The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 009

Episode Date: May 15, 2015

Cazenovia, Wisconsin. After a morning of hunting turkeys on the Duren family farm, Steven Rinella talks with guests Paul Neess and Mark Boardman from Vortex Optics, along with Doug Duren and Janis Putelis. Subjects discussed include: the difference between red dot sights and laser sights; how far is "too far" when taking a shot; Charlie Brown optics wisdom; patterning your shotgun; the widely misunderstood differences between 1inch and 30mm rifle scope tubes; parallax and MOA (minute of angle) in layman's terms; what to look for when shopping for binoculars; the quarter-mile buck hunter; "running" optics; and the best rifle scope to buy if you're a hunter who predominately hunts whitetails in the midwest, occasionally hunts big game out west, and hopes to one day hunt Dall sheep. // If you're enjoying the podcast, do us a favor and share it with a friend! Connect with Steve and MeatEaterSteve on Instagram and TwitterMeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YoutubeShop MeatEater Merch Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. You might not be able to join our raffles and sweepstakes and all that because of raffle and sweepstakes law, but hear this. OnX Hunt is now in Canada. It is now at your fingertips, you Canadians. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. Now the Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints and tracking. You can even use offline maps to see where you are

without cell phone service as a special offer. You can get a free three months to try out OnX if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. Welcome, everyone. This is the Meat Eater Podcast. We're going to talk about binoculars, which I like to call knockers, and rifle scopes and all manner of hunting optics.

We're joined right now by, joined by? Or with? No. By. Yeah, joined by Doug Dern, Douglas Dern. And we're on Doug's family farm, Casanova, Wisconsin, the famed Driftless area. This is the second installment of the Meat Eater podcast

ever been recorded. These have been recorded in many states now. Many states. You get a lot of states for your buck on this show. And Giannis Pitellas. Multiple countries as well. Multiple countries. Also by Giannis Pitellas.

I can't mention Giannis' name without encouraging you to go to his website and buy one of his t-shirts. Thank you. HuntEat.com, 24 bucks. In stock now. Also by Mark Boardman and Paul Neese from Vortex Optics. I wish we had the technological capability to broadcast live and take calls. I hate that kind of thing. But it would be good or not because people could call in and ask optics questions.

Instead, we will think of optics questions. And the first one I want to ask, and this isn't the main thing I want to focus on, but we hunted turkeys this morning. Do you guys sell a lot of scopes to guys that hunt turkeys? I just don't get it. I know I shouldn't say that because you guys are in the scope business, but I don't see – other than it saves people from themselves and it makes them aim. Yes.

I don't see – is that a big part of your business? No. No, it's really not. We sell a lot of red dot sights, and the red dot sights are probably a little bit common. I think guys will use those. But as you know. Explain what that is. It's a style of sight that projects an LED onto a curved screen.

And so you simply see a red dot, a single dot. It's just used at short range. And you're not talking about it doesn't put a dot on the critter. No, no, it's not a projected image. As you view through it, it seems as though it floats out in front of the gun, but it's not a projected image like a laser would be, for example. Yeah. And what do you call, just explain that difference, Where you see where you got a light that shoots out. Yeah, that would be a laser.

That's a laser. And the difference would be if you look in many fish and game regulations, for example, a projected light is typically illegal to use. And that is a laser beam. So if you were using that, say, on a turkey and you look there would actually be a red dot on the on the turkey that another guy would the dude next you'd be able to see someone else could see it just as well right mostly that stuff's just probably found on like the pistols and stuff right for defense yeah it is it's used on handguns a lot you know the the

advantage to red dot sight it's it's very quick and easy to use. You know, you don't have to line anything up. The way that they operate, they're parallax free. Oh, no, I'm talking about the actual laser one. Where would you find that one? Yeah, handguns, defensive guns. That's right. It's not going to be used for hunting stuff, right? Right.

So people will call up Vortex, though, and be like, hey, man, I want a red dot sight for shooting turkeys. They might say I want a red dot sight for my shotgun, but it's something that turkeys would be one of the primary applications. You can sight in with one of those, right? Yeah. So if you're going like, because we were just trying to explain to CR Dave, like a thing enough, guys don't do enough of this, turkey hunters,

don't do enough of shooting their shotgun. Yeah, I agree. As we found out today. I agree. You just like, if you're going to be serious about, not if you're going to be serious about turkey, if you're going to go turkey hunting, I think you just, at some point, you got to take a piece of paper out there, put a magic marker circle on it,

and just see what happens. Because you will see where it is just always, the pattern could be, if you were to make the center of the pattern at 40 yards, that thing could be, I don't know, 9, 10 more inches consistently left, right, high, low. If you had that, you didn't want to always remember. I was just reading this thing by this guy the other day. He says, my whole life I've been aiming high left on turkeys

because his gun just shoots. You know, you think what a lot of guys are using too. They're just using a shotgun with an elevated rib and a bead and they're just trying to basically center that bead on top of the rib. But, you know, you move your head a little bit one way or the other, and that pattern throws completely differently. So yeah, you could actually get, if you want to start shooting turkeys at 70, 80 yards

with the right chokes and right loads people can do, imagine that red dot sight. That would be helpful in that instance. Because you could tune that thing in. It would definitely become an advantage at that point. And you talk about patterning your shotgun. If you really want to figure out what the loads are doing that you're pushing through your shotgun, Red Dot Sight would be fantastic for that because you're going to maintain that consistent point of aim.

You rule out all that human error stuff. Exactly. And you might find your high left or it's stringing a particular way, and you might find that you want to change the turkey load that you've been using, you know, and find a better one. We, the other day, me and Giannis, we had some very inexperienced, first-time turkey hunters, very inexperienced shooters, inexperienced hunters, going turkey hunting.

We're like, well, let's go shoot a couple targets. I'm telling you what, the first shot on a piece of paper, this guy would have never killed that turkey. No, would have missed him clean. You would have been like, what in the world happened? You know?

It wound up being user error. And what's funny is at one point, he had, he didn't know, but he had the gun on safe and he thought he had it on. Like he got up and never put it on fire. Yeah, yeah. So, which is instructive. Because when he pulled that trigger, that gun jumped way to the right. And never went off, you know. And that's like, I remember Giannis was talking about a trick a trick you just take you give someone a shell that's no good no you give them a rifle with with or without you know a cartridge

in the chamber that one's ready to go when it's not ready to go yeah and you just kind of go through a couple with couple without and you know pretty soon you don't know what's gonna you just basically are handed a rifle you are treating it as it's live and you're you need to aim at the target and squeeze the trigger, and you'll quickly see who flinches and who doesn't. Who's the jerker? I see it with myself. I've been shooting my entire life, but I'll see now and then.

I'll have something like that happen, and I'll be like, I clearly moved that shotgun, and it didn't go bang because I had whatever. If you shoot enough, you generally know to some extent if you've pulled that shot a little bit. But that's where I could see the red dot thing. We were talking today because we had a guy today hit a turkey that fell down and got it and ran away. I think it's okay to name names.

No one's going to know. All right. Doug's best friend. Let him off the hook. Doug Dern's best friend. mean, Doug's best friend. Let him off the hook. Doug Dern's best friend. Yeah. Well, Doug's protege.

