Speaker 1: As a guide and hunter, I've spent thousands of days
Speaker 1: in the field. This show is about translating my hard
Speaker 1: won experiences into tips and tactics they'll get you closer
Speaker 1: to your ultimate goal success in the field. I'm Remy Warren.
Speaker 1: This is cutting the Distance. Welcome back to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I hope everybody had a great holiday weekend. Last week
Speaker 1: on the podcast, I answered a few listener questions, but
Speaker 1: this week I want to help you prepare for any
Speaker 1: upcoming hunt and dive into some gear talk while simultaneously
Speaker 1: answering the question that I get a lot, and that
Speaker 1: question is what type of optics do I need? If
Speaker 1: I had to pick one piece of hunting gear that
Speaker 1: has really enhanced hunter success probably more than anything, I'd
Speaker 1: have to go with optics, or at least the advancement
Speaker 1: in optics, because optics play a huge factor and a
Speaker 1: big difference in the outcome of the hunt. Someone who
Speaker 1: is good at spotting game has a lot better chance
Speaker 1: of getting into range and punching a tag. But there
Speaker 1: are a lot of different choices on the market and
Speaker 1: it seems endless with the possibilities. So this week I'm
Speaker 1: going to break down the optics category and go over
Speaker 1: the uses and importance of different features that will help
Speaker 1: you match what you need with your hunting style. We're
Speaker 1: gonna cover everything from binoculars, spotting scopes, high magnification binos,
Speaker 1: range finders, range finding binoculars, and rifle scopes. But before
Speaker 1: we do that, I want to share a story of
Speaker 1: one of the bigger bulls I've taken and how optics
Speaker 1: and a few seconds made all the difference. The story
Speaker 1: takes place in eastern Nevada and is actually one of
Speaker 1: my first elk tags in the state. Took me a
Speaker 1: while to draw and I was really excited about Taggers
Speaker 1: Rifle elk tag, but unfortunately I only had a very
Speaker 1: limited time to hunt the tag because I was committed
Speaker 1: to guiding hunters in Montana through the end of the season,
Speaker 1: which was pretty much Thanksgiving, and then had a few
Speaker 1: days at the end before the Nevada season closed to
Speaker 1: uh to hunt for myself. So my plan was I
Speaker 1: packed up my stuff after my last day of guiding,
Speaker 1: actually tagged my guys out a little bit early and
Speaker 1: was able to to cruise down there a little bit
Speaker 1: earlier and was meeting my parents down there because my
Speaker 1: Dad had that tag maybe probably four years earlier, and
Speaker 1: I had actually never even hunted the area. This was
Speaker 1: the way before there was a lot of online map
Speaker 1: scouting or anything like that. So I was just gonna
Speaker 1: use a little bit of his intel, meet up with him,
Speaker 1: and then we were gonna go out and start glassing.
Speaker 1: So make it down there, drive all day, get set
Speaker 1: up first morning that I can hunt. We're kind of
Speaker 1: taking a look at the mountain from a long ways away.
Speaker 1: I'd say we're probably five miles from where we were looking.
Speaker 1: We actually we're near the trucks. We set up like
Speaker 1: I don't know, like camp chairs and our spotting scopes
Speaker 1: on tripods and just started covering them out and just
Speaker 1: gritting the areas where we thought we'd find olk. Not
Speaker 1: having a lot of intel, this was kind of the
Speaker 1: first day in here. We're just trying to get a
Speaker 1: lay of the land and see what might be around.
Speaker 1: So we're glassing and I end up seeing a couple
Speaker 1: of cow elk move out of it. It's like really
Speaker 1: thick timber, just there's one little opening. So I see
Speaker 1: a couple of cow olk and I'm like, oh, cows.
Speaker 1: I'm like talking about spotting cows and my parents are
Speaker 1: with me and they're glassing some different stuff and like, oh,
Speaker 1: I got some milk over here, and my mom's like, oh,
Speaker 1: is it by this one pile of rocks. I was like,
Speaker 1: uh No, it's more in the trees. It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I think I see one by the rocks, and I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure it's a bull. I'm like wait what So
Speaker 1: now I'm like, okay, well does she I don't know.
Speaker 1: My mom loves to go. She's always like gone out
Speaker 1: with us when hunting. But she's not a hunter herself,
Speaker 1: but definitely loves like spotting. And she's always like a
Speaker 1: really lucky spotter. If there's gonna be somebody that spots
Speaker 1: something on the trip, it's probably gonna be here. And
Speaker 1: this is like barely early in the morning on their
Speaker 1: first day out. So I'm like, okay, see and uh
Speaker 1: I get look through her scope and sure enough there's
Speaker 1: a bull in there. But her scope isn't as good
Speaker 1: as mine. So I get my scope set up, zoom in.
Speaker 1: I'm like, that's a pretty good bull. Long main beams,
Speaker 1: big six by six space that out long times. All right,
Speaker 1: I know the area has some giants but with very
Speaker 1: limited time maybe four days to hunt, and having never
Speaker 1: been in the area before, and now having like a
Speaker 1: pretty decent bull spotted like that looks good enough to me,
Speaker 1: I'll definitely shoot that bowl. So now we're the troubles
Speaker 1: are about five miles away and this bull, so we
Speaker 1: watched him, We're like, okay, is he gonna what's he
Speaker 1: gonna do? Because not knowing their patterns in there, I
Speaker 1: figured he's going to move into some timber and bed.
Speaker 1: He's all by himself. It's way well after the rut.
Speaker 1: So the bull, it's pretty cold morning, the bowl actually
Speaker 1: moves toward the timber and then kind of cuts through
Speaker 1: a few patches. Watch him, and then he just plops
Speaker 1: down beds. Sweet, but this is just a sea of
Speaker 1: really thick pinion juniper trees. All right, I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: up the canyon. You guys can stay here and watch.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go up the canyon and see if I
Speaker 1: can respot him. It's pretty brushy, and I get to
Speaker 1: a spot where I think I should you know from
Speaker 1: five what we're looking at five miles away, and it
Speaker 1: looks about right from the landmarks that I took in
Speaker 1: my mind. I pop up the opposite side of where
Speaker 1: the bull is, sit down up against the rock pile
Speaker 1: and start glassing with my binoculars, and I'm just like
Speaker 1: looking where. It looks like he was nothing, so I
Speaker 1: figured maybe he moved, but I just decided to keep
Speaker 1: keep looking in there, keep greeting it with my binoculars.
Speaker 1: I'm locked off real well. And then I see something.
Speaker 1: I'm like, that is not a stick. So I get
Speaker 1: out my spotting scope, zooming in and sure enough, it's
Speaker 1: just the top few times of this bull. He's betting
Speaker 1: and he must be sleeping. Is this head kind of down?
Speaker 1: And the back two times of his whale tailors the
Speaker 1: only thing sticking up above the opinion juniper. I'm like,
Speaker 1: all right, So I move up the hill a little
Speaker 1: bit more, get a good position, and and I now
Speaker 1: I've got the spotting scope on him. I'm judging him.
