by David E. Petzal

As many of you requested, I walked the hallowed (and semi-ventilated) halls of the 2012 SHOT Show with your requests for inexpensive stuff ringing in my ears, instead of just the usual ringing. Riflescope-wise, the standout is Meopta, which I originally thought was an Asian firm, but turns out to be Czech. Meopta has been around for over 70 years and makes rifle scopes, spotting scopes, and binoculars. I’ve used only the rifle scopes, of which there are two lines. MeoStar (pictured here) is the more expensive, made and assembled in the Czech Republic, while MeoPro scopes have their components made abroad and assembled here. Cabela’s sells both MeoPro instruments and its own Euro brand, which is made by Meopta.

The first time I used a Meopta rifle scope I guessed its price was $300 higher than what it actually cost. Think of it this way: A MeoStar that goes for $650 is a $1,000 scope on which you’re getting a $350 discount. A MeoPro scope that sells for $450 is a $750 scope, ditto ditto. Don’t let the modest prices fool you; these are very, very high-grade instruments.

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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.

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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.
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--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:

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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.

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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.
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