Doug Dern's protege rolled a turkey. You learned from me by ridicule. Doug Dern's protege doesn't have a huge, the great guy doesn't have a huge

technical interest in hunting equipment and gear and whatnot. Rolled a turkey. And I wonder, like, with a red red dot if you would have been being like you know one thing you know you think you think about when you when you aim for a fine spot and that you know that does definitely increase that tendency to pick a spot and aim yeah and you want a turkey course guy's going to center that up on the head and the neck and but just having that small dot you know i think it would make a guy maybe concentrate a little more on that um the other kind of neat thing about the red dots is you know when you

look you have a small window to look through that's about an inch square or so and it's it's kind of a neat thing wherever that you you can the dot, and you can move your head around from side to side and up and down. And because the device is parallax-free, as long as you see the dot visually, whether it's down in the left corner, the right corner, you'd think it would drift, but it doesn't. It stays constant to the image. And so all you have to, you know, as soon as you pick that dot up in that field of view and it's on target, you're good to shoot. Even if it's not centered in the window. So they're quick and they're friendly to use. Explain parallax.

That's one of the things I wanted to say. I was going to say the dumb guy needs to be told what parallax really means. I never actually understood parallax until, I kind of understood it, but when did we spend, I spent a long time on the phone with Paul talking about parallax. Yeah, parallax is a tricky thing. And I drew my own analogy. We could probably spend a whole hour Paul talking about parallax. Parallax is a tricky thing. I drew my own analogy. We could probably spend a whole hour just talking about parallax. So we don't want to get into it too deep.

But parallax is the shift of that reticle or that point of aim on the target. And depending on where the focuses and the device are set at, that point of aim can move around on the target at different distances. And so it leads to inaccuracy. Yeah, so let me just stop and go and say to the listener, imagine that you're looking through a rifle scope and you got the crosshair centered on a bullseye. Something that's not parallax adjusted. You could move your eye around.

Correct. So you got the crosshairs right at the bullseye. You could move your eye around, still keeping your eye looking through the scope. You could move your eye around and there would be a,

perhaps perceptible, maybe imperceptible to you, but the crosshair will have some movement. Yeah, it'll appear almost just to float around and move depending on where the eye is behind the lens of the scope. People talk about, for that reason,

when people talk about consistently shouldering your gun and doing everything the same way all the time, is if you bring your face, you could feasibly sight your gun in, then bring your face to your rifle and do your cheek well, look through the scope and you might be different than you normally are but still look like you're dead nuts but you're not correct and so parallax is a thing that can fix that and i'll talk about like 50 yards 100 yards rimfire all that stuff yeah there's you know parallax depending on where an optic is is set at

when it's assembled or some of them have adjustable lenses that that can be adjusted they'll be set for a particular distance so in a big game hunting scope that's that's non-adjustable typically they would be set at a hundred yards distance and as you focus on something closer or further than a hundred you can see some of that parallax movement some rifle scopes have adjustments, either an adjustable objective out on the far end of the scope or a side focus. Do you guys make anything that doesn't? We make both. The advantages to a, you know, a scope that does not have any sort of adjustment is typically they're simpler, they're less expensive. For a lot of guys, you know, a guy

deer hunting in this country here, for example, you know, you're probably not going to shoot much beyond 200 yards. That, it doesn't come into play as far as hunting accuracy. You're not going to get enough shift to, you know, to miss the lethal zone on a deer. adjustment on it of some fashion it'll generally not always but be a scope that's 10 power or more just because that that parallax becomes more of a factor gotcha at greater distances in a rimfire scope will have a fixed yeah what and what can you imagine on a rimfire scope, of course, is you're shooting shorter distances. So a typical rimfire range might be 25 out to 50 yards or so. And so when we, we have a couple that we do, and we would set those at 50 yards.

And so there's, you know, at 50, the right on the money is you come in closer than 50, you could have a little bit of shift. And as you go out beyond 50, you could have a little bit of shift too. But it brings it closer to sort of the practical range that a rimfire is shot at. You know, when I was trying to explain all this stuff in writing, the image that stuck in my head is like, let's say you're in the passenger seat of a car. Good example. And you're looking at the speedometer, right? And from your perspective, it looks like you're going 35 miles an hour.

From where the needle seems to be, from the driver's perspective, you're going 45 miles an hour. Right. Like you're just looking at it at different angles. That's not entirely right, but it kind of is a little bit. No, it does. Because what happens, if you were to sort of look at the mechanics of that speedometer, and the needle is obviously, it's come off the plate of the surface,

and that sort of represents that internal gap in parallax in the scope. If the scope is focused correctly, if we had that scope that was set at 100 yards, and you were shooting at 100 yards, effectively, in your example, the needle of the speedometer would be just flush with the back plate. And then so no matter which angle you looked at it, it always was the same speed. All right. So we're on rifle scopes. But prior to the next rifle scope, we're going to take a quick break. Hey, folks.

Exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join. Our northern brothers get irritated. Well, if you're sick of, you know, sucking a high and titty there. OnX is now in Canada. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. The Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints, and tracking. That's right.

We're always talking about OnX here on the Meat Eater Podcast. Now you guys in the Great White North can be part of it, be part of the excitement. You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service. That's a sweet function. As part of your membership, you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services handpicked by the OnX Hunt team. Some of our favorites are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more. As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet.

onxmaps.com slash meet. onxmaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the onx club, y'all. All right, so still on the subject, right? And Yanni, jump in, man.

Jump in when you want. But I'm going to jump to another one. And this one isn't like, this isn't a huge thing because I don't get a lot of questions. Like, I'm in some way

trying to relay to you guys questions that we get from people that watch Mediator or listen to the show or just people who are looking for advice. This is one that doesn't get asked that much. Let's not spend a ton of time on it. But why in the hell did Scopes used to have a one-inch tube? Everything used to be like a one-inch tube. Or maybe I'm wrong. It feels like it was. No, there's still lots of one-inch, okay, the tube. Everything used to be like a one-inch tube. Or maybe I'm wrong. Feels like it was. No, there's still lots of one-inch tubes out there, actually.

And now you see like one-inch, and you can pick. You can buy a scope, like X scope, and one-inch or 30-millimeter. Why? Or larger. Yeah, like what are you getting? You can now go to 34, 35, and there are even even some 40 millimeter tubes out there, if you can believe that. And you've got to match the tube with your rings that you purchased. Correct.

So why did this? Just so people could sell more stuff? Well, if you track it back far enough, it was just sort of the scope industry got going and built scopes. In the United States, traditionally, one inch was just sort of adopted as a common size that companies were using. In Europe, 30 millimeter was adopted. And, you know, those two numbers are actually not too far apart. They were sort of a practical size and dimension to sit on top of a rifle. So were the Krauts shooting at American GIs with 30-millimeter scopes during World War II?

