Budget but quality spotting scope?

[dromia]

Tooter!

[Fedaykin]

Problem with buying a spotting scope off the RSPB is you are giving money to an anti shooting organisation. The RSPB don't get my money alongside the RSPCA both organisations have been infiltrated and taken over by sometimes extreme elements of the animal rights movement. The RSPB has been using its huge financial clout (from all the bequests they get) to buy up shooting rights over wetlands and the current head of the RSPCA called for people participating in the badger cull to be named and shamed so they could suffer the consequences (from visits by ALF). The reality is the ban on culling badgers has caused an ecological disaster regardless of TB, they don't have natural predators and now there are just too many of them. If farmers and stalkers had been allowed to shoot them then we wouldn't be in this over population problem. I drove home from Salisbury to Loughborough last week and passed about ten dead badgers by the road. The RSPCA and RSPB are not interested in wildlife management or working with those in the countryside, it is only the ideology of the extreme animal rights movement which counts! There is no way either organisation is getting my money!

Sorry rant over :-)

As for scopes I recently got my first rifle a No.4 with no scope of course. Shooting at Kingsbury with only the iron sights at 300 yards and no spotting scope was interesting. Effectively it was like shooting at an ETR, anyhow a spotting scope is on my shopping list.

[hitchphil]

Bought the Practika one from Scopes n skies £99 delivered in a day. Its larger than some but not too heavy, build seems solid. Rotating ring good & solid, weather cover is good, lens covers simple, angled eye with good relief, focal range seems to be 3feet to infinity, zoom is OK to use occasionally but 25x-30 is fine for TR, was ok at 1000yds in hale rain & glare! is a little red shift in image vs some other Kowa’s etc so possibkly a % darker than others but not significant as to warant 6x the cost to my mind (or eyesight). Depth of field good to ~40x then it flattens out. Good image qualty resolution & actuality across the feild of view, at 30x 3 targets can bee observed at 1000.

For the price it’s a good option. Size may put some off. I need a better stand than a freeland!

[JonC]

Tried out an opticron mighty midget 2 spotting scope at the weekend. Picked it up on ebay for £45 without an eyepiece. Tried it with two of my existing eyepieces and was impressed. It's a good compact scope, showed mirage well at 600 yards.

[JonC]

Update on the MM spotting scope. When coupled with a good zoom eyepiece I managed to spot fall of shot on the 1000 yard sandbank on Stickledown. Rather impressive for a reasonably compact setup. Would be interesting to see if the same thing is possible with a high mag fixed focal length eyepiece, could be a good and reasonably priced long range spotting combo.