Field and Stream - Scopes & Sights RSS

Randolph Engineering: How to Choose the Right Tint for Shooting Glasses

Online Editors — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 14:47:59 -0500

Randolph Engineering has a variety of tints for its shooting glasses. Learn how to choose the right lenses for your next hunt or shooting competition and check out the company's new HD lenses.

Trijicon TARS: A Powerful Scope for Long-Range Shooters

Online Editors — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 14:07:31 -0500

Trijicon's Tactical Advanced RifleScope is a power optic that can be used for a variety of applications, especially big game hunting and long-range target shooting.

Olympic Medalist Kim Rhode on Prep for London Games

Online Editors — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:40:43 -0500

Kim Rhode will be competing in the Olympic Skeet event in 2012, where she hopes to break an Olympic record by winning five medals in five different Olympic Games. She talks with Phil Bourjaily about her practice routine and prep work leading up to the London games.

Accuracy International AX: A Major Upgrade for Your Remington 700

Online Editors — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 12:09:01 -0500

The Accuracy International AX offers Remington 700 owners a stability boost with this chassis. There is nothing flimsy about the AX, and it has a lot of room for you to add on your favorite gear.

SHOT Show 2012 From The Floor: Day 3

Online Editors — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 01:48:52 -0500

Photos from the floor of SHOT Show 2012, Day 2.

Dave Petzal on SHOT Show 2012

Dave_Maccar — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 18:27:48 -0500

by David E. Petzal

In a wretched economic year, the pants-wetters, doomsayers, and purveyors of pessimism would be confounded by the life and vitality in the shooting industry. This year in Las Vegas, an estimated 60,000 people (all in the gun biz), many of whom look like Larry the Cable Guy, crowded into a maze of under-ventilated halls to ogle, grope and buy. Guns. What did you think I was talking about?

The most densely crowded venues were dedicated to the wonderful worlds of the paramilitary and law enforcement. Apparently there is an insatiable need for the equipment used in shooting, clubbing, and gassing people. There are suits of full body armor the like of which has not been seen since the Battle of Agincourt. There are all-black deathmobiles, equipped with lethal gear of all sorts. I’m told that Cop World constitutes fully one-third of the SHOT Show. How shooting and suppressing the citizenry ties into Shooting, Hunting, and Outdoor Trade is more than I can comprehend, but there it is.

There is also a very notable shortage of Booth Babes. In past years, you could hardly turn a corner without seeing some inadequately clothed young mammal who would cause you to stop dead in your tracks and give thanks to the forces of evolution. Damned if I know what happened to them.

SHOT Show 2012 From The Floor: Day I

Dave_Maccar — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 21:48:40 -0500

Photos from the floor of SHOT Show 2012, Day 1.

More on Long Range Shooting

Sarah Smith — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 10:30:40 -0500

by David E. Petzal

Back in April, 2011, I became a probationary member of the Scarborough Fish & Game Association in Scarborough, Maine. The name notwithstanding, SF&G is a shooting club, and a very large, very active one at that. They stage just about every kind of rifle, shotgun, handgun and archery event you can think of, and there is a dedicated range for cops to practice shooting people (so if you have any wants and warrants outstanding, stay away).

Among their assets is a beautiful range with shooting points from 100 to 600 yards, but since the Association’s official religion is safety, they do not let anyone use that range until they’re vetted. You qualify there or you stick to the 100-yard ranges; SF&G does not want any bullets sailing over the backstop. If you raise your muzzle above the level of the backstop you get a warning. If you do it again you are requested to leave.

Did You Get a Gun For Christmas, Too?

Sarah Smith — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 15:27:15 -0500

by Dave Hurteau

Actually I got a winter restoration project—a Savage Model 24 in .22LR/.410 with good bores and solid wood but a very rough exterior. As far as I’m concerned, the Model 24 in this configuration is the perfect squirrel gun.

By the way, did you know that squirrel hunting makes excellent practice for hunting whitetail deer, the species about which this blog is solely dedicated?

As I was saying, it’s a fantastic squirrel gun, particularly for small woodlots close to populated areas, because you can use the .22 when your backdrop will stop a bullet and the .410 when it won’t. Plus it’s just a damned cool gun that I’ve always wanted to own.

Jingle Bells With a 1911

Sarah Smith — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 12:48:01 -0500

Happy Holidays from the Gun Nuts!