That's a really good question. My dad never forgave the Germans. How many millimeters is one inch then? So I can know the gap. It's 25.4, so it's four point. Small difference in there. There are some, you you know what's really interesting about that question and widely misunderstood is that there are some there are some differences

between the two the big misconception about that is that the larger tube provides a brighter image to the shooter that's not true and that's it really isn't true that that really has nothing to do with the tube size so what what are you getting for? Why? Well, again, the history is that it was just one size used in one area, another, another, but there are some advantages. When you look at these scopes that go from one inch to 30 to 34 to 35, obviously that tube is getting bigger and bigger. Seeing a cutout of a rifle scope would help to make this easier, but inside a scope, there's another tube inside there. It's called an erector tube, and it contains the zoom lenses and the erecting lenses, which flip and invert the image.

That tube has to move inside the main tube of the scope. So it effectively, it pivots and moves up and down, and that's controlled by the turrets on the scope. And so what a larger scope tube can allow not necessarily but it can allow is a greater swing of movement inside for that erector tube and so for the guys that shoot very long distances they they need to be able to adjust for a lot of bullet drop at extreme distance and so the more internal swing is available in the scope the more the scope can handle that sort of thing.

So there are some theoretical advantages there. I had no idea. That depends. I had no idea that's what it was. Yeah. I thought it was to make everything heavier. Bigger scope, bigger rings, yeah. But it depends on the relationship too if you think about it

between that outer tube and that inner tube. And if the inner tube grows at the same rate the outer tube does and the movement is the same, well, then there's no advantage to it. Gotcha. So you need to increase that gap inside. What percentage of what do you guys sell? It's heavily related to rifle guns. You guys seem to like the 30 millimeter. Or am I totally wrong?

No, not necessarily. We sell a lot of one-inch scopes. We have a pretty strong emphasis on long-range stuff. That's a big focus at Vortex. So in that view, those scopes typically are going to be 30 millimeter or 34 in some of the big heavy tactical scopes we do. Like a long-range scope, that'll generally start at 30 millimeter. That'd be generally your starting point.

And like Paul said, you'd go up into potentially a 34 or even a 35. Have you guys started making 34 or 35? We do. Yeah, we do right now. We have both 34 and 35 millimeter tube scopes. The 35 is part of our Razor series. That scope, for example, has been used in some of these really extreme long range 338 Lapua Magnums, you know, 50 BMGs

where guys are shooting out past 2,000 yards with it and they're getting tremendous bullet drop. Gotcha. So they need a way to compensate for that. We had a guy with that scope that had a confirmed engagement with a target excuse me and i want to say 2.07 miles if i remember correctly you mean the confirmed engagement target like an actual like a combat situation no it was it was i mean it was it was it was

like out of out of range like okay i got you you know but uh but it was it was like a big metal plate. 2.7 miles. That's a long way. 2.07. That's a long way out there. 2.07. 2.07 miles, yeah. Wow. That's a poke, though. But so he used, I want to say, and I could be quoting this incorrectly.

That'd be like shooting something three farms over. What's your thing doing way up there, Doug? I was just listening and I thought, you know, I'm going to start breathing heavy because of all this scope talk and, you know. Optics get me so excited.

So I just took the microphone away so I could have a little time with myself over here. Anyways, Doug, I was just like, before Doug Dern fell asleep, oh yeah, I'd be shooting a deer in town. This is a long drive. Well, in Doug's place here, I bet you'd be pushing it to get a 300-yard shot. Probably.

You might have a spot or two, but, you know, and so we think about that 2.07 miles. That's in the neighborhood of 3,500 yards. I remember when I was a kid, my brother shot a deer 170 yards. It seemed like this unfathomable distance. It was like unfathomable distance, I guess. My father shot a deer on this farm at a quarter of a mile, all the way across the 40, one shot.

So there he stretched it further than that. That is why he is known as the quarter-mile buck hunter. Fit that on a vanity plate. He's got it on a hat. Alright, Yanni, throw out a good optics question you see all the time. Keep them with scopes. We'll switch to knockers later. Yeah.

Like all the distinctions. Yeah, I just had a good one. Well, yeah, the main one being like... No, you go ahead. I don't want to take your turn. No, go ahead. I'll think of a better one. Doug's got one.

Doug, jumping in with an optics question. So I have Vortex optics on my rifles. Say I run Vortex optics. If you want to sound cool as shit. I run Vortex optics on my rifles. Say I run vortex optics. If you want to sound cool as shit. I run vortex optics on my rifles. God, that is cooler. I noticed that when you hang out with Steve Rinella

after a while, you start talking like him. Very intelligently. There's a cadence and everything. BDC reticle. I have a BDC reticle on one of my rifles, and I don't on another one. Deer rifle. Both are.30-06s.

And I like both. I seem to prefer the BDC, even though I'm not shooting that far. How should I set that up? Can I Yeah, I can't. Who am I asking permission? Great question, Doug. But can you take it a step further and just explain what the hell that means?

As opposed to start with radical and then build up to Doug's question. Sure. That's a very, very popular reticle that we sell. It's a commonly used term in the industry too. I think everybody's familiar with a reticle being a set of crosshairs in a rifle scope. Of course, the user aims with the target on the center of the crosshairs.

What a BDC is, it's called a bullet drop compensating reticle. And what we're trying to do is as you sight in a rifle at a fixed distance, say 100, you're adjusting the center of the crosshairs to be zeroed in, commonly at 100 yards on the target. But of course, that bullet, as it drives further out, it's constantly falling and so with increasing distance the user has to find a way to adjust it for more and more and more bullet drop as they go if you want to shoot past that 100 yards distance and what a what a bdc reticle does is it gives you points of reference on the reticle itself to compensate for that bullet drop at various distances and to keep it simple what what we did with that reticle, and this technique is used by other companies as well, is you try to think in

hundred yard increments, which a lot of shooters and hunters do to keep it easy. We can't just put a million marks on that reticle. So what we try to do is think about the rifle being zeroed at a hundred yards and having a mark at where 200-yard point of impact would be, a 300, a 400, and a 500-yard. And for distances in between that, the shooter would just sort of hold between those marks. And so what happens, those marks come below the center of the crosshair because as you're shooting at increasing distances,

what you're really doing with that reticle is you're incrementally raising the muzzle of the gun, if you think about it. Marks are lower, so you bring the rifle up to line those marks up. And it's a little tricky because what happens is you're doing one reticle pattern, and as anyone who's done shooting knows, there are a million different cartridges, loads, bullet weights, velocities, altitudes, temperatures, pressures. All those things affect bullet drop. And so when we give you a reticle and it has these five little marks on it,

you have to keep in mind that those are drawn up and designed around, you know, we just crunched a lot of numbers. We looked at most of the popular centerfire hunting cartridges, picked an altitude and a pressure and a temperature, and came up with drop numbers that we felt could match the widest possible selection. Yeah, and your user, the manual, the user manual that comes with it, gives you kind of a way to understand. It gives you an overview of that, right? It talks about different, does it even list, like I can't remember how you guys articulate it, but it kind of says like muzzleloaders. Yes, it does.

