I’ve written a lot of magazine articles about optics, and for several years I even wrote a continuing optics column. I don’t claim to be an expert, but I know a little bit about optics. At least, I thought I did. Just last week, at the annual Outdoor Sportsman Group “round table,” Zeiss’s Kyle Brown gave us an update on new products. He started with two very astute comments.
The first one I’ve said wrong so many times that I’m embarrassed: “Optics don’t gather light; they manage light.” The second is something that I have long believed, but Kyle said it better and simpler than I ever have: “Magnification is over-rated!”
This Stone ram was taken with a Kimber .270 WSM mounted with a 3.5-10X Leupold. Variable scopes in this power range have been the most popular for 40 years, and are still among the most versatile for much hunting.
First of all, please note that I didn’t use the title “scope mounting made easy.” I don’t find this chore easy! It is, however, essential to get it right.
Rifle accuracy is a slippery concept; with an unfamiliar or new rifle, you don’t really know what kinds of groupings are possible, or what loads will work best to get the grouping you want. On the other hand, when accuracy is noticeably worse than expected or if a rifle inexplicably shifts zero or won’t come into zero, troubleshooting becomes a process of elimination. A bad scope isn’t impossible, nor is uneven bedding, nor a bad barrel, but the first thing I check are the scope mounts, and they are often the culprit.
Detachable mounts have come a long way in recent years. This is a Leupold detachable, allowing me to have both an Aimpoint red-dot sight and a scope pre-zeroed for this .375. Detachables are usually more complex, and assembly must be correct to attain repeatability.
I am mechanically challenged. Changing a tire taxes my abilities, and mounting a scope approaches my limits. I hate messing with all those tiny little screws; I admit, I tend to break screws and strip screwheads. Although these little mistakes keep my local gunsmith in business, I do manage to do it myself most of the time.
A couple of weeks ago I was at the range and I felt really silly. I was shooting a Marlin lever-action “guide gun”—very tricked up, but still a .45-70, and I had a big variable scope on it, 30mm tube with large objective. Before you judge, I had a reason for doing this: the rifle seemed to be accurate, so I put a powerful variable on it and turned it all the way up so I could see how well it grouped. I would never hunt with that much glass on such a rifle. Range work done, I took the big scope off, mounted an Aimpoint red-dot sight, and took it pig hunting.
This Marlin “guide gun” has a very good ghost ring aperture sight, but as middle age advances all open sights are getting harder to see. As an alternative I mounted an Aimpoint red-dot sight, a truly excellent type of sight for shots out to perhaps 150 yards.
