Night time scope.

[Bugflipper]

I am looking for a scope where the emphasis would be on night time. Without a flashlight. I don't know how to properly phrase the parameters without sounding like a poacher or lunatic.    It's going to go on a semi auto rifle, maybe an ar set up as a free float varmint type, an m-4 clone or possibly an hk91. So that gives a lot of flexibility for suggestions.


 What I am looking for is the best light transmission and clarity I can get at night. For example I have a set of the smallest sized steiner binocs(predator I think). I can see the cows a quarter mile away with the moon out a little, but they are just shadows. With my eyes alone I can't see them. With a set of larger b&l binocs I can clearly make out each cow, see a little of the terrain and so on. I would imagine with a better set I should see everything in greater detail than those offer. That is what I am wanting, to have a scope not for dusk and dawn, but the best nighttime option. Most likely a nv riflescope isn't going to give much of a range for what I am willing to spend. Let's put the cap at $400. Anyone with a comparison of my 3200 is brighter at night than my buckmaster or similar input would be helpful as well.
Thanks.

[SHOOTALL]

Check out a VX-R with fire dot . Divide the power you will use into the obj. size to get exit pupil . The human eye can use  an exit pupil of between 2-3 . so a 3 power with a 40 mm obj gives 13.3 exit pupil way more than your eye can use. 9 power into 40 is 4.4 exit pupil still more than you can use. Big objectives give wider field of view . So If I were you I would get the best glass I could afford , would decide power I would need and get no bigger scope that nessary to transfeer light to my eye that I could use. I don't care for large scopes on my AR is a 2-7 . The one other thing is cross hair construction , for night use it needs to be bold so it can be seen. Some are lighted but they can distract you at night . I find the bold cross hairs and fire dot a good sight. I have the 3-9 VX-R on a 308 bolt gun.

[Empty Quiver]

As far as I can tell you are describing a European hunting rifle setup. Night hunting is a legitimate practice and the gear is optimized for it, perhaps you can find a Euro hunting site to help you out? As I understand it that is why the 30mm tubes and super expensive glass is mainly from the European scope makers, to meet that market segment.

[bilmac]

I am looking for about the same thing as bugflipper. I had about decided I need a lighted retical but have read that most are too bright and overpower the target.
Who makes the VX-R, and what is a firedot.
I've also read that as long as the objective lens is big enough to give the maximum exit pupil that more magnification is often better, up to reasonable limits I suppose like a 4X might actually do better than a 2X

[SHOOTALL]

Leupold make the VX-R scopes . They are 30mm tubes. I hunt at night it legal here also for varmits . Some of the best glass from here.

[Ladobe]

I did a lot of night time ADC over the years for landowners, both with spot lights and without, for both predators and varmints.   Also was always one to pay for a good scope and stay away from the others.   Generally any quality scope that was bright and clear in the daytime also worked just fine for me at night whether it was a 1"/30mm tube, standard or larger objective.   Easiest to use at night where those with fixed objectives simply because I had spots that would reach as far as 350 yards and could have multiple shots possible at times at various ranges from close to far.   I would have got more serious about scope choice if they were shooting back at me, but since they were not I used what I had.  I rarely didn't hunt alone, so could almost always get another chance if needed.
 
Last night predator kill was a bobcat at about 85 yards running away through tall sage at 2AM by a sliver moon and far from any light sources.   I managed to single tap it in the head with a 17HMR carbine.   Scope was a Weaver KT-15 Target with fine CHD reticle.   Ideal scope for jacks out to the far end of my spots, not ideal for a "grey ghost" at full run in dim light.   But only because the reticle was not easy to continually see with the constantly changing backgrounds as it weaved through the sage, otherwise i could see just fine with it.   Was using this rig because I was doing jackrabbit ADC... the kitty only because the land owner wanted me to also dispatch a particular one (easily to identify) that had been raiding the wife's hen house and had killed a couple of her small dogs.   Normally all the predators there got a free pass as they helped trim what was an enormous population of jacks (I shot up to 400 a night that year).   Both the carbine and the scope handled the shekitty just fine though... I had a very happy LO and his especially thankful wife.  She sent me home with a bunch of fresh baked and preserved home made goodies. 
 
FWIW-YMMV 

[charles p]

Is a 30mm any brighter.  I know it offers more elevation and windage.  I have a Leupold LPS and about nine other Leupolds.  I can't tell much difference in the 30mm LPS and the VXIIIs with 1" tubes.  Both are excellent for twilight use.  Never hunted during nights except with a coon dog.