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, that's that's about the minimum type of
Speaker 1: bull I was looking for. But I'll definitely give it
Speaker 1: a try because I don't have a lot of time,
Speaker 1: and I don't want to eat tag soup on this
Speaker 1: tag that took me so long to draw. So I
Speaker 1: make a plan. I had actually started working up the
Speaker 1: canyon behind me, and uh, I waved him up. It's like,
Speaker 1: all right, just keep an eye on the bull and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go up there. I don't know if I'll
Speaker 1: be able to see you or not, but if he
Speaker 1: ends up moving, stand up and wave your arms so
Speaker 1: if I can look back and see this spot, I'll
Speaker 1: know that he's moved. At this point, he's still about him.
Speaker 1: I would say probably close to a mile away and
Speaker 1: a lot of elevation game to get up to where
Speaker 1: he's at. So I just decided I'm gonna hustle before
Speaker 1: he gets up and moves off into the thick stuff.
Speaker 1: I want to get there while he's still betted, So
Speaker 1: load up my pack and just start moving super steep
Speaker 1: hill and I'm just climbing up, climbing up. I've got
Speaker 1: a good wind. The winds like quartering the direction, so
Speaker 1: I go up the canyon for work into the wind,
Speaker 1: and I just want to make sure I'm high enough
Speaker 1: on that point where I can pop over and he's there,
Speaker 1: So I start working into that spot. Everything feels good.
Speaker 1: I made some good landmarks. The thing that saved me
Speaker 1: is there's just one tree that was different than all
Speaker 1: the others, a different type of tree. It's like an
Speaker 1: aspen tree coming out of all these opinioned juniper, which
Speaker 1: gave me a really good idea of where he was at.
Speaker 1: And so I get over and I start creeping up.
Speaker 1: There's like one ridge left to where I can probably
Speaker 1: get to take a shot, and I'm gonna be pretty
Speaker 1: close because it's kind of tight quarters in here. So
Speaker 1: I start working my way over there. I'm above where
Speaker 1: I think the elk is and I've got a good wind,
Speaker 1: and then I hear just rocks rolling. I'm like, oh crap.
Speaker 1: Well I knew there was a scree slide just next
Speaker 1: to that bowl. I'm like, oh man, this is not good.
Speaker 1: So he definitely spooped. I run as fast as I
Speaker 1: can to the edge to see into the basin, and
Speaker 1: sure enough, there's that bull boogie in across the hillside.
Speaker 1: But it's a scree slope which is just a bunch
Speaker 1: of small, like loose rocks, just this big, huge scree slide,
Speaker 1: and that's where the bull decides to take his exit.
Speaker 1: Like okay, well, I pulled up my binoculars. I had
Speaker 1: range finding binoculars. Range him get down it's like real
Speaker 1: fast action because I didn't have a lot of time,
Speaker 1: so I zoom my scope all the way up. I
Speaker 1: had ballistic lines in it, so I knew where it hit.
Speaker 1: And the bulls moving across, like perfectly broadside across the
Speaker 1: screen field across from me, and I know that he's
Speaker 1: working into that timber, and once he hits that, it's over.
Speaker 1: I kind of propped the rifle. I'm laying. I guess
Speaker 1: it's probably all my legs. It's so steep. I'm kind
Speaker 1: of shooting downhill. I'm tracking the bull through my scope.
Speaker 1: Swing just past the bull, and I've got a twenty
Speaker 1: mile per hour windmark on there, and I just put
Speaker 1: that right on his shoulders, slowly squeezed the trigger. Boom,
Speaker 1: I hear the swap. I look up and the bulls
Speaker 1: just tumbling down the mountain stone dead, perfect shot, high shoulder.
Speaker 1: I'm like, sweet, so radio my dad. I'm like, hey,
Speaker 1: I got the bull. You guys want to start working
Speaker 1: up here. I'm gonna work down to it, work down
Speaker 1: to the bull. And sure enough, one shot down, perfect shot,
Speaker 1: went through high shoulder, took out both lungs and it
Speaker 1: was just awesome. But it was one of those hunts
Speaker 1: where everything came down to spotting him from a long
Speaker 1: ways away, getting in position, having the right type of
Speaker 1: rifle scope, and being able to make a tricky quick
Speaker 1: shot super efficiently, super fast, and everything ended up working out,
Speaker 1: and at the time that was the best bowl I'd
Speaker 1: ever taken. One question I get asked just a ton
Speaker 1: is what optics should I use for this type of hunt?
Speaker 1: Do I need a spotting scope? What do you what
Speaker 1: do you use for long range glassing? How far are
Speaker 1: my optics good for? Like how far should I be looking?
Speaker 1: Just various things like that, and so what I wanted
Speaker 1: to do instead of just maybe giving you specific optics
Speaker 1: that I like, doing a huge overview of optics in general,
Speaker 1: running through all the categories of optics and then breaking
Speaker 1: them down based on like when I when I think
Speaker 1: about optics, what the uses are for each of those,
Speaker 1: and then tailoring making it so you can tailor that
Speaker 1: towards the type of hunting you like to do. Maybe
Speaker 1: you're thinking you've got to I mean, just like everybody,
Speaker 1: you've got a certain budget. It's like, well, do I
Speaker 1: spend more money on a spotting scope or a pair
Speaker 1: of binoculars. Do I get a range finder or a
Speaker 1: really good rifle scope. I mean, as you get into hunting,
Speaker 1: if you're if you're especially if you're new to it,
Speaker 1: there's so much gear. There's so many things that are
Speaker 1: very expensive, most of the things that guys acquires over
Speaker 1: a lifetime of hunting, and you know, everyone wants to
Speaker 1: add to their kit in a certain way. So I figured,
Speaker 1: if I give you this big broad view of optics
Speaker 1: in general, then we'll help you kind of pinpoint and
Speaker 1: focus on the things that are important, the things that
Speaker 1: maybe you might be looking into just for the type
Speaker 1: of hunting you do, and then maybe some stuff that
Speaker 1: might just be additional on top of that or maybe
Speaker 1: aid in certain types of hunts in another way. One
Speaker 1: thing I do will always like to mention as well
Speaker 1: as I work with for text Optics, it's a sponsor
Speaker 1: of mine. I mean because of that, I get to
Speaker 1: use pretty much everything that they make. I've sampled in
Speaker 1: some way, which I think is awesome because it gives
Speaker 1: me a good breadth of their entire product category. So
Speaker 1: I can really speak to the different types of optics.
Speaker 1: Um But I always like to disclose those kind of
Speaker 1: things whenever I talk about gear and other things, because um,
Speaker 1: I just think it's important, but also there's a reason
Speaker 1: that I like to work with them. I think that
Speaker 1: they've got a really good offering of a lot of
Speaker 1: great optics that are in a really good price range.
Speaker 1: As well. I've been working with them for a really
Speaker 1: long time, so a lot of my experience, uh lately
Speaker 1: has been with these type optics. So if you hear
Speaker 1: me mention certain ones that I've used, I can kind
Speaker 1: of talk about those optics a little bit more than
Speaker 1: other ones that I haven't got to use. But even
Speaker 1: when I'm guiding or whatever, if somebody has a different pair,
Speaker 1: I would like to check things out, try a bunch
Speaker 1: of different stuff, but more focus than the specific optic on.
Speaker 1: This is just kind of the idea behind each optics.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna break it down into categories. We're gonna
Speaker 1: start with binoculars first. We're gonna go binoculars. Then we're
Speaker 1: gonna talk about spotting scipes, high magnification by US, range finders,
Speaker 1: range finding buy US, and rifle scopes. So let's start
Speaker 1: with binoculars because if you're only gonna listen to a
Speaker 1: certain portion of this podcast. I think binoculars are the
Speaker 1: most important. If I were just split up. Let's say
Speaker 1: you've got a budget on an optics budget. I think
Speaker 1: that the majority of that budget should go into binoculars.