It gives you an idea like how it performs on a rimfire. It'll break firearms into different classes, you know, say a standard hunting rifle, a magnum hunting rifle, as you point out, maybe muzzleloaders, maybe rimfires. Because those different groups all have very different bullet drop rates. And within each of those groups, of course, there are even finer rates. One of the things that's really key about that, and I'll mention quickly, and it is very widely misunderstood, is that for the most part in rifle scopes that are commonly sold for hunting, and BDC reticles are they are a hunting device that is oh yeah it's not a it's not a high precision tactical or target style reticle

it is a big game hunting reticle that's the purpose of that they're they're commonly put in the style of rifle scope that that demands that there's only one power that they function at. And this is a key thing. I'm glad you're getting into this. Yeah, yeah. But let me stop you because you're going to enter into first focal plane. Correct. Second focal plane. And I want to do that, but let me – I wanted to set this up a little bit better.

Let's just jump into that. But before we do the first focal plane, second focal plane, I want to say about the BDC thing. What I don't understand, on a user manual for your scopes, okay, that has BDC reticle. Which I've written most of. Yeah, the manual doesn't say that those, if you're on, the manual doesn't say when you're on max power, it's for MOA. 1, 5, 2, 5, is it 1, 5, 2, 5, 4, 5, 7, 5, 11? 7 1⁄2 and 11.

Okay. Why does the manual not, is that not a good, I would think that that. It may list that in there, but one of the things. It's on your website, but I was wondering if you guys don't, if that's not a good way to think about it for some reason. It probably isn't, because if you're going to take a BDC reticle and you're going to adopt it and use it, if you start thinking in those minutes of angle,

you're transitioning into the style of shooting that would not typically use a BDC. And it's a little complex, but for example, someone who would shoot with MOA numbers or if it was a mil scope, they would be gotta stop you one more time and i hate doing this but i just want to bring moa is imagine you're standing in a circle or a minute of angle god i hate trying to explain this it It's 1 60th of one degree. Okay? Right. If you imagine that you're standing on a flat line.

No? Paul, explain this. Or Mark, explain this. I think the easiest way I've found to explain this is people should, basically there are two formats that are used for adjusting turrets in a scope or using reticles. And so that's either minutes of angle or miliradians. And basically, I think that one way that's always helped me to explain it is think about sort of a clock face.

And what we're talking about is angles in that clock face. And the reason angles are important is because if you think about what we're doing with that rifle when we're trying to adjust for long range is we're working with angles. We touched on that earlier about how those marks on the reticle drop down and we bring the muzzle of the rifle up. So think of it, picture it maybe like an artillery gun. To shoot further distances, we're increasing the angle of that muzzle

really by dialing the scope or using turrets. We're bringing it up at an angle. And so what those minutes of angle or those mil radians are doing, they're representing that angle that we adjust. And they're just two different scales of doing it. They're just simply two different ways of calculating angles. But let me throw this out. When people talk about, if you hear a term, sub-MOA accuracy, what that would mean is that the rifle is going to shoot a less than one-inch group at 100 yards. Correct. So if you imagine this angle we're talking about, 160th of one degree, it grows as it gets farther away.

At 100 yards, the distance between the lines and that angle is one inch. At 200 yards, it doubles. It doubles at 400 yards on out. So if you have MOA accuracy, meaning you can shoot a one-inch group at 100 yards, you're shooting a two-inch group at 200 yards, a three-inch group at 300 yards, a four-inch group at 400 yards as you get farther out. So that's what people were talking about when they say like sub moa accuracy right and this measurement which is like cryptic plays into all this now so now i'm going to stop talking and let you run with and let you

run with what you were getting into yeah what what i was going to touch on there quickly we were just talking about those angles, and those angles relate to the marks in the reticle. Remember, we were going, why would you go from the 100-yard, 200-yard, 300-yard, 400 to the 1.5, 4.5, 7.5, and 11? And the reason I was saying, the guy that buys that BDC reticle, what he's looking for is a quick and simple way to compensate for long range shooting. It's easy. It's fast. Everyone can wrap their head around.

I'm zeroed it. My crosshairs are on at 100. That next mark is 200. Next is three. It's very, it's easy to do. If I tell you now that, you know, on that, let's say on that 500 yard shot, you need 10 minutes of angle. You've just made the whole thing a lot more complex to that guy. You know, now he's got to think, well, what, you know, you see, now you go back to the math you were saying, and you think, you know, so how

much drop is that? That works. And that's, that's commonly the techniques that are used by, by precision shooters. Snipers, for example, would use that style. You can use ballistics calculators that will take some basic inputs about a bullet's BC and its muzzle velocity and the temperature and altitude that you're at, and they will very, very accurately calculate the bullet drop. And then that same program can take that bullet drop and it can put it can you know express it in minutes of angle if you'd like it can express it in the mil ratings we're talking about one of those programs called shooter that's one of the best ones mainly just to get an understanding of stuff but with the bdc like i do what you say not not that we say not to do

but i in my bino harness like i can't remember knockers in the binoculars in my bino harness, like I carry my binoculars in a bino harness. In my bino harness, there's this little pocket. And what I'll do with my rifle and the load I'm shooting, I'll draw a picture. That's a very good way to do it. I draw a little picture of what my BDC crosshair theoretical looks like. And I, just so I have, for a memory guide, I take the MOA thing and I got my zero. So I do 200 yard zero usually. And then I have each hash mark,

what it is exactly, what the top of the post is on the bottom. Right. Exactly. That's a good reference. And then I put, and I write down exactly what the half marks are. So my little card will have a thing. And I also put in the 100 yard thing in case you wind up like shooting at a coyote or something. Sure. I'll put in the 100-yard thing in case you wind up, like,

shooting at a coyote or something. Sure. I'll put, like, the 100-yard. So the 100-yard, I know I'm a little bit high, you know. Then I have the 200-yard zero line. And then I have a mark for between. It might be that the 200-yard zero line and the next hash mark, halfway between might be, like, 230.

The next line might be on down the line. And there's enough numbers on there for me that if I was to look through my range finder and know, I'm going to look down and feel very confident

that I know the hold. Not get too many of those numbers in there. Just sort of that rate balance. But here, I also know in my head, I know in my head the hash marks but if i ever like feel like just just for sense of security or if i'm in a situation i know that i can pull that thing out and i got like oh 200 270 310 and i'm never like

going i'm never aiming between those any more than just splitting them in the middle but i have an array of things where like any animal that I have any business shooting at, I'm going to know exactly where to hold on that thing without taking the cap off and start clicking MOAs on the scope. That's right. You know? You know, and the advantage to that, to using that reticle, is that's quick and it's fast. The guys that will sit there and use those ballistics programs we talked about

and calculate those drops in minutes of angle, the downfall of that is kind of this slow, deliberate process. You have to first range an object, then you have to enter that range into that ballistics calculator. It has to then give you that correction. Then you have to either reference that correction on the reticle or reach up and dial it on a turret. So it's slow, and that's that's the the the big

advantage to bdc reticles is speed when when you boil it down they're fast and they're easy to use the disadvantage is they're not as accurate as calculating those minutes of angle or or mil radians out and what you probably do is you know we touched on the fact that a bdc reticle is is calculated sort of, it's putting a whole bunch of cartridges together and blending them and coming up with a set of numbers. Giving you a really general ballistics curve that's going to be common for most big game calibers.