[Lloyd Smale]

no a 30mm scope isnt any brighter. All the do is allow the mechanics of a scope to give you a bit more elevation and windage adjustment. I have one scope that fits your bill to a tee. Its a 1x4 trigicon accupoint. they have excellent optics as good as the mid to higher end leupolds. They also have a combination of fiber optic and trinium to light an aiming point. It make low light shooting much eaiser. Not only that but cranked down to 1x it can be used just like an an aimpoint with both eyes open in total darkeness by just impressing the lit reticle on a close range target and shooting. I have only one of them but if my financial situation was better id have more. I couldnt think of a better whitetail hunting/dangerous game scope and the cool thing is they will do double duty as a self defense scope

[SHOOTALL]

The VX-R uses a 30 mm tube to house the light bar according to the lit. A 30mm tube is stronger some say.

[SHOOTALL]

Ok shot the rifle with the VXR scope ( 3X9 X40 heavy cross hairs) At 100 yards set to 9 power I got one hole with Nosler 150 gr ballistic tip bullets loaded by Georga Arms. At 250 yards groups were fron 3 inch to 4 inch , all 3 shot groups . The cross hairs at 250 yard targets block out alot making seeing the 3 inch X 3 inch center dimond impossible . So its no target scope but for deer hunting or larger game it will work well at lower light times of the day .
Odd thing about the rifle was it has a 1 in 10 rifling but shot 150 gr Nosler BT's loaded by Georga Arms better than Hornady 168 gr BTHP which shoots well in several other guns  or Rem 180 gr corelock ( factory loads ) ain't that backwards ?

[bilmac]

I have lots of loads that defy conventional wisdom. My mini 14s both liked light bullets better than heavy.

[Victor3]

   Normally all the predators there got a free pass as they helped trim what was an enormous population of jacks (I shot up to 400 a night that year). 

 Must have been quite the long night, unless you were bagging ~1 per minute. Did you mean to say 40 a night?

[Ladobe]

   Normally all the predators there got a free pass as they helped trim what was an enormous population of jacks (I shot up to 400 a night that year). 

 Must have been quite the long night, unless you were bagging ~1 per minute. Did you mean to say 40 a night?

Nope, up to 400 is not brag, just the facts.   Spot light hunting doesn't take much of a marksman to do well when most are shot at less than 50 yards, many less than 25, and the longest there is normally only about 125 yards.   So no, not brag on shooting.   This is a large property planted 1/4 section center pivot in a checkerboard style surrounded by at least 50 miles of sagebrush in all directions.  So its a beacon for all wildlife in the entire area and is literally over ran with many species after the Medicago, and those that feed on them.   He normally gets 4 crops per season, but that year the jacks were in an all time high upswing.   Between them, the GS's, pronghorn, deer, etc he lost about a third of his crop even with the thousands of jacks removed that season. 
 
I could night hunt 8-12 hours a night depending on time of year, but I more commonly hunted 6-10, or until I got tired or cold.   All "corners" and about 1/3 of the way into a field always had at least a few jacks first time visited, some up to a couple of dozen, and there were a lot of field corners (way over 100).   Spots and headlights didn't spook them, they were use to farm vehicles daily and hay haulers at night.   Nor did the 17 rimfires much if you worked them from closest to farthest.   So a corner could score quite a few jacks in a very short time period - literally in a minute or up to 3-4 several to maybe up to 20 when I used my Marlin 17VS with 4 clips.  Even after shooting a corner, a couple of hours later it would have a few jacks back at it again to shoot.   So the entire night could be spent doing the two-tracks slowly around and between fields sweeping through the entire property end to end as many times as you wanted to.    I had my 100 per and 200 per nights as well, those usually early and late in the year, or when I walked the property instead of driving and shooting from my truck, or for less hours total spent hunting.   Why I said "up to 400 per".   The night I shot that kitty was in October, very cold at that elevation that time of year and the jacks had been constantly weeded out all that season.   Other than to first hunt there that spring (was too early in March) this was the lowest score that year at only 98 jacks total shot that night in about 6 hours.   It was cold and I was tired from the cold, so called it a night and just hunted back in to the farm compound soon after I got the kitty around 2 AM.    That particular kitty was the prime target that night anyway, so was mostly just shooting jacks while trying to find it.
 

[Ladobe]

Split this into another post...
 
Another example about numbers... At the annual Digger Wars I founded and hosted farther north in the spring a shooter could score twice that many GS's in a day if they were a dedicated good marksman with several firearms to fall back on while barrels cooled.   With 14 plus hours of shootable daylight that time of year not that hard to do in one wide and long CRP field in particular we called Digger Heaven - surrounded on 3 sides by BLM and the other a large farm.  It could be shot dawn to dusk almost constantly without having to move your bench more than once or twice all day, and you'd still not get even close to far enough into it to shoot the far end of it, or its full width.  That was a 2-3 day field for 2-3 shooters.  So while high numbers might work out to one a minute with math there, an one a minute average is not trying very hard in that field.   IOW, when the game numbers are very high it doesn't take very long to also run the kill numbers very high and shoot far more on average than one per minute (to make up for breaks, moving location, etc).
 
