1 more vote for Leupold. My choice would be 3-9x40!
hunter1993ap & BCBrad,
Thanks for the info.
Does the image get "crisper" with a smaller objective lens? Ie: 40 mm vs 50 mm
I have the VX3 4.5-14x40 with Boone and Crocket reticle on my 7mm Rem Mag and have been extremely happy with it.
I had the leupold vx3 3.5-10x40 b & c on my 7mm rem mag. Then I swapped it for a vx3 4.5-14x40 cds
I have a vx6 2-12x42 illuminated for my 7mm rem mag nosler 48
Elite 6500 2.5-16x50 for my savage longrange hunter in 6.5 creedmoor
Nightforce nxs 5.5-22x56 for my savage lrpv 6mm br
Last edited by donny.brooke; 02-19-2014 at 06:56 AM.
My understanding, albeit incomplete, is that the diameter of the bell has more to do with the transmission of light rather than clarity. That is, how long the scope can be seen through as darkness falls. Generally speaking the larger the bell the more light that is transmitted, ergo the earlier/later you can use the scope.
In most areas of life everything comes at a cost and the extra light transmission is no exception. The larger diameter lenses require the rifle to be mounted higher up from the action creating potential cheek weld and/or parallax issues.
More importantly the larger lenses are much harder to make at a higher quality level so the clarity and sharpness of your image may actually degrade with lower quality large diameter objective bells even though more light is transmitted.
With all things being equal there should be no difference in clarity between a 40mm and 50mm objective but this ain't Oz and unless you pay you will not get the same clarity.
So it is a trade off. For me 40mm is a nice compromise between light transmission and glass quality. Hope that helps...
http://www.opticsplanet.com/howto/ho...html?section=1
This link has a menu that covers rifle scope 101, not bad explanations. Light transmission is part 4.
Last edited by wlbc; 02-19-2014 at 03:33 PM.