I’m speaking with Mike Branson of Gideon Optics at SHOT Show 2025, and today the topic is scope and reticle choice. What is good, what is bad, and what is best for you?
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Optic needs to fit the rifle/cartridge combination-best I have used (old School) Lyman All American 4x, Leupold 1.5x to 5x. Rifles Lyman on sporterised Model of 1917 Enfield 30-06, Leupold on Savage 340 in .22 Hornet, scopes fit the respective rifles and all practical applications.
With rifle calibers less than .30-06, there is little point in a scope with more than 6X to 9X magnification. .30-06 with 180-grain has enough effective range (out to about 1,000 meters) to make 12X a reasonable top figure.
The “super-sniper” calibers like .333 Lapua or .408 CheyTac probably need 16X. .50 BMG or .416 Barrett likely could get use from 20x-24X. The critical factors with such high magnifications are of course objective size, plus whether or not the scope’s innards can stand up to recoil forces.
For most hunters and etc., with a .308 Winchester or equivalent, a 1.5X-6X variable or even a fixed 4x scope is probably all they’ll ever really need.
The ones who really need high-magnification “benchrest” type scopes are the actual benchrest shooters, plus the varmint hunters with .22-250s and etc.
The one has to put all the bullets through the same hole to score. The other has to deal with very small, animate targets.
Other than something like jackrabbit or coyote, I’ve never seen much point in a scope on a handgun. Although you can make sort of a case for same in metallic silhouette competition.
clear ether
eon
We will agree to disagree on pretty much everything you just stated. Peace.
“(…).30-06 with 180-grain has enough effective range (out to about 1,000 meters) to make 12X a reasonable top figure.(…)”
IIRC USMC used some rifles in that caliber mated with 14x UNERTL scopes during Korean War. Is that true? If yes why they did that?
The Unertl company made specialized scopes for sniping in addition to purely “sporting” types. John Unertl had been a sniper in the Hungarian army during WW 1, and came to the U.S. in 1919 to start his own optics company. Mostly because he wasn’t satisfied with the quality of the German-made telescopic sights he’d used in service.
Unertl’s sniping scopes came in 10X and 14X, both fixed-power. The 14X was matched to the .30-06 M72 175-grain match target round, which shot into 6″ at 1,000 yards.
During WW2, pre-war imported Unertl scopes were preferred by Wehrmacht and especially SS snipers, because they were simply that much better than the German-made Voightlander and etc. brand scopes.
A probably apocryphal story goes that when he came through Ellis Island, immigration officers asked John Unertl one of the standard questions, “Have you ever killed anyone?”
He reputedly looked them straight in the eye and replied, “Two hundred and forty-seven Bulgarians”.
Yes, they let him in.
clear ether
eon
Whadda buncha hooey