Digger Heaven - first picture is 3-400 yards into one end of it... second about half way into it, and both only showing about 1/4 of its width.
 

 

[SHOOTALL]

Ladobe , that sounds like a great night ! 

[Victor3]

   Normally all the predators there got a free pass as they helped trim what was an enormous population of jacks (I shot up to 400 a night that year). 

 Must have been quite the long night, unless you were bagging ~1 per minute. Did you mean to say 40 a night?

Nope, up to 400 is not brag, just the facts.   Spot light hunting doesn't take much of a marksman to do well when most are shot at less than 50 yards, many less than 25, and the longest there is normally only about 125 yards.   So no, not brag on shooting.   

 Didn't mean to imply that I thought you were bragging, just that 400 seems like a heck of a lot to be able (logistically & statistically speaking) to shoot in one night. Especially seeing as how I've read that the highest recorded concentration of black tail jacks was 154/sq. km (which coincidentally, works out to ~400/sq. mile).
 
 So you may have broken a modern record for jackrabbit shooting that night. 

[Catfish]

Scopes at nite without a lite are very limiting. If you were to use a lazer designator you would be back in business, but you have the lite. Even gen 1 nite vision is much better than you will do with any regular scope. My first journy into nite vision was a gen 1 Russian rifle scope. With alot of moon lite you could see for ever. With little or no moon and the ir lite it was good for 100 to 150 yrds. Zeroing the scope wasrough as the tracking was bad, but once done it did hold. I now use a set of gen 111 gogles and a lazer sight on the rifle, rifle is usually an AR.

[Zachary]

The OP asked for "the best" night time scope.  This means that money is no object.  Europen scopes (namely Schmidt & Bender, Swavorski, and Zeiss) are recognized world-wide for their excellent optics, especially in night-time use given that Europeans often hunt in night.  As for US manufacturers, I would also recommend the highest-end Leupold scope model just like many others have already suggested as it is also in the category of "the best."
 
 
 
 

[Bugflipper]

I'm not really interested in nv at all. I have a set of pvs-7 goggles. One rifle is set up with an IR illuminator(500 yard model), a laser and an eotech sight. A couple other rifles just have a laser and tactical light mounted. I think they are 220 lumen but can't remember. I just got IR filters that cover the lens to cut costs. The flashlight and filter is good for about 300 yards on a cloudy dark night. To save money on batteries I went with rechargeable 80213, it is the size of 2 cr123 batteries in length and a little wider. They last 2 hours compared to 1 hour in the tactical lights. These setups work out pretty good, but I don't want all of the dependancy on electronics and batteries. I also don't like the idea of limiting a rifle to night only with a nv rifle scope.

[Bugflipper]

Where I'm at right now? A buddy I work with works part time at the areas super sized gun shop. I know the owner fairly well and he let me take home several scopes to try out. I have a few VX-III scopes so that was the benchmark to outdo. The one I settled on was a used IOR Valdada 2-12x36 with 35mm tube. I haven't mounted it on anything, but it has a 308  168gr cam so most likely a fn or hk. As compared to the 40mm vx-iii, both on 5x. It is almost a half moon now. After time for my eyes to adjust and a half moon last night. The sheep were on a hill 500 yards from the back porch in the field. The ior was much brighter. I could clearly tell which one was which. The ram has a white triangle on his chest and it could be seen clearly. I could also clearly tell the difference between the dog and sheep which are the same color. With the leupold I couldn't distinguish anything besides animals were moving. Closer in at 200 yards I could make out a rabbit with the lp. Back to the ior I could see his fur was multicolored, had texture and contrast. I'm not really done so keep the ideas coming if you don't mind. He had swarovski and zeiss, no shmid and benders, nightforce, leica, minox or anything like those.  Later on I will most likely get another scope. Said he would let me know when some higher end ones get traded in. I still haven't seen the high end leupolds or trijicon accupoint. The shop usually has over 10k guns on hand, so quite a bit of traffic goes through it. I imagine eventually I will get to see how those are.


As always thanks for the input.

[skyhigh_seller]

You need huge objective for nighttime and illuminated reticle helps.
Keep the reticle to an illuminated dot not the whole reticle lighting up.
Flat shooting cartridge sighted so that POI that will hit from 25-200y and forget ranging and all that stuff - get the dot on it and shoot.
Weaver Classic Extreme
2.5-10x50 or 56mm (red dot on a 4a type reticle)
If you want to spend more - Valdada 2.5-10x56 (has green dot on a 4a type reticle)
I have both the Weaver CE 2.5-10x56 and the Valdada.
Thay are both heavy and need big rings.
I think Natchez SS has the Weavers again and the should be under $400, the Valdada is more like $1000 (usually a good deal if you can find one used).  The Weaver is A LOT of scope for the $.

[45-70.gov]

i prefer a red-dot at night.....and keep shots short


my illuminated recitals are WAY too bright...[thought about an almost dead battery]