Speaker 1: And here's the reason. There's a couple of reasons behind it.
Speaker 1: But first of all, the binoculars are when I'm out
Speaker 1: hunting my eyes. I can't stress enough how much I
Speaker 1: use my optics when I'm out there, particularly binoculars. Um
Speaker 1: everything else is kind of incidental to that. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of hunts that I go on where I actually
Speaker 1: just take binoculars because I'm trying to do some weight
Speaker 1: saving or other things. But binoculars are what I look through.
Speaker 1: People are always amazing, like, oh, how did you spot that?
Speaker 1: And I think they constantly think that I'm I'm only
Speaker 1: looking with my eyes. It's like my binoculars are to
Speaker 1: my face more often than they are not. Even when
Speaker 1: I'm in close terrain, when I'm moving through the trees,
Speaker 1: I'm putting up my binoculars. I'm scanning. When I'm walking,
Speaker 1: I'm looking at every hill. I'm throwing my binoculars up constantly.
Speaker 1: If I'm driving and checking out a new spot, pull over,
Speaker 1: get out, throw up, the throw up the binos. And
Speaker 1: because of this, it's like I'm looking through that glass
Speaker 1: almost all day, and so I want something that's high quality,
Speaker 1: because high quality glass tends to be a little more clear,
Speaker 1: a little easier spot, and just a little bit more
Speaker 1: I relief. I've talked about it in past podcasts where
Speaker 1: I say kind of like the varying levels of optics.
Speaker 1: You can have one company that has something in the
Speaker 1: d fifty dollar price range up to dollars or more
Speaker 1: price range, So what's the difference and trying to find
Speaker 1: that good balance. I think that you really get what
Speaker 1: you pay for when it comes to glass. So if
Speaker 1: I were to pick one category where I want a
Speaker 1: little bit higher in, I'm gonna go with binoculars for that. Now,
Speaker 1: binoculars are broken down into two ways. So you've got
Speaker 1: your magnification and then your field of view, which is
Speaker 1: your objective lens diameter. So your magnification is like your whom,
Speaker 1: your your how many times more are you seeing what
Speaker 1: you're looking through? So we're gonna break down binoculars down
Speaker 1: into the categories. I would say the gold standard is
Speaker 1: ten by forty two, So that's ten power magnification forty
Speaker 1: two field of view, So that's how wide you're seeing
Speaker 1: through that single look. Now, if we bumped that up
Speaker 1: the objective lens up to a fifty millimeter lens, we're
Speaker 1: gonna get a lot more fueld of view. So through
Speaker 1: looking at one thing, like looking through those binoculars, you
Speaker 1: can see more out of that peripheral vision. It widens
Speaker 1: that view. UM. I think that for western hunting application,
Speaker 1: ten by forty two's are just gonna be the go to.
Speaker 1: If there happens to be a ten by fifty, that's
Speaker 1: great as well, a little bit wider field of view,
Speaker 1: but ten power seems to be kind of that sweet spot.
Speaker 1: And here's why it's really good because it's enough magnification
Speaker 1: to look over long distances. I use my ten power
Speaker 1: binoculars to glass legitimately five miles or more. UM. It
Speaker 1: might seem like, how do you even what size do
Speaker 1: they look like? From their things are very small, but
Speaker 1: there's certain areas you can look and and really start
Speaker 1: to pick out animals, especially when it comes to elk.
Speaker 1: Ten powers also really versatile because when you get into timber,
Speaker 1: it's not too much magnification for those close up views,
Speaker 1: but we're gonna go over other optics as well. So
Speaker 1: the next category for magnification, one that's really popular is
Speaker 1: an eight by forty two. This is a little bit
Speaker 1: less magnification than the ten by forty two, but the
Speaker 1: same field of view. Now you gotta think, though, if
Speaker 1: you're zoomed in only eight times and you have the
Speaker 1: same forty two millimeter objective lens, you're gonna see a
Speaker 1: lot wider through. The eights eight power are really great
Speaker 1: for a lot of applications. Um. The nice thing about
Speaker 1: that wider field of view but still a decent magnification
Speaker 1: is when you're looking at a hill, especially in that
Speaker 1: mid range that like what could be far maybe up
Speaker 1: to a thousand yards or closer, you get more of
Speaker 1: that hill in one glance, and that helps you start
Speaker 1: to pick things out a little bit easier. Another great
Speaker 1: thing about the eight power is for guys to spend
Speaker 1: a lot of their time hunting more timbered areas. Let's
Speaker 1: say you're you're primarily a tree stand hunter or white
Speaker 1: tail hunter. You're hunting in areas with a little bit
Speaker 1: or a lot of timber, and then you're gonna come
Speaker 1: out west every few years whatever. Um, this is a
Speaker 1: really good pair of binoculars because you've got that more
Speaker 1: field of view in that timber or even if you're
Speaker 1: a Western hunter hunts like more timbered areas, you've got
Speaker 1: that field of view. It's still plenty of magnification to
Speaker 1: spot things at distance, and you've just got like a
Speaker 1: little bit wider field of view when it comes to
Speaker 1: um your other hunts where you're maybe more stationary, but
Speaker 1: you can start picking things out in the distance behind
Speaker 1: brush and trees, using them from a tree stand or
Speaker 1: in a more timbered area. So that's a really great
Speaker 1: optic to have, and I would say that that's probably
Speaker 1: the standard one that most guys outside of like Western
Speaker 1: hunting applications gravitate towards now in recent years. Twelve by fifties.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna put these in with like standard chest pack binoculars.
Speaker 1: So there's high magnification binocular that we'll talk about later,
Speaker 1: but I think twelve power is kind of the top
Speaker 1: end that you would want for for a chest like
Speaker 1: your go to, every day, every day carry binocular. I
Speaker 1: hunted exclusively with twelve by fifties for a very long time.
Speaker 1: Now I think they're They really excel in a quite
Speaker 1: a few different types of hunts, but primarily like back
Speaker 1: country real open country hunts. Some people worry about the
Speaker 1: twelve power magnification being a little too much in close
Speaker 1: range in timber um. I use them still like when
Speaker 1: I'm when I'm still hunting elk hunting, I'll use them
Speaker 1: in the in the timber as well as I'm moving
Speaker 1: through glassing, it is a little bit more zoomed. You
Speaker 1: have a lot less field of view. The fifty objective
Speaker 1: kind of helps you see a little bit more in
Speaker 1: that field of view, but that twelve power is going
Speaker 1: to be a lot tighter when it comes to glassing
Speaker 1: something close. It takes a lot more time to glass
Speaker 1: an area that's closer with twelve by fifties than it
Speaker 1: does eight by four eight by four gees. You can
Speaker 1: throw up, you see a large portion of the hill,
Speaker 1: and you can pick things out easier. If you're at
Speaker 1: a close range. You've got those twelve by fifties. It's
Speaker 1: gonna take a little bit longer, but when you you're
Speaker 1: gonna be a lot more zoomed in. You're gonna have
Speaker 1: a lot more clarity of what's in what you're actually
Speaker 1: looking at. I really like those higher magnification binoculars for
Speaker 1: alpine type hunting, so backcountry hunts, especially where it's it's
Speaker 1: high alpine. I know that most of my glassings might
Speaker 1: be long distances I'm glassing in areas that might be
Speaker 1: more open or highly glass intensive hunts where it's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be behind my glass for a long time.