Yeah, and perfectly suitable for the vast majority of big game hunting situations. And the guys that want higher accuracy out of that, what they can do on our website, there's a ballistics program called the LRBC, and that'll pull up, you have to enter some basic information in about the bullet BC and the velocity and environmental conditions. But you can go to a tab on there that says reticles, and you can do just what you described. You can pull up a graphic of that BDC reticle. And the slick thing about that program is it'll take the specific data that you put in there about the load and the bullets you're shooting, and it will do the math for you.

And it will show, rather than that simple 200, 300, 400, 500, it'll do the math, and it might display 225, 335. And those numbers are exact, so you can sort of take that to the bank. Those are much more tightly tuned when you do that technique. It's just, you know, it's something everybody can do that. It's easy to use. It's out

there. I was just going to say, you can say you can take it to the bank, but I feel like verification at the range has to be done. I've had these guys harp on me about that. Always wise to do that. I was shooting with Mark and Paul

and they were like, you know what? You got to shoot. To me, people plug those numbers in like, I'm going hunting. No, you should plug those numbers in and go to the range, get some gongs out there at 400 yards and stuff and check because it happens to me almost every time i go i'm like all right i know like little calculator it says four and a half minutes up right i shoot that target three times in a row and i miss it right all right there's a reason there's a reason for that you know what's interesting is those programs have gotten very

good now. They're much better than they were, say, four or even five years ago. I mean, they've really improved. The things that change that people don't understand is even if you take a chronograph and you measure the speed of the bullet coming out of your rifle and your chronograph says 2,800 feet per second, you could take five other chronographs that same day and line them up and get a spread of different velocities. They typically are not very consistent. And so that

has a drastic effect on those curves. And so when you pick a number, maybe you got it off the box of ammunition, or maybe you have your chronograph and you measured it and you throw that into that program, it may or may not be accurate. It may not measured it and you throw that into that program, it may or may not be accurate. It may not really be telling you the true story. And the other key piece of information there is the ballistics coefficient of the bullet, the BC. And so a program is going to ask you for one BC number. And for your listeners, a BC number, that's sort of a way,

it predicts how efficiently a bullet flies through the air. And basically long, skinny bullets with pointed noses and pointed tails are, you know, they fly the best. They'll have a high BC number. And they stay stable at lower velocities too, right? Right, right. And they maintain their velocity better. So if you took a long, skinny boat-tailed bullet, maybe exactly the same grain weight, you know, let's say it's 160 grain bullet, and you contrasted that with a rounded nose bullet with a flat base on it, if you went out at 500 yards and measured the velocity, that long, skinny pointed bullet, even though with the same powder charge behind them and the same muzzle velocity,

it would be traveling faster at that 500 yards. So that's a key thing. And the thing bcs quickly i was going to touch on the program just asked you to put in one bc number but the thing about bcs is they they constantly change that that bc varies from the incident leaves the muzzle the gun so that is the as that bullet slows the bc number actually oh is that right so it's you know while the programs use a single number, it's not, it's not really what goes on. I got, I want to jump in and interject. I want to back up a little bit and comment on something. We're talking about the thing I carry in my pocket or the thing I carry in my bino pouch. I want to give you like a real world situation of how I, how I think about this.

We were hunting coos deer in Arizona this year. And at one point in time, some deer stepped out. So a bunch of does stepped out. I remember it was 320 yards. No buck, but some does stepped out. Absolutely, I would have. And it was a trail. It was like a little trail through an opening.

Yeah, it's just a picture. You're looking at a hillside, and there's a big brushy bottom. And the first thing you see is an open hillside with a trail across it. I hadn't noticed the trail until I see some deer walk down it. Totally, I could have thrown up and taken the shot, right? There's no buck. Then the deer walk away and I'm like, man,

a buck could totally just come walking down that trail. At which point, even though I would have taken the shot, I pulled out my little thing, took a distance reading on those does and been like so if he shows up on one of the three days that i'm gonna be sitting here watching this hillside exactly what exactly is going on and i look i'm like oh yeah that shot is dialed because i actually know now now it's beyond like me being like yeah it's probably right a koozie is not a tall animal no no small small we're talking about 100 pound white tails very so i remember looking at that Beyond me being like, yeah, it's probably right. A koozie is not a tall animal. No, small, small.

We're talking about 100-pound whitetails. Very petite. I remember looking at that thing and being like, man, if a buck comes down that trail, I know what I'm going to do. Got him. I know what I'm going to do. And I could have done it anyway, but you know what I mean? And that way I use that thing.

Now, another thing I want to throw in, we're talking about all this long-distance stuff, and long-distance shooting is controversial. It's not controversial to shoot long distances at a range. There's a big debate right now. It's like, what's too far? I say it's too far when you wonder about whether you're going to hit it or not. Or whether you're going to make a good hit. The minute you take a shot where you're like, I wonder if I can hit that,

you are definitely shooting too far. I would agree with that. But my philosophy on this stuff is I like to take long-range technology, long-range skill sets, and apply it in a hunting situation to normal hunting situations. Where? First time I went antelope hunting my brother shot an antelope at 300 yards our response was wow he hit it right nowadays it would be i'll tell you exactly where i'm gonna hit that antelope yeah exactly i'm gonna shoot his heart out that would for in a lot of conditions would be a chip shot. So long distance shooting for me in a real world hunting situation is taking shots,

like making it be where you know, you're like, I'm going to shoot his heart out. Push that distance. Maybe it's 100 yards from you. If you got into the long range, if you got into all this thinking and the proper equipment and the proper practice, you might get to a point. I was talking to a guy the other day who teaches. You guys introduced me to him. The guy that teaches the Marine Corps sniper thing.

Sure, Tony. Yeah. He shoots a lot of does on some farmland. And he says, at 200 yards, I shoot him in the head. I'm like, I can't. I would never do that. But I'm like, he knows at 50. Like me shooting a deer at 50 yards, I probably have the degree of certainty

that he has at 200 yards. Yeah. Right. This guy teaches shooting and shoots and he understands that stuff in and out. So for me to say like, what's too long for Tony to shoot? Well, for his job, he shoots 800 yards.

Right? I would, if you put a target at eight and a target at two and Tulsa hit the bullseye, I would be like, you gave me the 200 yard and him the 800 yard. I'd be like, I bet this dude's going to win the bet. Right? What's too far?

I don't know. You tell me. That's definitely one of those topics you could spend a whole nother hour on. And every editor, every editor at every hunt magazine has taken his shot at saying it, but it's unsolvable. It's just like, I've been trying to find a way to solve it. And it'd be like, when you have questioned about where you will hit is too far. And for a lot of guys, I'm telling you, it's unfortunate to say,

a lot of guys, 100 yards is too far. It is. You don't know what you're doing. The first time I ever hunted Wisconsin, I shot a deer in the timber. It was 90 yards away. Actually, I ranged it after I shot it. The guys came back and were like, wow like wow man that is a fantastic shot you know and i'm from out west and i'm no expert marksman you know i have a pretty solid understanding of the things that we're talking about right now right but it

was just interesting for me to hear from them like that seemed like you know pretty long shot and i guess you know for the circumstances in the timber i guess that is a somewhat long shot for sure but if you've ever spined a deer at 150 yards i might say man you know what you're shooting too far right yeah because you're a long if you spined a deer at that distance you might as well you could if that bullet was the other direction you just blew his kneecap off right you're that far off yeah and i think and i think you're as they always, they spine it like, yeah, went down. You see hunting shows all the time. Some dude spines deer, just bow. They're jumping up and high-fiving.

