Scope for low light hunting

[bluesman]

I recently had to let the buck of a lifetime walk away because it was too dark to see through my Burris Fullfield II 3-9X40mm scope.  Yes, it was cranked down to 4X.

Now I am looking for a good quality scope that will extend my shooting time several minutes, as long as possible.  My budget is the $600 range and I want to limit the objective size to 50mm.  Something in the 3-9 variable power range.  I might have shots as long as 300 yards but most are 50 to 150 yards.

After reading several forums of which I am not a member and also tests about light transmission that are supposedly objective, I am leaning towards a Zeiss Conquest 3-9X50mm scope.  Apparently, it is brighter that the comparable Leupold that I was considering before hand.  I will definitely buy American made if possible but performance in low light is king.

Any suggestions from those that have owned and used scopes in low light?

[kyelkhunter3006]

I'm going out on a limb here, but having owned several Fullfields and I currently have a couple of Short Mags, they are supposedly almost 95% light transmission with the coatings that Burris uses.  I have NEVER had a problem with it being too dark to pick out a deer during any legal shooting hours here in KY, which is 1/2 hour before dawn to 1/2 hour after dusk.   You say that most of your shots are 50-150 yds, which shouldn't be a problem for any decent quality scope at all.  I'm not saying anything, but I think that it was probably too dark to be shooting at a deer, in general.

When it gets dark, you need to crank up the magnification to 6x or so, higher power helps with the twilight factor of any scope by making things more defined.  It reduces the exit pupil, but increases definition. Does your scope have the Ballistic Plex in it?  I've found that once it's in that 1/2 after dusk period, the plex tends to fade out since it's so fine, and that a regular Duplex type is much better.

The ultimate low light scope is an 8x56 fixed power, as it has the largest exit pupil that the human eye can take advantage of (which is 7)  and a huge objective to gather as much light as possible.  It's popular in Europe for night hunting of boars.  Many of them have very thick heavy Duplex reticles or post reticles.

I don't think that going over a 40mm lense is going to help you, honestly.  I'd stick with the Zeiss if you like it, but get the 3-9x40. I think that it's better than the Leupold in clarity and definition, which will help you more than light transmission will.  If you're losing the X-hair, get a heavy duplex type or one of the post types, with a clearly defined aiming point that shows up against the darkest possible background.  If most of your shots are less than 150 yds, the ballistic plex (if you've got it) of the Burris is more of a hinderance when the light is dim, and you're not really taking advantage of the long range aiming points anyway.

[45-70.gov]

put  a red dot piggy backed  on  top your scope

i  have  a 25-06 tikka  and  an  ar  set  up that  way

your  also  ready for  point blank shots

mount  your red dot  on  a 22  and  learn how to use  it
it  is  deployed a little different than a normal scope
tho  you can  use  it just like a normal scope
just  won't get  its full  advantages

[Graybeard]

You really need two things for good low light use of a scope. One is of course excellent optics and high quality multi-coating on those optics. That lets the maximum possible amount of light thru. Scopes do not GATHER LIGHT no matter how many folks say they do. The ONLY thing they do is to transmit light and at each and every air to glass surface a small bit of the light is lost. How little is determined by the quality of the glass and coatings.

The second thing you need is a fairly thick reticle so you can see it if you can see the target animal. Lighted reticles try to get around that by illuminating the reticle. The problem with that is most of them then blur out the target animal due to too much light. The best of them are those with only a tiny dot of light at the intersection of the crosshairs. That too needs to have an adjustment to turn it down as needed.

Honking huge objectives do not add nearly as much as most think they do to this they merely make you raise your head off the stock to see thru them. A high quality scope with a 40-44mm objective is more than adequate for any legal shooting hours anywhere in the US.

On my wife's rifle I have a Bushnell Elite 4200 1.5-6 scope. I put it there or a hog hunt in Texas on a week with no moon and it was a night time hunt. No of course we couldn't see the hogs under the trees with no moon but with any amount of light from a flashlight it sure was as good a combination as I've seen. on a night with a moon it was fine all on its own with no flashlight. It's as good a low light scope as I've run into yet.

Just get a quality scope with a bold crosshair and don't worry about all the fancy extras manufacturers add to help you see the crosshair as most hurt your ability to see the target animal.