Speaker 1: That extra magnification is really nice, especially when I put
Speaker 1: it on a tripod. But I don't think that the
Speaker 1: twelve power is too high to hand hold. I've hand
Speaker 1: I handheld them for a very long time with a
Speaker 1: lot of success, So on those kind of hunts, I
Speaker 1: actually preferred the twelve by fifties because it kind of
Speaker 1: cut a little bit of weight having to bring maybe
Speaker 1: a spotting scope or something else depending on the type
Speaker 1: of hunt. And we'll get into that next when we
Speaker 1: start talking about spotting scopes. But twelve by fifties are
Speaker 1: really good, especially if you're high alpine, maybe places like
Speaker 1: Alaska where you might be glassing over really long distances
Speaker 1: of maybe tundra or like open skate. Even things like
Speaker 1: backcountry hunts in Colorado or or open country like Nevada
Speaker 1: that more desert arid type stuff where it's really really
Speaker 1: glass and intensive, and you've got just a higher power
Speaker 1: binocular on your chest on your everyday harness where you
Speaker 1: can throw those up and get a little bit more magnification.
Speaker 1: Or areas where it's maybe you're glassing into real harsh
Speaker 1: lights you're trying to glass into maybe underneath patches of
Speaker 1: junipers from distance, or areas where you know you're gonna
Speaker 1: be glassing a long way. Twelve by fifties seem to
Speaker 1: be key. So there's three types of binoculars based on magnification,
Speaker 1: and each one kind of specializes in a different sect
Speaker 1: of hunting. But I would say that there's not one
Speaker 1: that um wouldn't work for all applications. So what I
Speaker 1: like to do when I'm thinking about binoculars is, if
Speaker 1: it comes down to, okay, I'm getting one pair of binoculars,
Speaker 1: I would really pick the binocular that fits with the
Speaker 1: majority of my hunts. Now, most people probably gravitate to
Speaker 1: the ten by forty two is because it's the most
Speaker 1: versatile in a large range of hunting applications. So the
Speaker 1: next category is gonna be high magnification binos. So what
Speaker 1: that would be is, I would say anything over those
Speaker 1: twelve power binoculars. Popular ones would be fifteen power, fifteen
Speaker 1: by fifties eighteen power or up to twenty power binoculars.
Speaker 1: The benefit to high magnification binoculars is it gives you
Speaker 1: that ability almost like you're glassing through a spotting scope,
Speaker 1: but you can leave both eyes open. There's a lot
Speaker 1: less eye fatigue. They're really good for optics intensive glassing.
Speaker 1: I would say that for a lot of hunts, high
Speaker 1: power binoculars are kind of that in between between your
Speaker 1: your chest binoculars and your spotting scope, and in many
Speaker 1: cases you might need kind of all three. So that
Speaker 1: does add to the weight. But I will say for
Speaker 1: very optics intensive hunts, they're really good to have. If
Speaker 1: you are living the south West or really arid places,
Speaker 1: high powered high magnification binoculars are a game changer in
Speaker 1: many instances. I would put them on the list of needs,
Speaker 1: kind of near the bottom of like that, once you
Speaker 1: already have everything else, here's a fun incidental that you
Speaker 1: can take on those certain strips. Now, if you live
Speaker 1: in Arizona, maybe Nevada, you've got like you're accused, deer hunter.
Speaker 1: Or one hunt that I use them on more than
Speaker 1: anything spring bear hunting. When I'm just sitting all day
Speaker 1: looking at a hill that's a certain distance away, trying
Speaker 1: to pick out something that's about as tall as the
Speaker 1: brush that I'm looking at. Being able to look through
Speaker 1: high magnification binoculars, I can just look through them through
Speaker 1: a longer period of time, and it's a lot more
Speaker 1: comfortable than staring through my handheld binoculars or even a
Speaker 1: lighter magnification binoculars on the tripod, because I can really
Speaker 1: pick it apart, but it's not is eye straining as
Speaker 1: looking through a spotting scope. So there are some really
Speaker 1: really good hunts that high powered, high magnification binoculars are.
Speaker 1: I would say an advantage another hunt that I like
Speaker 1: to bring them on is I'll have my chest binoculars.
Speaker 1: And there's so many hunts where backcountry hunts, maybe more
Speaker 1: open country, where I might not be necessarily trying to
Speaker 1: nitpick exactly the size of what I'm looking at. I
Speaker 1: would say I don't really need a spotting scope, but
Speaker 1: I do want that extra magnification for verification on what
Speaker 1: I'm looking at. So there's a lot of back country
Speaker 1: hunts where I throw those in because they might be
Speaker 1: a little bit lighter or maybe even the same weight
Speaker 1: as my spotting scope. But I know that I can
Speaker 1: look through them longer, and I might not know the
Speaker 1: type of country that I'm getting into, but I know
Speaker 1: there's gonna be some some good areas where I can
Speaker 1: use that extra magnification to maybe glass the top of
Speaker 1: the mountain without having to walk up there, or really
Speaker 1: pick apart some more thick cover areas with those binoculars
Speaker 1: for a longer period of time. So there's a lot
Speaker 1: of hunts where those high magnification binos are really good
Speaker 1: binocular to have, and I really, I mean I use
Speaker 1: that find myself using those more and more on a
Speaker 1: lot of hunts where it's really optics intensive. If you
Speaker 1: live in an area where that's the type of hunting
Speaker 1: you're gonna be doing, maybe this is something you're gonna
Speaker 1: want to start to look into, and maybe it might
Speaker 1: even be something that you think about before getting a
Speaker 1: spotting scope for certain types of places in certain type
Speaker 1: of hunting. Next up, we're gonna be talking about spotting scopes.