I'm like, dude, you might have just shot that deer through the leg. That was a bad shot. That was a bad shot. You're that many inches off. You shot too far, dude. It's all relative. Everybody's different. The level of equipment now is definitely better than it was before.

But you make a good example, Steve. There have probably been as many deer wounded at 100 yards as there have been. I have seen it. I've seen it all the time. I think your definition of that is probably the best I've heard. I mean, it's going to depend on the individual, their experience, their equipment, their understanding of that equipment. All those variables come into play as to how effective a marksman that person

is going to be. And you can't apply a general definition across the board to everybody because everybody's different. But everybody's looking for that number. Yeah. There are some numbers I hear. There are some numbers I hear. I don't even want to get into it.

There's some numbers I hear where I'm like, yeah, that's too far. Yeah. And you see it. I mean, you see that out on the internet and what i time now when that's happening what i'm thinking of is you it get there's a certain distance and a certain kind of country where you just don't know what the wind's doing over there right and also is a huge variable it takes a bullet a long time to get there yep and when you looking at a deer, let's say you're looking at an elk and he's traveling up a hillside. He's a bull. He's got a bunch of spooked cows strung

out in front of him. He pauses, looks back. That deer could be into his second step. Should he leave, should he start walking at that moment, he could be into his second step by the time your bullet gets over there. Right.

If you're talking about a thousand yard shot. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I, you know, I hate to even throw numbers out there, but that, you know, that range is, is just, that's a non-starter for hunting. It's just too far. It's just because there's a lot of elapsed time. Yeah.

You know. All right. Let's hammer through some more stuff. Well, I got a quick question. Yeah. A little two-part question. One, we noticed, I was talking to Mark because I was trying to get a new scope

and I was looking for a 40mm bell. That's what I wanted to ask. He was like, man, don't really have a lot of those. Everybody wants to fill 50mm. I'd like to know why that is and if there's this perceived benefit and what is the actual benefit to someone's And so I'd like to know why that is and if there's like this perceived benefit and what is the actual benefit, you know, to someone's eye or, you know, the hunting conditions.

And what's the drawback? And then, yeah, drawback. And then two is a big question we get in all the time is like, how much money should I spend on the scope to put on my rifle? Sometimes you hear, you know, double the amount that you've got into the rifle for your optics you know and for most of us hunters i think probably 90 plus percent including myself rarely shooting past 300 yards so what level of scope and how much money do i need to spend to like always be happy out to that you know distance you know if i'm never going past it you know what i mean for like the wisconsin deer hunter. Right, right.

Before you answer that, though, let's just take a quick break, hear from our sponsors. Hey, folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And, boy, my goodness do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join, our northern brothers get irritated. Well, if you're sick of, you know, sucking high and titty there,

OnX is now in Canada. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. The Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints, and tracking. That's right. We're always talking about OnX here on the Meat Eater Podcast. Now, you guys in the Great White North can be part of it, be part of the excitement. You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service.

That's a sweet function. As part of your membership, you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services handpicked by the OnX Hunt team. Some of our favorites are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more. As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. onxmaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX club, y'all. So, yeah. So, in response to your seven-part question there.

Was that seven? It was two. Dude, that was a lot of questions. Dude, you're asking, like, what objective lens do I want? What are the pros and cons of a 40 and a 50 and a 30? And what's too much to spend on a scope? I asked about the difference between 40 and a 50 and a 30, and what's too much to spend on a scope? I asked about the difference between 40 and 50.

Let's start. Do all the damn questions. I don't care. We'll get through as many as we can. Objective diameter, right? I'd say in general, Paul. Just explain what that is. That's the diameter of the end of the rifle scope's lens that you're not looking through, so not the ocular.

I never can remember. The ocular. Ocular is what your eye is up against. Exactly. And that holds true for oculars, right? Correct. Same terms. Ocular, objective.

And they're just expressed in millimeters. So when you're saying 40 and 50, that's just simply the diameter of that in millimeters. It's how big is that lens as you look at it. Exactly. So in general, a larger objective is going to essentially bring in more light. So you're going to have better light transmission. So when people talk about rifle scopes, you know, light transmission is a really big deal because, you know, game

is oftentimes most active at dawn and dusk in low light scenarios, right? Yeah, and with a good scope or good binoculars, when you look through it, it's lighter than what your eye is giving you. Right. You could look at a hillside that's too dark and you look through binoculars and be like,

holy shit, there's a deer standing over there. yeah right because it's giving it's giving you light so and i'm not i'm not an optical engineer right but so there's a lot of a lot of factors right you know the glass quality uh you know is it fully multi-coated you know the quality of those uh those multi-coatings um the optical design. I talked to our optical engineers at the office, and really optical design is really as much an art as it is a science. The shape of the lenses. Just everything. And the layout of lenses.

And the layout. Number of lenses. Number of lenses. Everything. So that is one variable that does affect, you know, light transmission. So, I think, you know, oftentimes people, you know, bigger is better. You know, a little bit bigger is better mentality, you know, whether it comes objective diameter or, you know, larger calibers, right? You know, but I mean, it is definitely. Hamburgers.

Hamburgers. Other stuff. You know, yeah, we don't really exercise good portion control in this country. We don't maybe downsize our hamburgers. I'll give Mark a quick hand with that, though. One thing that's really important to understand is it is not always an advantage to have a bigger bell. It may give you a brighter image. It may not.

Right. It is guaranteed that it's going to make the scope sit higher on the right side. How does it not give you a brighter image? Here's the trick. One of the things to remember, when you're sort of calculating brightness through an optic, one of the most simplistic basic forms of estimating brightness is to divide the magnification into the objective lens. And that gives you a number called an exit pupil.

And let's say you had a rifle scope. Let's say it's a variable scope you have it turned to 5x and let's just say you have a 50 millimeter bell out there if you divide that very simply you get an exit pupil of 10 millimeters the yannis can divide i think every yeah that's pretty easy everybody can do that here's the thing to remember though the the the the ultimate limiting factor in all this is the pupil of your eye. So that light has to come through the scope. And before it gets to your, where you're, you know, the optic nerve and your brain interprets it, it has to go through the pupil of your eye. Even when you're young and your eyes at their maximum flexibility, you're going to get at best,

maybe seven millimeters. So any, an exit pupil that goes beyond seven millimeters it it it goes beyond the perimeter of your pupil it's it's unusable so here's the thing remember that 50 millimeter bell that that example i just gave you we came up with a 10 millimeter exit pupil well your eye cannot it can't use 10 it's giving you more light than you could possibly more than you need so here's the thing You've achieved the maximum though, right? You don't have to worry about the equipment's not your limiting factor. You've achieved the maximum, but you've spent a little more for the scope. You have a heavier scope, and it's a taller scope.

