What’s a Good Scope?

Every year I get asked what’s a good deer rifle. I’ve been writing deer rifle recommendations for close on to two decades. Rather than beat that horse again, I want to discuss the scope. Honestly, I am by no means an expert on rifle scopes. However, I’ve been dealing with them for 4 decades.

Back in 2014, I decided that my eyes had aged enough that it was time to give up my fascination with cheap scopes. I had a bunch of scopes from the 70s onwards that I’d acquired under various circumstances. I doubt I’d paid more than $30 for any of them. Between them and my aging eyes, I’d lost a good 10 minutes of hunting on either side of the day. All I was seeing through the scopes was mud.

I had room to experiment. I bought a Bushnell Elite 3-9X40, a Bushnell Trophy 4-12X40 and a Bushnell Banner 3-9X40, all with the Dawn to Dusk Coatings. Why did I pick Bushnell? At the time, I suppose it was simply that I had been having the least trouble with the few Bushnell scopes I owned. Beyond that, I’d looked through the scopes in the store and did not see a whole lot of difference between them and the expensive ones. Mind you, this was just my eyes doing the judging, and they are pretty wonky to begin with. It was about 20-some years ago that I realized I was having trouble seeing iron sights and started mounting scopes on all my rifles. Everyone’s eyes are different.

I reviewed these scope back when I first acquired them in 2014:

All 3 scopes ended up being just fine. I think the Elite went for $270 the Trophy cost $120 and the Banner went for well under $100. I successfully hunted with all 3 over the next couple of years. When it came time to buy the next scope, I bought a Banner and at last count, I’ve purchased 7 more since. I also now have 2 Banners in 1.5-4.5X32 mounted on shotguns. My sons and my granddaughter now have Bushnell Banners mounted on their deer rifles.

Granted, I’m not all that demanding. All the deer I take are shot within 200 yards. Most of my hunting takes place in fairly mild conditions, and I am never more than a half mile away from a warm cabin. Still, I’ve gone 8 years without a complaint. All the scopes are easy to adjust and keep their zeroes. I seldom have to make adjustments from year to year unless I’m changing the load. Deer hunting, in general, is like that, at least in my part of the world. Most whitetail deer are taken by hunters shooting within 80 yards. The majority of my deer rifles are set to shoot 2 inches high at 100 yards and that lets me put the crosshairs where I want and I am good to somewhere out beyond 200 yards. I never have to worry about holdover. As a writer friend of mine once said: “Hunting whitetails– it’s not like it’s rocket surgery.”

But Shaman! What if it was the hunt of a lifetime?

Look, set me up with a hunt of a lifetime, and I’ll let you know. If I were going on some exotic trip, I might very well just take an extra Bushnell Banner along just in case. The latest street price I saw was $80 on Amazon.

I’ve gone from absolute mud at dusk and dawn to being able to acquire targets well before and after legal hunting. That alone gives me reason for doing a happy dance over these scopes.

Another problem that got solved by migrating to the Banner scopes was shooting up-sun. I have one stand in particular where I had to deal with the sun playing hell with my sight picture. Internal reflections in my scopes made about 10 degrees of woods a nogo zone on sunny days for the better part of 20 seasons. This past fall, I took my buck in pretty much the center of that nogo zone. In the past, it would have been a curtain of yellow haze. I’ve had that Banner scope mounted on my Savage 99 for several years now.

As far as ruggedness, I’ve had only one Banner fail. That was a scope that I purchased in the early 90’s–well older than the current crop. A freak gust of wind tore the rifle off the rifle rack on the front porch and it clattered down about 5 feet to the concrete. Bushnell wanted enough money to fix it that I just replaced it with another scope. That Banner, a good 20 years older than my current crop, was nothing like the half-dozen I have mounted on rifles currently. It had miserable low-light capabilities.

My advice is that:

If you’re looking to me for advice on scopes, you must be at the beginning of your learning curve on scopes.
If you’re primarily a deer hunter like me, you will find most of the advanced features of an expensive scope beyond your abilities to appreciate.
Before diving into several hundred dollars’ investment in a rifle scope, mount one of these Bushnell Banner 3-9X40s on your deer gun and see what it buys you. You may be surprised.

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