Hurteau Tests Deer Hunting Scopes for Under $100

Sarah Smith — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 10:59:56 -0500

by Dave Hurteau

Having fledged under the wing of the great David E. Petzal, I know I should be a glass snob. But my Northeastern, lower-middle-class upbringing won’t allow it. Here in one of the many heavily wooded, economically depressed parts of the country, the way many of us buy scopes is we walk into a big box store, pick a decent-looking scope at a can’t-beat price, and put it on the ol’ deer rifle.

Rimfire Scope Review: The Nikon Pro-Staff BDC 150

Dave_Maccar — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 11:46:00 -0500

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.

Score Some Bucks, Win a Bushnell Elite Scope

Sarah Smith — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 10:24:24 -0500

by Dave Hurteau

I just got back from hunting whitetails at Trophy Ridge Outfitters in northeastern Wyoming (more on that soon) with representatives from Browning, Winchester, the NSSF and Bushnell.

For the hunt, the last gave me the use of a Bushnell Elite riflescope with the company’s DOA reticle, which allows even the simplest of riflemen to figure bullet drop at a glance, and which performed very nicely indeed. (All of the bucks I’ll post for this contest were taken on this trip and, I believe, taken with some version of this scope.)

Bashed-Gun Puzzle Solved

Dave_Maccar — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 12:26:33 -0400

by David E. Petzal

In my post of Oct. 24th, I wrote about a friend whose hitherto-flawless backup rifle had developed a scope that was knocked 8 feet off target and an extractor that suddenly refused to extract. He—and I—now know why.

My friend put the ruptured rifle in a gun vise and saw that the scope was knocked so far out of line with the barrel that it was obvious from across the room. The last time he had used the gun was on a whitetail hunt in Kansas and, on a hunch, he hauled out the case in which it had traveled—a cheap plastic one. Sure enough, there were tire marks across the case. Some thoughtful ramp ape had driven a baggage cart or an airplane tug over it. The case had given and sprung back, but the scope mount—not the scope itself—was twisted all to hell.

A Stern Warning: Never Assume Your Rifle, Scope Will Work

Dave_Maccar — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 12:32:03 -0400

by David E. Petzal

Now that hunting season is here, many of us are tempted to grab our trusted smokepoles and head for the fields and forests. But what your trusted smokepole may hand you, rather than a dead animal, is a sharp rap in the nuts, metaphorically speaking, of course. You never, ever, assume that a rifle/scope will work.

This was brought home yet again by a friend of mine whom I met at the range a few days before he was to head for Canada. The trigger of the rifle he had planned to bring had gone weird; the sear would not hold, and he had to send it back to the maker for repairs. So this morning he had brought his backup gun, a veteran of 25 years’ flawless service. Lo and behold, the first shot was not even on the paper. We boresighted the gun and the crosshairs were 8 feet off to the left. Unbeknownst to my friend, someone had dropped the rifle or otherwise screwed with it.

Two Ways to Gauge Wind Speed For Long Shots

Dave_Maccar — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 13:56:21 -0400

by David E. Petzal

“Rifle shooter must break wind first before wind break him.” —Vorislav Djubrotnij, Eastern-bloc shooter of the 1950s, making it all clear.

Recently, I attended a class on how to hit targets at 600 yards and beyond, and came away both impressed and depressed. Of all the factors involved, by far the most uncontrollable and difficult is wind. As an example, a 5 mph breeze, which is just enough to agitate the leaves on the trees, can move a 168-grain .308 bullet 16.1 inches at 600 yards.

Here are two ways to gauge wind speed.

Avoiding Sighting-In Follies

Dave_Maccar — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 13:48:22 -0400

by David E. Petzal

A couple of days ago I watched a fellow sight in his rifle for a competition shoot. He laid the gun on a nice, hard sandbag, took the caps off the scope turrets, and fired a shot. Then he cranked the dials. He did this ten times in a row: blam, crank, ka-pow, twirl, bang, twist. Eventually, the barrel was hot enough to fry eggs on, and the rifle was shooting where he thought it should.

Later, by sheer chance, I got to score his target, and he was all over the place. He had one good score which was pure luck, followed by a bad score, which was inevitable because he broke the rules of sighting in, which are:

One shot tells you nothing. You need a three-shot group, and you proceed from where the center of that group is.

Yet Another Reason To Break The Bank

Dave_Maccar — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 11:04:47 -0400

by David E. Petzal

For years I’ve been whining at you that while it’s OK to buy an inexpensive gun, it’s stupid to cut corners on optical equipment, because the cheap stuff will not hack it.

