by David E. Petzal

When I showed up at the Kittery Trading Post to buy a used Anschutz .22, I was saddened to see that this peerless piece of Teutonic precision (one with a $1,000 price tag, new) was saddled with a piece-of-junk scope that you might use to hold a window open, or throw at an armadillo if one particularly annoyed you.

There is no abundance of good rimfire scopes—in fact, there are damned few—despite the fact that that the .22 is the foundation of any serious shooter’s gun collection. I guess most people feel that when they've bought the gun they've shot their wad (as it were) and look for something cheap and rotten to use as a sight.

This brings us to the new Nikon Pro-Staff BDC 150 3X-9X-40. It is a very, very good scope, and it comes with Nikon’s BDC reticle, which will enable you to shoot out to 150 yards. This particular reticle is calibrated to work only at 9 power, and only with hyper-velocity (1,600 fps) ammo, but with a little experimental shooting, you can adapt it to just about anything.

by David E. Petzal

Trijicon (which is an American company, by the way) is probably best known for its ACOG red-dot sight, which is currently issued to the United States Marine Corps so they can shoot whoever disagrees with Hillary Rodham Clinton. Even if you’re not a Marine, you should be aware of the company’s line of conventional Accupoint rifle scopes. They are of extremely high quality, and I used an Accupoint 3X-9X (Model TR20-1) on a .270 to end the career of a Wyoming mule deer a little while ago.

I’ve long had a Trijicon 2.5X-10X-56 on my beanfield rifle, so the brand is nothing new to me, but in case it is to you, what makes Trijicon unique is its ambient-light-powered aiming dot system, used in conjunction with standard or mil-dot crosshairs, or with Trijicon’s post reticle (which is what I have on the beanfield gun). The Trijicon system works to perfection, uses no batteries (in case there’s no ambient light a tritium implant takes over), and lets you adjust the brightness of the dot to where you like it.

--Chad Love

Here's one from the "Why Didn't I Think Of That?" files...

Everyone knows that punking your hunting buddy's trail cam with fake creature photos is a real time-consuming pain, what with all the getting in and out of fake Bigfoot suits, leprechaun knickers and alien bodies and such. So don't. If you've got even marginal Photoshop skills then don't bother taking the creature to the camera, instead just take the camera to the creature...

From this story on thechive.com:

by David E. Petzal

Over the past several months, through the forbearance of Carl Zeiss, Inc., I’ve been able to form a meaningful relationship with two spotting scopes that deserve special attention. Neither is brand-new, and I believe I’ve written about at least one before. But so what? Would you play Screamin’ Jay Hawkins recording of "I’ll Put a Spell on You" only once? Huh?

The first of these is the Victory DiaScope T* FL, which comes in 65mm and 85mm versions. (I had the 85.) It’s rubber-armored, runs from 20X to 75X, weighs 52 ounces, comes in straight or angled versions, and costs a lot of money. You can look up the price yourself as it varies considerably by source.

The important thing about this instrument is, its brightness, sharpness, and high magnification render it nearly intergalactic in its capabilities. If you’re a serious shooter, it’s worth the money, period. It will do things that other spotting scopes can’t.