Speaker 1: So I think of the spotting scope like this. The
Speaker 1: spotting scope is in addition to my binoculars. I think
Speaker 1: it's very hard if there's I've I know guys that
Speaker 1: do this, and it's just it doesn't really work for
Speaker 1: me and doesn't really work well for a long period
Speaker 1: of time. I believe that guys use their spotting scope
Speaker 1: is their main method of glassing. For me, it just
Speaker 1: doesn't work because one you're you're only one I focused,
Speaker 1: so it kind of jacks with your vision a little bit,
Speaker 1: causes a little bit more eye strain over a long
Speaker 1: period of time. Um, and it can be difficult to
Speaker 1: really focus in. Now I've developed some tactics where it's
Speaker 1: a little bit easier to glass with that one eye,
Speaker 1: where I I throw my jacket over myself so I
Speaker 1: can keep both eyes open but really shade my other
Speaker 1: off eye so I can focus in on what I'm
Speaker 1: looking through through the spotting scope. But um, for me,
Speaker 1: the spotting scope is primarily used on hunts where I'm
Speaker 1: either looking really long distances, being fairly picky when it
Speaker 1: comes to what I'm looking for, or in an area
Speaker 1: or type of hunt that's very glass and intensive, so
Speaker 1: meaning that I'm using my binoculars a lot, but then
Speaker 1: maybe I'm at a good glassing vantage, and for me
Speaker 1: to walk over and verify maybe a waste of time
Speaker 1: when I can just take out my spotting scope and
Speaker 1: double check what I'm looking at. There's very few hunts
Speaker 1: where I personally don't take a spotting scope, But the
Speaker 1: type of spotting scope I prefer to take depends on
Speaker 1: the type of hunt that I'm doing. Now, I'm very
Speaker 1: fortunate that I have get a try a lot of
Speaker 1: spotting scopes and have multiple spotting scopes that I use
Speaker 1: for various applications. I would say spotting scopes are similar
Speaker 1: in the way that you've got your magnification and then
Speaker 1: your objective lens, and what you're gonna get from that
Speaker 1: is your magnification. You know, we'll have some m zoom factor,
Speaker 1: So some might be twelve to sixty power, some might
Speaker 1: be twenty two eight power. I would say, like a
Speaker 1: probably a good mid range spotting scale. We're gonna be
Speaker 1: like that fifteen power probably with like a sixty or
Speaker 1: sixty five objective And what that is is so that
Speaker 1: objective lens is your outer lens that gives you your
Speaker 1: field of view. But what it also does is is
Speaker 1: light gathering. So the larger your objective lens, the more
Speaker 1: light that's going to come in, the better it is
Speaker 1: at those crepuscular times morning and evening, or looking into
Speaker 1: harsh shadows in harsh lights. So on the times when
Speaker 1: a spotting scope is really handy, you might think it
Speaker 1: is like morning and evening, but actually I use it
Speaker 1: a lot middle of the day to look into those
Speaker 1: betting areas where I can look at them out and say, okay,
Speaker 1: there's shade right there, pull out my spotting scope, crank
Speaker 1: it up to max power, and really look underneath the trees,
Speaker 1: underneath the shadow, in that stuff that's real dark, where
Speaker 1: those animals are going to be at that time of day.
Speaker 1: I really find the spotting scope helpful for that. So
Speaker 1: if we're thinking about spotting scopes and their application, like
Speaker 1: I said, it's it's more of a verification. So if
Speaker 1: I've got a good a limited entry draw tag I've got,
Speaker 1: or I'm hunting meal, dear or something that's fairly glass
Speaker 1: and intensive um and maybe I'm looking for a certain
Speaker 1: type of meal, or maybe a one seventy or a
Speaker 1: big four by four, a mature meal dear, a spotting
Speaker 1: scope is really going to be key to making that
Speaker 1: hunt more successful. Where I can sit down on my
Speaker 1: glassing knob, I can look for deer. Okay, I see
Speaker 1: a deer way off from the distance, I can pull
Speaker 1: out my spotting scope and analyze that deer. Is it
Speaker 1: a dough? Is it a buck? Is it something that
Speaker 1: I want to walk over there in stock? Now? Should
Speaker 1: I can? I be able to follow that deer through
Speaker 1: the spotting scope till it beds and gives me an
Speaker 1: advantageous time for a stock. Now on the flip side,
Speaker 1: if you're a guy's like, hey, I'm just here for
Speaker 1: I'm on an elk hunt. I just want to kill
Speaker 1: a legal bull. I'm packing in I'm going backcountry. Any
Speaker 1: bull elk will do? You know, spotting scope may not
Speaker 1: be necessary because it's a lot of extra weight, and
Speaker 1: what you're really looking for is, for the most part,
Speaker 1: you can tell the difference between a bull elk and
Speaker 1: a cow oak from a very very long ways away,
Speaker 1: just based on the color of their hide. Bulls are
Speaker 1: a lot more blonde. They're a lot lighter dark on
Speaker 1: the front end, blonde in the middle. I mean, I
Speaker 1: can throw my bionoes up. I've looked at a lot
Speaker 1: of elk, though, but throw my bionoes up five miles
Speaker 1: away and say, yeah, there's a bull in that herd. Now,
Speaker 1: whether it's a spike or whether it's a mature bull,
Speaker 1: you know, it can be difficult to tell. But for
Speaker 1: all intents and purposes, like, hey, yeah, I'm willing to
Speaker 1: go hunt that, I'll go over there, get closer, see
Speaker 1: if I can get in on him, and then I
Speaker 1: may not necessarily need the weight of the spotting scope.
Speaker 1: But there's a lot of hunts and applications where that
Speaker 1: spotting scope is crucial to the hunt. You know, it's
Speaker 1: crucial to being able to identify what you're looking at,
Speaker 1: saves you that let your eyes do the walking. Being
Speaker 1: able to zoom in and see what you're looking at
Speaker 1: can be really key on most hunts. Now, the weight
Speaker 1: and the size and the zoom of your spotting scope
Speaker 1: can vary. So I would say, let's do the fifteen
Speaker 1: We'll go fifteen by to forty five magnification by sixty
Speaker 1: five objective. This is probably something close to that is
Speaker 1: gonna be kind of like that ten by forty two binocular.
Speaker 1: It's going to be the most versatile, and you're kind
Speaker 1: of balancing weight verse light transmission and magnification. So something
Speaker 1: in that range is probably going to be the right
Speaker 1: balance for everything from backcountry hunting to kind of day
Speaker 1: hunt type hunting. Now, if you're the kind of person
Speaker 1: that's like you're looking for a certain type of animal
Speaker 1: every time you go hunting, Uh, there's a lot of places.
Speaker 1: You know, growing up in Nevada, tags can be few
Speaker 1: and far between. So when you get a tag, it's like,
Speaker 1: I want to make the most out of this tag
Speaker 1: um And you know, I spend a lot of time
Speaker 1: glassing on those kind of hunts. I actually would just
Speaker 1: sacrifice carrying a little bit more weight and get something
Speaker 1: more like a twenty to sixty power magnification with maybe
Speaker 1: an eighty five objective where it's got a bigger objective,
Speaker 1: more like gathering a little bit more magnification, where I
Speaker 1: can really zoom in, I can really focus in on stuff,
Speaker 1: I can check things out far far away, I can
Speaker 1: look into those shadows and really maybe see something in
Speaker 1: the middle of the day and use that scope and
Speaker 1: really just put that scope to work. Then that's probably
Speaker 1: what I'm going to look at now there's a flip side.
Speaker 1: And one thing that I carry probably more than anything,
Speaker 1: is just a super lights like a thirty three mill objective.
Speaker 1: I think it's UM eleven to thirty three power magnification
Speaker 1: spotting scope because for a lot of backcountry hunts, I
Speaker 1: just need that spotting scampe to verify. Yeah, that's something
Speaker 1: I'm willing to chase, but I don't necessarily need to
Speaker 1: glass through it for prolonged periods of time. I'm not
Speaker 1: really trying to pick stuff out in the middle of
Speaker 1: the day, but if I needed to, I've got it
Speaker 1: as a backup, So that's always an option as well,
Speaker 1: like a more lightweight backcountry style spotting scope, And with
Speaker 1: each one of these there's just kind of weight ratios
Speaker 1: that factor into it. Now. Also, when you're talking about
Speaker 1: spotting scopes, you've got angled verse straight. This is a
Speaker 1: big debate for a lot of people. Me personally, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I've always just used straight because I like
Speaker 1: that target acquisition of it's just intuit If I can
Speaker 1: look at it, I can be glassing with my binoculars.
