CHOOSING A RIFLE SCOPE

Bushnell Elite 3200 Rifle Scope

The Bushnell Elite 3200 has Rainguard® water repellent coatings

The Elite 3200 Is Built On A Rugged One Piece 1 inch Aluminum Tube

The Elite 3200 Series Is Recoil Tested With 1,000 Rounds of .375 H&H Magnum

The Bushnell Elite 3200 Has an Adjustable Objective For Precise Long Range Parallax Fine Tuning (select models)

The Elite 3200 Features 1/4 M.O.A. Audible/Resettable Windage and Elevation Adjustment

The 3200 Series Has A No Questions Asked Bushnell Lifetime Bullet Proof Warranty, Full Refund If Not 100% Satisfied

The Elite 3200 Is Fully Waterproof, Shock Proof And Nitrogen Sealed

The Bushnell Elite 3200 Is Available In Several Reticle Styles

This is a lot of scope for around $218.00 in the newer short action model

Rule of thumb here is simply to, “Buy the very best optics you can afford, whether you are talking riflescopes, or binoculars”

From there, it gets a little more complicated, depending on what type of firearm you are mounting the scope on, the anticipated ranges at which it is likely to be used, the type of terrain and weather conditions you are likely to hunt in etc.

You need to consider eye relief, field of view, brightness, clarity and contrast of the lenses, multicoated (vs.) fully multi coated lenses etc. You also need to pay attention to how the scope will perform under cold, wet, snowy, rainy conditions. Are you a still hunter, or are you sitting in a fully enclosed tree stand and the weather is not an issue?

As an example, I am looking to upgrade the scope on my Savage Weather Warrior .308 Win in stainless with a black synthetic stock, and accu-trigger.

The rifle currently wears a Simmons Pro-Hunter 3X9X40 with their hydra-shield special coating to improve clarity when hunting under wet or rainy conditions. I previously had an older model Aetec 2.5X10X44 scope on the rifle. I went on a hunt in Maine a couple years ago where I experienced rain and wet dripping snow for three days out of the five day hunt. I found myself constantly wiping the lenses of the scope in order to maintain visibility. Between the torrential rain and the cold the lenses were either fogged up (externally) or had visibility impaired from the hard rain.

I own several center fire rifles in different calibers and it is difficult to put top shelf optics on all of them. I put the Simmons Pro-hunter on with the hydra shield coating as a stop gap measure till I could afford a better scope.

I recently performed a rather unscientific evaluation on several scopes I already own on other rifles to determine what to replace the existing scope with.

I picked out a telephone pole approximately 125 yards distant and viewed the pole with several different scopes while looking at a knot on the pole. I set all the scopes on 5X except a Swift premier 1.5X4.5X32 which topped out at 4.5X.

I was primarily looking for definition, and detail of the knot itself, contrast against the background, clarity to the edges of the scope etc.

Admittedly not very scientific, and yet where the rubber meets the road, by looking at the knot on the pole on one scope after the other repeatedly, I came away with a pretty good idea of what works in the field.

Scopes were as follows:

On the Savage .308 was a Simmons Master Series pro Hunter 3X9X40
On a Marlin mdl 1895 45-70 is a Swift Premier 1.5X4.5X32 circle X heavy reticle
On a Savage mdl 110FXP3 is a Muller Red Dot 3X9X40 scope w/ 1/8 min clicks
On a Ruger Hawkeye Synthetic Stainless .338 Federal is a Bushnell model 3200 3X9X40 with firefly and rain guard
On my Ruger Model 77 in .350 Remington Magnum, I have a Weaver Grand Slam 1.5X5X32 scope mounted

I realize I am comparing apples to oranges here in a sense, however for my purposes, the winner is the NEW Bushnell 3200 short action 3X10X40 model 3200 scope.

WHY?………………fair question:

I love the Mueller red dot scopes and the image quality is terrific for a scope in this price range and the lenses are fully multi coated. How does Mueller do it? They do not spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on advertising each year. If Mueller had come up with their own version of rain guard or hydra shield, I would have selected another Mueller scope.

I felt the Weaver Grand Slam had possibly the best optics, although only slightly better than the Bushnell Elite 3200 series. I think that since the Weaver Grand slam line has fully multi coated lenses and the Bushnell’s are only listed as multi coated, perhaps the rain guard feature helped in that category. I love the red dot Mueller series, especially for deer hunting in the woods, however I will settle for the firefly feature on the Bushnell scopes. The 3X10X40 SA is not available to my knowledge with the firefly feature, however it does have the rainguard coating. The firefly IS availalbe on the 3X9X40 Elite 3200, however the eye relief is 3.3 (vs.) 3.7 on the short action scope. The newer short action 3X10X40 model 3200 also has the best eye relief of any of the scopes in my cabinet at 3.7 inches. I also liked the BOLD duplex reticle the best. All in all, this scope should serve any American sportsman for 95% of his or her hunting adventures and a great warranty to boot. The Swift premier series on my 45-70 is also a very bright scope with good optics and I like the BOLD circle X reticle and low power range for a gun like the 45-70.

There you have it…………ONE man’s opinion. If money were no object, or less of an object, I would have liked to put a Burris Signature Select series on the .308 or perhaps a Zeiss Conquest. Alas, money is an object and for the current list price of $218, I think the Bushnell offers more than the others for the money. The most important feature was the rain guard in my opinion.

Dan

Psalms 18:25, 26 KJV "With the merciful, thou wilt shew thyself to be merciful; with an upright man thou wilt shew himself upright (26) With the pure thou wilt shew thyself pure; and with the froward, thos wilt shew thyself froward"