So it sits higher off the rifle. Your head placement may not be as nice as it was with that 40-millimeter bell, which sits lower on the rifle. Right. Now the 50 does, where you have to follow that though, you have to kind of follow that rabbit trail of that. The 50 comes up with an edge at the upper end of

the magnification range. So as you get, say, 8, 10, 12, 16x, now that 50 comes into play and makes a difference out there. So you have to think about the size of that lens in relation to the magnification that you want to run. And that's the reason you can look at a little one to four variable that, you know, from one power to four power, and that's it. It doesn't go any higher than that. And they're typically matched up with a 24 millimeter lens.

It's about an inch in diameter. It looks small. Yeah. But that scope is just as bright as any equally priced 50 millimeter scope at higher magnification. But you haven't gotten into sight picture yet though. Well, sight picture, well, that relates a lot to magnification. Lower powers typically give you a wider field. They're easier to see.

But a 50, let's say you're comparing a 40 and a 50. You always see more. Everything else be legal. You don't? No. See, another misconception is that that big lens out there gives you a wider field of view. No, all things being equal. Yeah.

Same magnification, same scope. One's 40, one's 50. Yeah. You're saying you can't always see more out to 50. No. How can that be true? Many times you may not see any difference whatsoever between the two of them. If it's a bright day, the image could look absolutely identical between the 40 and the 50.

I mean, if I had my buddy run out in the field and I direct it, I'm looking through my scope, and I'm like, he's going to shoot a square of spray paint on one edge and then shoot a square of spray paint on the other edge of my view, and I do the same thing with a 40. he's gonna the spray paint's gonna line up with the edge of my yeah it might that has nothing to do with the objective that's a lie you want to try a neat trick steve i'd like to take your 50 millimeter scope out or any scope and and restrict three quarters that objective lens cover it put a cover on you could put a little pinhole through it.

On a bright day, feel the views exactly the same. Really? Yeah. All right. It's a great way to illustrate it. It's pretty neat. I believe you. Yeah.

And actually, on a bright, sunny day, if you were to restrict that lens and allow less light to come through, you'd see the image quality would look better, actually. It would get contrasty, more defined. A lot of bench rest guys that do that sort of thing, they actually will restrict the aperture of their scopes on a bright day for those reasons. Alright, so

why is it, though? I know. I think I was talking to Mark. I'm not talking about what people want. People want 50s. They do. Are they just wrong? people want. Right. People want 50s. They do. Yeah. Are they just wrong?

Many times they don't get the whole picture. You know, the things we're talking about here, the fact that it doesn't automatically mean it's brighter, it doesn't automatically have anything to do with field of view. You know, everybody wants a wide field of view and everybody wants a brighter image, but the 50 doesn't always get you that. What does it get you?

Here's what it gets you, though. Think about back to that exopupil discussion. At a high magnification, you get the... Let's say we've got a 4 to 16 scope, very popular size for us. We sell a lot of them. Yeah, in my mind, it's the perfect spread. Yeah, at longer ranges,

that scope's going to be turned up to 16x in use. So you do that math now, and now even at 16x, you're underneath that 7. Your eye is going to use every bit of light that can come through that. Because it's the difference between dividing 50 by 5, 50 by 16. Exactly. So now you're at a point where, yeah, that 50's doing something for you. It's making a noticeably brighter image then. Here's a question that'll make smoke come out of your guys' ears.

Or something. People always ask. I mean, often, will say I predominantly hunt whitetails. I'm going to turn it into a specific, but it's just like I'm averaging a ton of questions together. I live in Missouri.

I generally hunt whitetails. Every other year, we go out to hunt elk in Colorado. Someday, I'd like to go on a doll sheep hunt. I can't decide what scope to buy. You have to get phone calls like this. And that's when I sell that person multiple rifle scopes. So, yeah.

So, let's simplify the question. I mostly hunt whitetails. Occasionally, I'll do a Western big hunt, big game hunt. I can't be throwing tons of money at this stuff. I want to buy a scope. I want to get five, six, ten years out of it. What scope do I want? Well, that's a tricky one.

I mean, that's the sort of thing that's... But tell them what scope you want. I could probably actually pick one for me out of our lineup that, for me, would be the best fit for that. Can I guess first? Can I guess, then Giannis guess, then you guys tell us what you think?

Okay. We'll critique your choices. Four to 16 by 50. What's Giannis' pick? Oh, we don't have to pick an actual model? No, no, no. Yeah, if you want. Go ahead.

So we're just picking a magnification range? Okay, yeah. No, magnification range, objective lens. Oh. All-around whitetail, occasional western. Hunts whitetail every year. Yeah. They do.

Occasionally, he goes out to Colorado to hunt elk. 3-9x40. Okay. Yeah, he goes out to Colorado to hunt elk. 3 to 9 by 40. Okay. Yeah, me too, probably. No, no, no. 4 to 16 by 50. Just because I don't know why. So I'll give you mine, and I concur with the 4 to 16 by 50

because, to me, I find it to be, like, an incredibly versatile magnification range. And I always, I like magnification, right? So I'll edge towards a scope that has higher magnification. But to me, that scope is like, it's awesome for the tree stand and the timber. You can crank it down to four. And then you can also engage targets or animals at extended ranges well i've shot the 4 to 16 to a thousand yards yeah and shot deer out of a tree stand with that same

rifle that's why i like it and the three nine is kind of the same thing but when i'm walking around i don't care where i'm walking around i could be walking around out in eastern montana the flattest ground in the world i carry my scope on four. Exactly. Because if you jump something up, I never wish in a practical hunting experience, I'm talking like a deer stands up and thick ass brush 25 yards away. I've never had, on four power, I could find that thing. Yeah. But I've raised enough rifles to my face where I don't do the like, look for it. Like when I'm looking at something, my eye stays on it.

My scope comes to my eye. My eye doesn't go to my scope. My scope comes to my eye, and that thing is right there in the center of the scope. I've never lost an animal. Or I would have gotten him with a one-power scope. I always can find it. I can find running stuff in a four-power scope. But when I'm sitting there, and I see, like holy shit, there's like a deer laying over there.

You know, what's going on? Can I sneak a shot in there? Turn up to 16, man. You see like his eyelashes and stuff, you know, it's just like, I love having it there. I'm always looking at stuff through there. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I would agree with Mark.

That's a really good effective zoom range. You can kind of do anything with it. I have a, you know, I, I, I spend a lot of time hunting in the mountains. I have a tendency to like lighter weight scopes. So I would, my personal choice would be to give up a little bit of that light gathering and go to a slightly smaller objective, 40 or 42 maybe. Okay. For a mountain rifle.