Speaker 1: I can throw the scope up. I don't even have
Speaker 1: to think about it, don't have to readjust the tripod.
Speaker 1: I don't have to readjust anything. It's all just right there.
Speaker 1: But I will say, like, for if you're glassing real
Speaker 1: steep stuff, and angled scope is really nice where you
Speaker 1: can have it a little bit lower to the ground,
Speaker 1: a more natural head position, especially when you're glassing from
Speaker 1: a valley floor up a lot, it's really good. Um,
Speaker 1: the angled can be okay, it can be a little
Speaker 1: awkward when you're glassing like real steep down, but you
Speaker 1: can actually on all of them turn them sideways a
Speaker 1: little bit. I will say, though, it can get very
Speaker 1: hard to get used to to find that target real fast.
Speaker 1: So if you spotted something with your binos like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go spot it now, and you've got your
Speaker 1: angled scope, and if you aren't used to it, it
Speaker 1: can get a little bit tricky to find sometimes. But
Speaker 1: it for for a lot of people, it's it's a
Speaker 1: little bit more comfortable to have that angled eyepiece than straight.
Speaker 1: If you're a guy that does a lot of like
Speaker 1: glassing from the vehicle where you might drive glass a
Speaker 1: long distance, you've got a window mount, I think the
Speaker 1: straight works a lot better for that, which actually I
Speaker 1: mean that's a really effective way for scouting, you know,
Speaker 1: checking a bunch of multiple points and looking really far away.
Speaker 1: A lot of guys have, like especially Western guys that
Speaker 1: are really looking for a certain type of animal. I mean,
Speaker 1: I see a lot of guides some of the guys
Speaker 1: that killed the biggest animals every year. It's because of
Speaker 1: a window mount and a really high power spotting scope.
Speaker 1: They drive to locations, they cover a lot of country
Speaker 1: and they let their eyes do the walking. And that's
Speaker 1: probably they're probably got a straight spotting scope with maybe
Speaker 1: eighty five mill objective and something that cranked up to
Speaker 1: sixty power and that works really well. So um, that
Speaker 1: kind of gives you an overview of spotting scopes. Now
Speaker 1: we're gonna move over to range finders. When it comes
Speaker 1: to range finders, I think that you know you would
Speaker 1: you would almost instantly think, Okay, the range finder that
Speaker 1: goes the furthest is going to be the best. But
Speaker 1: that's not always the case because there's a lot of
Speaker 1: nuances with range finders where a certain range finder does
Speaker 1: something but it lacks in something else. Just like every
Speaker 1: piece of optics, there's one that's really good for situation
Speaker 1: but has a negative downside. There's a spotting scope that
Speaker 1: has really high magnification, good light gathering, but it's super heavy,
Speaker 1: hard to carry in the back country. Um, the same
Speaker 1: thing happens with range finders. So a range finder just
Speaker 1: because it goes really far may not be the best
Speaker 1: application for you. Now, I like a range finder that
Speaker 1: ranges a long ways, especially when I'm rifle hunting or
Speaker 1: for planning a stock. I think there's nothing better. But
Speaker 1: one thing you want to look for when you're looking
Speaker 1: at range finders, well, what kind of hunting do you
Speaker 1: mostly do? If you're mostly an archery hunter, you've got
Speaker 1: to make sure that that range finder that goes really
Speaker 1: far maybe calculates within bow ranges. There's some range finders
Speaker 1: that are really good, really accurate out to far distances,
Speaker 1: but maybe don't range anything under a hundred yards, or
Speaker 1: maybe don't do angle calculations under a hundred yards, and
Speaker 1: vice versa. Maybe there's some range finders that are great
Speaker 1: for archery, but they don't do angle calculations past a
Speaker 1: certain yards for rifle hunting. So what I like to
Speaker 1: do is I like to find a range finder that's
Speaker 1: really got a little bit of both, where go out
Speaker 1: to the distances that I would rifle shoot, but also
Speaker 1: is effective for archery hunting, because I primarily archery hunt.
Speaker 1: And one thing that I would say is a feature
Speaker 1: I must have in every range finder is going to
Speaker 1: be angle compensation, So some kind of compensation for the
Speaker 1: angle when you're if you range something, you know it
Speaker 1: does that A square plus B squared equals C squared
Speaker 1: automatically in the range finders, so you don't have to
Speaker 1: do calculations. Since range finders have done that, it's made
Speaker 1: well me personally a lot more successful and have to
Speaker 1: have a lot less gadgets. When I first had a
Speaker 1: range finder, it's like sweet. It just ranged straight. And
Speaker 1: I actually had a stick on in kilometer on there
Speaker 1: that had a thumb button, so I would range it
Speaker 1: and then I would hit the thumb button and hold
Speaker 1: this like it's almost looked like a almost like a compass,
Speaker 1: and then would tell me my angle. This is all
Speaker 1: like very premous stuff. And then I had on a
Speaker 1: cut chart on my wrist. I would have like a
Speaker 1: wrist guard that keeps the string from slapping your arm.
Speaker 1: I would have had a cut shirt on there, and
Speaker 1: then I had one in my pocket and so I
Speaker 1: could look at that and I would look at the range,
Speaker 1: look at the angle, and then follow the chart to
Speaker 1: see the horizontal compensated distance. Now you don't have to
Speaker 1: worry about that. The range finder just does it all
Speaker 1: for you, which is really nice. So you want to
Speaker 1: make sure that for your application that works for whatever
Speaker 1: you're doing. So whether if you're a rifle hunter and
Speaker 1: you're like, it's a hundred yards less doesn't matter, it's
Speaker 1: just point and shoot, but out to five yards, I
Speaker 1: want to know that angle compensation. I want to make
Speaker 1: sure that I can get a really good range out
Speaker 1: further distances, make sure it's super accurate. Then you're gonna
Speaker 1: want one of those really high power range finders. Now,
Speaker 1: if you're a bow hunter in that high power range
Speaker 1: finder doesn't work under a hundred yards or doesn't compensate
Speaker 1: angle under hunter yards, you're probably gonna want to look
Speaker 1: for something else. So that's what I look for when
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about range finders. The next category is gonna
Speaker 1: be range finding binoculars. Now you think, okay, range finding binoculars.
Speaker 1: I I love range finding binoculars, especially when I'm guiding,
Speaker 1: because it allows me to be hands free I can
Speaker 1: be glassing and then also calling out ranges to the
Speaker 1: person next to me, saying okay, yep, a hundred yards
Speaker 1: to earners, especially when something is moving you're in the action.
Speaker 1: I don't have to switch between two things. I've got
Speaker 1: my range finding binoculars right there. I actually just started
Speaker 1: testing out a pair of range Vortex range finding binoculars
Speaker 1: that have ballistic A B curves and data that can
Speaker 1: send it to different devices as well, which is really
Speaker 1: cool because I can click it, have all my input
Speaker 1: data in there and then know, okay, three minutes of angle.
Speaker 1: Or if I'm guiding someone, I could say, hey, give
Speaker 1: me your give me your bullet, give me your drop compensation,
Speaker 1: give me everything. I can input this, and then right
Speaker 1: there within the unit, I can either do that or
Speaker 1: have it sent to my watch or whatever. There's just
Speaker 1: so many applications for especially for long range shooting. They're awesome.
