Kowa Prominar 773

[Vinny]

I am currently looking at purchasing a new spotting scope for hunting. I have looked at most available scopes out there and I have decided on either the Swarovski ATS 20-60x65 HD or the Kowa TSN 773 25-60x77. One of the reasons for looking at the Kowa was the ability to add the 1.6x magnifier that boosts the maximum magnification to 96x. Has anyone had a chance to look through a Kowa with the magnifier? In some areas I hunt I will have very long ranges that I can spot from and I figured the additional power would help with deciding on if I should start hiking or move on to another animal. My concerns are that I would lose the clarity and light transmission that the scope is known for. What are your experiences and/or thoughts?

[backstrap]

I have an 883 20-60x88 prominar and its awesome, haven't put a magnifier on it but I haven't really had the need. For example, spotted a group of bull caribou and could count almost every single point except for some small stickers from 3.6km away (I google earthed the distance after) on a cloudy day. I find that in really dark low light conditions the 60x zoom definitely suffers so I'd assume it would be worse with the magnifier. However in good conditions I'd bet it would be unbeatable. Get a phone Skope with a remote as well, take a short video or snap photos and you can study them, zoom in, show your partner, helps a ton when aging or trying to count rings or points. Hope that helps a bit, if you get the magnifier please share your results....you've got me wondering

[Vinny]

Thanks Backstrap, if I go with magnifier I will definitely leave a review