Has anyone looked thru a higher end Bushnell Elite. 20-60 x80mm. Their rifle scope glass seems pretty good.

Well, I couldn't resist the price, and bought the Celestron. I will report back when it arrives (sometime next week). On my next trip to the range I'll see if I can't compare it to someone else's scope.

Hope you enjoy it and put it to good use.

Do not........Do not.. buy a cheep spotting scope. Save your money and get a good one so you don't end up buying the thing twice.

As Kitty likes to say, "Buy the best first and only cry once..."

check out ALPEN not to long on moolaw but long on quality,they are used alot by olympic and field archers at about the same distances as silo top notch customer service too

silhouete13

silhouette13 wrote:check out ALPEN not to long on moolaw but long on quality,they are used alot by olympic and field archers at about the same distances as silo top notch customer service too

silhouete13

My Alpen is dark compared to my Bushnell and we won't even discuss how it is against my Swarovski. Good for the price, but not even close to the real optics makers.

DO NOT BUY a cheep spoting scope. If you do you will keep buying them untill you finaly give in and get a good one. Just buy it once.

For more scope discussion see this link to the HP forum:

http://www.steelchickens.com/phpBB2/vie ... 00&start=0

When I started I found this review which I thought was pretty helpful.

http://www.snipercountry.com/InReviews/ ... Scopes.asp

I looked though a current generation Bushnell Spacemaster and was impressed. Recently looked though a Kowa 501...just as ugly as the last time. Sad that they put their name on these scopes. I also won a Leupold "Wind River" spotting scope at Winni....side by side is was way behind my Spacemaster and sold it. Last summer I put my Spacemaster next to Ziess looking across a lake at the numbers on a hull. 93% as clear at 15% the cost.

So...would I like to have a TSN 821? Sure. If you can swing it, get one but it won't buy you more animals like a good scope/rifle setup. For me, my Spacemaster works just fine considering you can pick them up on eBay for under $200. And yes, a sturdy (heavy) tripod will make life much better. Skimping on a tripod is a waste.

Happy shooting!

I added a picture as the marketing team at Bushnell has done some crazy brand extension of the Spacemaster name. They look like this and typically are black or cammo. This one is missing a screw on cover over the objective.

FYI, Eagle Optics is running a sale on Zeiss spotting scopes right now.

http://www.eagleoptics.com/hot_deals.asp

$362.00 off the "85mm Diascope" model which is what we have been using for silhouette. They're still not cheap, but they sure are nice. If you've been looking at a high end spotting scope, now might be a good time to buy.

We have no affiliation with this outfit, but it is where we bought our Zeiss on a similar deal several years ago, and they have taken good care of us... when a set of binocs we bought there needed repair they fixed them for free and got them back to us right away, and they even paid for the shipping.

I highly recommend the konus spotting scope. here is a link. The scope has good contrast and is bright. Hey, not like a swavorski or zeiss but you can get a street price of 219 for optics planet. normally they run 349.

here is the link:

http://www.opticsplanet.net/konus-konus ... scope.html#

John has viewed this scope next to the zeiss and can verify what I am saying.

Kowa 60mm series are great for this game. I found a used 612 with a 25X Long Eye Relief eyepiece and it works great. Field of vision is about 7 animals, which I find perfect. Clear as the big guys, and all the great Kowa features.
Plus its a light little thing.

I was dragging around a Chinese knockoff of an 821's body with a Kowa 27XLER eyepiece that works great, I just had to keep gluing the body back together (started cracking after 3 years of service). I'm sure it'll fog now, but for dry mild weather it still works (hasn't fogged yet, but this is Arizona!!).