Speaker 1: I used range finding binoculars for a very long time
Speaker 1: and it's a really fast, efficient way to to use
Speaker 1: a bino and a range. It combines two really good things.
Speaker 1: There are a few drawbacks, however, One they're they're heavy.
Speaker 1: They can be fairly expensive as well. Um I think
Speaker 1: one of the major drawbacks with range finding your binoculars
Speaker 1: is the fact that the the button for the range
Speaker 1: finder has to be on one side or the other
Speaker 1: for most of them. I think there might be somewhere
Speaker 1: you can switch the button on whichever side you want,
Speaker 1: but you have to think of it like this. If
Speaker 1: I'm bow hunting right, I'm generally holding my bow with
Speaker 1: my left hand, so I'm gonna want to range finding
Speaker 1: binocular with the button on the right side. Well, I
Speaker 1: shoot right handed if you're left handed, to be the opposite,
Speaker 1: So because my hand is gonna be holding the bow,
Speaker 1: I could take the binoculars out hit the range I
Speaker 1: had the first pair I ever had. I had to
Speaker 1: reach over and press the button with my left like
Speaker 1: it was on the left side, but I'd hold it
Speaker 1: with my right hand. There's like this weird awkward reach
Speaker 1: over thing. Now the exact opposite. If you're a rifle shooter,
Speaker 1: you're you're gonna be a right handed rifle shooter. The
Speaker 1: gun's gonna be shouldered on your right side, You're gonna
Speaker 1: pull the binoculars out with your left hand, and you're
Speaker 1: gonna want to be able to operate that with your
Speaker 1: left index finger. So just something to think about. Um,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like picking a range finder for your application.
Speaker 1: Range finding binocular kind of for your application as well.
Speaker 1: If you're a bow hunter, make sure that it has
Speaker 1: the features that you want for bow hunting, and then
Speaker 1: obviously it'll be able to do some of the other
Speaker 1: stuff as well. If you're primarily a rifle shooter, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of think about something around that that rifle like
Speaker 1: range finding binocular for the rifle and actually the new
Speaker 1: ones they can be a little bit complicated with all
Speaker 1: the ballistic data. But man, if you're into that, if
Speaker 1: you're into long range shooting, that's I think that's the
Speaker 1: best scenario in my opinion. If I'm going out on
Speaker 1: a rifle hunt or I'm guiding rifle clients, first binocular
Speaker 1: will probably put on. It's just range finding binocular with
Speaker 1: ballistic data in it, because it just makes everything so
Speaker 1: streamlined so fast, and it's a really cool technology to have.
Speaker 1: Plus you've got a good optic as well. Now the
Speaker 1: last piece optic would be your rifle scope. And I
Speaker 1: I remember reading an article. I don't even know where
Speaker 1: it was at. It's just a long time ago. And
Speaker 1: it was like the thought of you know, for the
Speaker 1: longest time, it's always been rifles, right, those rifles, And
Speaker 1: then it's like, but I think that if you were
Speaker 1: to spend let's say you spent five on a rifle
Speaker 1: and then put a rifle scope on it, you've just
Speaker 1: kind of rendered like, this really really good rifle quite useless.
Speaker 1: Most rifles shoot pretty good, even like factory made box
Speaker 1: store rifles shoot pretty decent, and sometimes that accuracy is
Speaker 1: just comes down to the rifle scope that you put
Speaker 1: on it. So if I were to pick the two
Speaker 1: things that I would probably put my money on, it
Speaker 1: would be binoculars first and rifle scope second, because you
Speaker 1: want to be able to hit what you're shooting at
Speaker 1: and you want that gun to be accurate, and you
Speaker 1: want to make sure that that accuracy isn't a factor
Speaker 1: of the scope that you've put on top of it,
Speaker 1: and people don't sometimes understand how much that can affect
Speaker 1: the accuracy. Things like parallax shadowing. If you don't have
Speaker 1: your cheek exactly where it's supposed to be when you
Speaker 1: the same time you shot last time, and your head
Speaker 1: it's a little bit different, and that right, that's that
Speaker 1: crosshair tends to move like it looks like it's moving
Speaker 1: in scope, which often happens in cheaper scopes that don't
Speaker 1: have as much many features or or different type of
Speaker 1: um focal plane. Then you might think that that rifle
Speaker 1: is fairly inaccurate, when it actually is just the scope itself.
Speaker 1: I've had scopes on rifles that I shot really well,
Speaker 1: but handed to another guy and it's like they shot
Speaker 1: completely different because the way that they were looking their
Speaker 1: cheek world was a little bit different. The way that
Speaker 1: they look through that scope was a little bit different,
Speaker 1: and there wasn't any way to adjust that. So when
Speaker 1: it comes to rifle scopes, there is a myriad of
Speaker 1: different features functions. I mean, you can get so specific
Speaker 1: for the type of If you are a guy that
Speaker 1: likes to shoot long range, long distance targets, there's a
Speaker 1: rifle scope for you. If you're a guy that shoots
Speaker 1: um the backwards from your tree stand at twenty yards,
Speaker 1: there's a rifle scope for you. There's different rifle scopes
Speaker 1: with different types of raticles that light up that do.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's more different types of rifle scopes than
Speaker 1: I could possibly covered in fifty podcasts. But what I'm
Speaker 1: what I do want to cover is just kind of
Speaker 1: the basic um features of some rifle scopes and kind
Speaker 1: of some things that I think are important when you're
Speaker 1: looking at a rifle scope. So let's start with the
Speaker 1: basic rifle scope. Rifle scopes, just like all these other
Speaker 1: optics we've talked about, have the magnification and objective lens.
Speaker 1: So uh, kind of the standard for a very long
Speaker 1: time would be like a two to ten so two
Speaker 1: power to tend power probably by maybe a forty or
Speaker 1: forty four middle objective. I think. Now for me personally,
Speaker 1: I like anything in the four to sixteen power or
Speaker 1: even higher. I like that sixteen magnification. I like being
Speaker 1: able to bump it up a little bit, even up
Speaker 1: to twenty power magnification is nice because for my rifles,
Speaker 1: I like to be able to shoot a little bit
Speaker 1: of distance as well, So I think having that being
Speaker 1: able to zoom in even when you're at a hundred yards,
Speaker 1: it's nice to be able to crank that rifle up. Now,
Speaker 1: when it comes to the radical inside, we'll just go
Speaker 1: with like the basic radical that's just a standard cross hair.
Speaker 1: This is fine for a lot applications, especially if you're
Speaker 1: just shooting pretty much fixed distance the furthest you're ever
Speaker 1: going to shoot the hundred yards, then you don't really
Speaker 1: need all the bells and whistles. A standard cross hair
Speaker 1: two to ten that's perfect. If you're mostly hunting thick timber,
Speaker 1: you're probably gonna be zoomed out to that to power. Anyways,
Speaker 1: that's a great scope to have just a fixed ratical
Speaker 1: in there. Great. Now, if it was me and I'm
Speaker 1: buying a rifle scope that I'm gonna use for different
Speaker 1: different things. Maybe we're gonna hunt mealed here. Maybe you
Speaker 1: live and you're hunting white tails primarily, but you might
Speaker 1: go out and hunt elk, whatever it is. I like
Speaker 1: any kind of scope that has some form of hold
Speaker 1: over or drop compensation adjustment in it. I personally like
Speaker 1: to use an adjustable turret, but I like a radical
Speaker 1: that has some form of drop compensation. So what that
Speaker 1: is is I can cite my cross hair in and
Speaker 1: then there's something underneath it, like a line or mill
Speaker 1: dot or something that in the scope I can look
Speaker 1: through and know that at a different range, this is
Speaker 1: where I hold for at If you've got that basic
Speaker 1: crossair you can just use the cross air and then
Speaker 1: the pope. I used to do the same exact thing
Speaker 1: with just the primary crossair and then the post as
Speaker 1: knowing where that post was and then knowing how far
Speaker 1: from that post and the main crossair various ranges were.