Exhibit A here, is a Leica spotting scope that elk guide Amos Ames has used for the past 13 years. As you can see, it’s had a hard life, and then some. It is, however, still fully functional, where a lesser piece of equipment would be in a trash bin somewhere.

Scope Review: More Miracles from Minox

Dave_Maccar — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 11:09:32 -0400

by David E. Petzal

Oh well, back to guns. As Pogo said, politics is the kiss of death for swampland critters.

Some time ago I reported on Minox’s binoculars, and stated that, dollar for dollar, they were the best I knew of. (Or if I didn’t, I should have.) The optics were wonderful and the glasses themselves were simple, straightforward, and direct. They would not double as an astrolabe or tell you where there was an open parking space, but they would show you where the game was.

Now, I’m pleased to report, the company is offering a line of 9 scopes, designated as the ZA3 and ZA5 models, depending on power, that range from a 1.5X-8X shotgun/dangerous game scope to a monster 6X-30X with a 56mm objective. I have been using a ZA5 2X-10X (Yes, a great many of these scopes offer 5X magnification) for a number of weeks now and have not been so impressed since Redfield came back from the dead.

Two Super Spotting Scopes From Zeiss

Dave_Maccar — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 10:49:50 -0400

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.

Ultimate Gun IQ Quiz Answers

Dave_Maccar — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 16:29:03 -0400

The scores have been tallied and the answers are revealed. See what questions stumped you.

The Old Days: Fogged Scopes and Wet Feet

Dave_Maccar — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 10:09:25 -0400

by David E. Petzal

Through the kindness of a friend, I came into a copy of a handbook called “Deer Hunting,” published in 1966 and written by Warren Page. There’s a lot of good advice in it--Lefty knew his business--and there are also some jarring reminders of how much things have changed.

Page spends a couple of paragraphs on rifle scopes, fragility of, how to avoid fogging, and I was shocked to realize I couldn’t remember the last time I saw a scope built in the last 20 years that had fogged. I’ve seen a number of them that were broken by recoil or poor treatment, but no fogging. That problem seems to be licked.

The same with wet feet. The last time I got wet feet from a pair of “waterproof” boots was in the late 1980s or early 1990s in Virginia, when I hiked through the hills and hollers in a pair of Gore-Tex-lined boots that leaked like sieves. The problem was not with the Gore-Tex itself, but with the fact that boot makers didn’t know how to use it. Since then, I can’t remember a Gore-Tex boot leaking.

Announcing the 2011 Gun Nut Target Photo Contest

Dave_Maccar — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 13:22:42 -0400

Enter the 2011 Gun Nut Target Photo Contest for a chance to win a S&W rifle.

Never Trust a Quirky Rifle

Online Editors — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 10:39:52 -0400

by David E. Petzal

In my post of April 7, wherein I pissed and moaned about my groups breaking up at 300 yards, Amflyer asked a couple of very interesting questions: First, would a bullet that dropped 10 inches below point of aim at 300 yards really cause me to miss any animal that was big enough to justify shooting at it with a .338? And second, would not a range-compensating scope compensate for the fact that some bullets went way low?

To which I reply: there are two things every rifleman should fear: shifting winds and anomalies of any sort. Since the first is not relevant to this post, we will deal with the second. In the wonderful world of rifles, consistency is king. Just as surely as Congress is comprised of petulant, half-bright children, any gun, or load, that does weird, quirky stuff is not to be trusted, no matter how often or seldom it occurs, because, when it counts most, that anomaly will jump up and bite you right in the ass.

Red Dots for Sure Shots, Part II

Dave_Maccar — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 11:54:10 -0400

by David E. Petzal

The Aimpoint H34L has no parallax. Eye relief is unlimited. There is no vertical crosshair to align and there are no internal mechanical parts to come loose under recoil.

These are fearsome assets for an optical sight, but what I wanted to know was, how well could I shoot with one on a rifle? To find out, I needed a rifle with an actual history of scores shot, and as it turned out I had one—a Savage Model BTVLSS .22 rimfire. Offhand, with a scope set at 4X, shooting at an NRA 50-yard slowfire pistol target at 100 yards, I regularly get scores of around 84x100. So I pulled the conventional scope, installed the Aimpoint, and found, once I got used to the lack of magnification, I could actually shoot better with the Aimpoint, averaging 88. Kneeling, with a military sling, I could score in the mid-90s.