear before me. On one sit, my guy saw some whitetails that I never found, but I don't think that was a glass issue - I think I was just never clear where he was looking.

I did take a peek through a guide's B1.2's while in Oregon. I could tell instantly that the clarity was far superior to my Vipers, but that clarity (at over the twice the price) was a luxury not a necessity. I've not yet had an experience where my bino's weren't sufficient. BUT - I've also never looked for brown animals in a brown landscape across significant distances, so I'm now learning what I need to be prepared for such things.

 

[Truck24hr]

It's getting difficult to get out west as often as I'd like when I have to pay for guides every time, so I'm trying to ween myself off the guides and accumulate more of the gear I need to DIY. Thus, I'd like some advice on which spotting scopes to look at. I'll offer the following bullet points to give you some background and flavor:

- I'm sure the first question many of you will ask is "what will you use it for?" And the answer, unfortunately, is that I don't know. I've never owned a spotter, so I'm not real sure how I'd use it. I've only ever used my 10x42 binos for glassing, then maybe peek through someone else's spotter to get a better look at something. I'm not really sure if it would only be used like that, or if I'd do more full time glassing with it.
- I can tell you that I'm not a light weight guy. I'm not venturing deep into the wilderness with everything I need to live and hunt strapped to my back, so a few ounces doesn't matter to me. More of a minimalist, really, so smaller size would be more important to me than lighter weight.

- I know there's a lot of 'buy once cry once' advice on Rokslide, but I'm not that guy. I would much rather buy something cheaper the first time so I can learn through using the product what I ultimately want or need out of it. Then, I have the confidence and motivation to spend more the second time if necessary because I know what I'm getting for my money, AND I can offset that cost by selling the first one. So, I see it more as "buy twice, cry never."

- Someone on a recent thread recommended the mini Vortex (Razor 13-39x56) for looking at anything inside of a mile. Do you all often find yourselves looking at things farther than that? Is that 85 mm aperture really important to have, or does it just help with the last 20 minutes of daylight?

- I love buying stuff used to save a few bucks, so we can tweak that $1k limit a bit to include a scope that could be 1300-1400 new.

I was in the same market last year. Ended up buying good 15x's and a good spotter (cause I gotta have a spotter, right?)

Shoulda sold all my good bino's, and taken the money for the 15's and spotter, and bought a great bino and great tripod.

Looking back, and considering the reality of how I hunt, no way in hell will I'll ever carry a heavy spotter.

After spending time behind a great bino in the mountains, I think you'd agree.

A spotter IMO is one of the things we think we gotta have, we find a way to justify the purchase, then maybe realize we didn't really need it

 

[gr8fuldoug]

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[Chris in TN]

Reading your stated criteria, including your unknowns, I'd work through it this way:

-Are you hunting true trophy-quality animals? Do you need to be able to distinguish between a 340" elk and a 360" elk? Or do you just need to be able to say 'yeah, that's a legal bull, let's go after him'.

I'm assuming the latter. If I'm wrong and it's the former, go with the guys advocating for higher-end stuff. But if it's the latter....

It seems like the standard generic scope nowadays is a 20-60x80 or something of that size. Too big. I have one sitting here now, it's ginormous and bulky and I am very seriously considering trading it and if I actually ever used it much I would have already done so. As it is, I use it about half an hour per year, on average. So I use it on 20x and tell myself "I need to trade down" but never actually do it.

So.....don't get one of the big bulky 77-80-82mm scopes.

Likewise, don't get a 50mm lens scope. Too small for distant use in lower light conditions.

The sweet spot, in my opinion, is the 60mm to 65mm scopes.

If I were buying another scope I'd go with something with the angled ocular lens, 60-65mm, and with quality fully multicoated lens. What brand it was wouldn't particularly concern me, and I wouldn't care whether it started at 11x or 12x or 13x or 15x because the vast majority of what I'd be using it for would likely fall between 15x and no more than 25x, and for the same reasons I honestly wouldn't care where it topped out - almost any variable spotter will start below 15x and top out above 25x.

My current scope is a Vortex Viper 20-60x80(?), straight lens. It's a great instrument, useful well beyond what I need it for. In October we glassed some elk with it - I spotted them with a binocular then we used the spotter to look a bit closer and grab a photo of them. They were ~2750 yards away. Could see them quite well, though admittedly it was a clear day and they were in the morning sun.

 

[Chris in TN]

A spotter IMO is one of the things we think we gotta have, we find a way to justify the purchase, then maybe realize we didn't really need it

I can't say *from experience* that I agree with this but I think it's worth considering. A nice set of 12x-15x binos would probably kill my 'need' for a spotting scope.

YMMV, a lot.

 

[Sccritterkiller]

The 56mm isn't worth packing if you have 10x42 binoculars...Been using a gen 1 razor 65mm for years no complaints.

 

[Mule3006Elk]

Save and get what you want. I've had okay glass and never enjoyed glassing through them (nocs, spotter). I have never look through my good glass and thought, "I miss my mediocre glass."

I had a Vortex Razor 11-33x50 spotter but in reality the image was more crisp and bright with my Swaro nocs. That spotter rarely got used for this reason and I sold it. Smaller was not better in this case. I have a larger alpha spotter that is extremely useful on my hunts out West. Some hunts I leave it home depends on the terrain ect.

I would get HIGH quality nocs with a tripod before I moved on to a spotter. You may be content with that. Plus you are still sorting out what your use purpose will be. Ultimately, you may not need them?

 

[Agross]

I would agree with several points already made. My opinion, If u want a spotter get a gen 1 vortex razor 65 mm for $550-$600 and play with it. See if it scratches the itch or how much u actually use it/like it. Sell the vipers and upgrade yer binos to a better pair of tens. U will more than likely use those a lot more than the spotter. I have slowly upgraded my binos over the years, and as mentioned already, I’ve never wished I kept my lesser glass instead of the better glass I upgraded to.
There are deals on here a lot for used glass that can save u a ton over buying new.

Where abouts r u in Michigan. I have the gen 1 razor and some Slc 10’s and 8’s if yer not to far away and want to look through them sometime.

I used to have the razor 10’s and b 1.2 8’s. Really enjoyed the b 1.2’s but swapped those out for the b3 8’s for hunting around here. They r some great binos for hunting Michigan in a smaller size.

 

[MoeFaux]

What type of terrain are you hunting? A lot of places in the West you don't "need" a spotter but if you're trying to glass a mile or two away it's very benefical.

YTD, which is part of the problem. I kinda want to go everywhere and do everything that's within my budget. These days my bucket list looks like this: More black bear in Pacific NW, Audad in the SW, Mule deer somewhere, maybe some elk somewhere, and possibly a Spanish Ibex if I can swing the international travel.

So, you can see it's difficult to pinpoint what I'd need in a setup, so I have to start with items that are general as possible.

It's sounding more and more like you're right and I don't need a spotter, since some good high power binos might be a lot more versatile.