Speaker 1: That was all well and good, but it's not necessarily precise.
Speaker 1: So it's really nice, especially for Western hunting applications, to
Speaker 1: be able to know where you're holding, what your holdovers are,
Speaker 1: and how to shoot it a little bit further distance,
Speaker 1: whether it's three hund yards, three d fifty yards or
Speaker 1: out to five hundred yards. It's really good to have
Speaker 1: something to focus on to aim with. One thing you'll
Speaker 1: see on rifle scopes might be something called the first
Speaker 1: focal plane. The first focal plane scope means that the
Speaker 1: relationship of what that crossair represents as you're looking through
Speaker 1: it is the same regardless of magnification. So on a
Speaker 1: first focal plane scope you gotta think of it like this,
Speaker 1: um as I zoom out, the crosshairs actually zoom out,
Speaker 1: and as I zoom in, the crosshairs actually get larger.
Speaker 1: Because what it does is it makes that whatever I'm
Speaker 1: looking through at that magnification, the representation in the in
Speaker 1: the scope. I think some people get confused. They get
Speaker 1: these scopes that have different lines in them and they
Speaker 1: can use them, but it might not be a first
Speaker 1: focal plane scope. So if you're form power magnification that scope,
Speaker 1: that first mark below your crosser means something completely different
Speaker 1: than when it's on full magnification, say fifteen or sixteen powers.
Speaker 1: So it doesn't matter which one you do. You just
Speaker 1: need to know which system it is and then how
Speaker 1: to use it. So if you've got those lines in
Speaker 1: your scope, that first line down is you sighted in
Speaker 1: for two hundred yards, next one downs three, next one
Speaker 1: downs four hundred, bottom ones five, But it only means
Speaker 1: that it's sixteen power magnification or full magnification. Then when
Speaker 1: you're shooting it, you need to make sure that it's
Speaker 1: turned up to the full magnification and you're shooting it
Speaker 1: for the correct distance with those lines. So I'd say
Speaker 1: when I think about getting a rifle scope, I like
Speaker 1: something that. I mean, it's just like anything. You've got
Speaker 1: the weight ratio, you've got the functions and the features
Speaker 1: and different things you like. Me personally, my ideal scope
Speaker 1: has an adjustable turret because I like to adjust for
Speaker 1: the exact conditions that I'm in. I don't like it
Speaker 1: pre done. I don't like pre numbers. I like to
Speaker 1: use a ballistics data to trying to adjust that turret.
Speaker 1: I like one that has the locking turrets on it,
Speaker 1: so that the windage and the elevation is locked. I
Speaker 1: prefer one mostly the only thing I'm going to use
Speaker 1: in that scope is a windage turret, So that's kind
Speaker 1: of the scopes that I go for. And then I
Speaker 1: like something in the four to sixteen power range um
Speaker 1: maybe by fifty mil objective. It's a little bit heavier,
Speaker 1: but it's a little bit more light gathering. And then
Speaker 1: something where it's got an adjustable parallax. So at the
Speaker 1: different ranges, what I'm doing is I'm kind of getting
Speaker 1: rid of that parallax shadowing that I talked about. So
Speaker 1: when your head is in maybe a little bit slightly
Speaker 1: different position, especially for field shooting, you might be in
Speaker 1: like kind of a weird angle or slightly different position.
Speaker 1: I can adjust that for the range so I don't
Speaker 1: get as much shadowing, and that cross hair is like
Speaker 1: true to where it should be shooting. And those are
Speaker 1: the features that I personally like. Now on the flip side,
Speaker 1: I've got a gun that's a real light gun, and
Speaker 1: I just put a real basic light scope in it
Speaker 1: that doesn't even have a first vocal plane. It's got
Speaker 1: uh different stadi alignes for the different yardages, but it
Speaker 1: has to be on full magnification. It's a really light scope.
Speaker 1: It doesn't have all the bells and whistles. The parallax
Speaker 1: that doesn't have a real like bad parallax problem after
Speaker 1: testing it, And so I just put that on a
Speaker 1: lightweight gun to keep the gun lightweight, to keep everything simple,
Speaker 1: and you do not have to think about so many
Speaker 1: moving parts because it's a gun that I'm not really
Speaker 1: going to be shooting super far, and in a hunting scenario,
Speaker 1: it's great for hunting, quick target acquisition and works really great.
Speaker 1: So I think kind of picking a rifle scope for
Speaker 1: the type of shooting you like to do and the
Speaker 1: type of hunting you like to do, just like all
Speaker 1: these optics, kind of tailoring it to what you are
Speaker 1: planning on doing the type of hunting and the style
Speaker 1: that you like, is going to be the first step
Speaker 1: in deciding, Okay, which optic is right for me, and
Speaker 1: then going from there and picking one that really works.
Speaker 1: I really hope this optics run down a lot of you.
Speaker 1: I just get that asked questions so much about optics
Speaker 1: that I wanted to give this broad overview and it
Speaker 1: kind of help you think about maybe some things that
Speaker 1: come to my mind when I think about, Okay, what
Speaker 1: optics would be the good optic to have? And this
Speaker 1: is a really good way to think about it is
Speaker 1: making kind of your kit very specific to the type
Speaker 1: of hunting that you do for the majority of your hunting,
Speaker 1: but also where it can reach out and and do
Speaker 1: things for if you go on another kind of hunt
Speaker 1: or you start to hunt in another type of area.
Speaker 1: You know, for me, I prefer higher magnification binoculars, but
Speaker 1: I also don't hunt as much heavy cover, so when
Speaker 1: I do, my binoculars work great for that because it's
Speaker 1: not a lot of time spent there, but it works
Speaker 1: really good for the majority of my hunting purposes. So
Speaker 1: that's just something to think about. I think next week
Speaker 1: I'm going to jump into kind of doing the same
Speaker 1: thing with another topic. Another type of gear that I
Speaker 1: get asked about as much as anything would be boots
Speaker 1: and packs two things that I think it's just weight,
Speaker 1: airing and a strenuous activity. So it's something that is
Speaker 1: inherently uncomfortable, and you're trying to take a product and
Speaker 1: make it more comfortable. So I'm gonna cover the types
Speaker 1: of boost and the types of packs that I look
Speaker 1: for when I'm planning either a backcountry hunt, a day hunt,
Speaker 1: a prolonged hunt, maybe a hunt in rocky rough country,
Speaker 1: or a hunt more in the plane. So I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go over the types of packs and the types of
Speaker 1: gear and the things that look for, very similar to
Speaker 1: the way that we just did the optics. So until
Speaker 1: next week, I hope you are looking forward. There's a
Speaker 1: little pun in there to what we have in store
Speaker 1: for more gear selection stuff. I'll catch you guys all
Speaker 1: next week and see you later another pun optics