You're going to lose a little bit of weight. You have that advantage I touched on earlier. Typically, the smaller objective means the scope can sit a little bit lower on the rifle, and that can aid you better head placement on the stock. You probably will shoot a little more accurately with that. It's a pretty fine distinction, though. That's almost my sort of personal lean as opposed to someone else's um there's no you know it's one of those things they're definitely not a black or white right or wrong answer to that type of thing you know i'm willing to trade off this and gain

that it's so exactly i mean like i i hunt the mountains a lot and i'll i'll suck it up and take that that weight penalty because to me, the magnification outweighs that advantage for myself. A lot of that stuff like Paul's we're talking about, that just comes down to personal preference. I'm not as weight obsessed as some people are

because I find that you can sit around talking all day. This is a little bit of a digression from optics. You can sit around talking all day like how many ounces you save by the scope or the scope. Dude, you want to talk about

saving ounces. Do you bring a tent or not bring a tent? Now we're talking about six pounds. We're up on another hour's topic now. We're talking about six pounds now. It's huge. I don't like guys who are cutting their toothbrush handle in half and stuff.

You can get carried away with that stuff. I mean, you got to get – you have to have your kit so dialed at the point where you're realizing that you're getting more miles every day because you ran that 40-millimeter and not the 50-millimeter scope. You have to be a very detail-oriented backpack hunter with a ton of packing experience where that is the issue there are some pieces of equipment when you think about when you're on a hunt let's say you're on an extended you know eight ten day hunt that you carry every day all the time with you and they're you know the rifle's one of them that you know the tent set up you're not packing that tent around every day. That's true. You're not packing your stuff. So there are pieces of gear where shaving weight off is more valuable than others in that sense. That rifle, you're going to have with you all the time.

I did a lot of hunting with a rifle that I was shocked one day when I put it on a digital scale, and the rifle scope combo was 12 pounds, 9 ounces. That's good to be a half. I had toted it all over. And then I got a rifle where the rifle scope combo came in at 8 1⁄2. It felt like I was carrying a chopstick. I believe it.

But as you well know, too, that... That's like leaving a tent or not. The flip side, too, is that a lot of times those heavier rifles are easier to shoot well. So there's so many different angles. My brother shoots a big... I actually gave it to him. He shoots a big, what's the main Ruger rifle?

Like 77? 77, sure. It's a 300 wind mag. Big old thick barrel, heavy stock. He carries that thing everywhere because he goes, you know what, when I lay that thing over my backpack, I look through the scope and I'm like, this thing is going to die. It's just like, it's like, you know, that rifle lays gonna die yeah it's just like it's like

you know that rifle lays down there and you're not he's like i just settle in i'm like yeah i'll tell you where that bullet's going yeah exactly and then light rifles you just never get that feeling i've had i had a rifle we're getting wet this is the whole subject i had a rifle i decided was too light had a different barrel put on it just because not nothing with accuracy i had a different barrel put on it because i just couldn't stand how light it was too light. Had a different barrel put on it just because. Not nothing to do with accuracy. I had a different barrel put on it because I just couldn't stand how light it was. It never felt settled in. But let's jump to knockers because there's not a whole lot to discuss on knockers with numbers. People are always like 10, like the most obvious one.

8 power, 10 power, whatever. What's your spiel? What's the vortex spiel for dude who's like those are you know those are the those are the two most popular magnification so eight and ten and you know for that simply refers to how many times that binocular is magnifying what your eye sees so in one instance something is eight times bigger. In the other instance, it's 10 times bigger. Not a big difference. You know, I think it's there. You want to think of the terrain in the country that you're using it in. And typically Western hunters definitely gravitate towards 10 powered binos. You have a little extra edge, a little more magnification. You're using them at greater distances typically. And so that ability to magnify something a little

bit larger is is of benefit the drawbacks to it are is the the field of view the image that we talked about that you were talking about earlier with the rifle scope typically in a 10x if everything else is equal it's going to be narrower you're going to look at a smaller image when you're looking at something so the guy with the spray paint cans the guy with the spray paint cans he's only going to see three quarters of what he could see in the eight power bino. And the other thing is that when you're trying to hold that binocular, what you're doing, you know, you're just picking up in your hands and holding it. The higher the magnification is, the harder it is to hold that thing steady. It's going to wiggle in your hands. And if you carry that to an extreme

and you looked at a 12 or a 15 power binocular and you tried to handhold it, that image is going to be wiggly and shaky. And so you lose some of the benefit of having that magnification. 10X is to the point most people can hold them pretty steady comfortably. I disagree. This is one thing I have a very firm opinion on about this. I find that I used to not be able to freehand 10s. Yeah, I know where you're going with this answer. I learned to freehand tens.

Sure. I don't think, I really don't think anyone can freehand a pair of 12-hours without missing game. Well, you can, but it just, there's going to be a loss. There's going to be a loss. And obviously, you know, you're a big fan of tripod use. We certainly are too. You know, I grew up doing that as well.

Using any of these binoculars on a tripod, taking your hands out of the equation, huge difference. Oh, my gosh. Gigantic difference. All of a sudden, you realize that, yeah, you put a thing on a tripod, like a pair of 10s or 12s on a tripod. All of a sudden, you realize that you're noticing, like, chickadees 300 yards away. Once I started tripod glassing, like, If you put those eight power binders on a tripod, they're much more effective. Once I started tripod glassing, now I don't like it if I'm not tripod glassing. You realize all the stuff you're missing.

When I hunted coos deer for the first time, that's when I was really introduced to hardcore tripod glassing, really tearing the countryside apart. And that's actually affected all my other hunting. I apply that to all my Western hunting. Yeah, because you're like, oh, hey, there's a quail a mile away over there. I just saw him run between two bushes. You've never seen that thing. But back to the 810 thing. I'll often say, and I'm going to let you have the last word on this.

I'll often tell people, if I had to really be super general, if you hunt the east, east of the Big Bend in the Missouri, I'd be like, 8. Yeah, good advice. West of that, 10. And the guy with the 8, he's not going to go wrong if he takes that 8-power out west and hunts. It's going to work just fine.

No, I wouldn't. Yeah, you wouldn't need to go buy a new set of knockers. It is a more versatile size. Yeah, I know. We're on the same page on that. But talk about 12s, 15s, all the crazy stuff. Well, what happens is, you know, we'll agree to disagree on 10s. I think that is definitely a tipping point.

You think anyone can freehand a pair of 10s? Not to the same level of effectiveness. No, definitely not. You know, I wouldn't say anybody can pick up a pair of 10s and they're going to be effective with it. You really have to, as you point out, sort of learn the tricks. You're going to tuck your elbows. You're going to brace your hands. You're going to hold on to your hat.

You find ways to help stabilize that bino. Yeah, or what do you call when you can screw the eye cups in and out? Well, that would be something you would set whether you wore eyeglasses or not. Yes, but I find I used to dial them all the way in and then put my finger for stability. When I was holding my binoculars, I would put my finger on my eyebrow and bring the cup to my finger. It would get a lot of stability like that. Now I find that I screw them all the way out, and I just kind of have a sweet spot where screwed all the way out I just know where they're supposed to be in my eye socket and it's just like shooting a bow where you have the same anchor point yeah when I bring my binoculars up like I know how that eye

cup feels and I get great and I would definitely you know that that is absolutely one of those tricks you know when I when I talk about using tens you you they have to touch your face if you're just holding them out in space and they're off of your face and floating there yeah i mean i agree with you completely they are you know very hard to use you have to brace they have to touch your face you know i tend to i have more deep set eyes i tend to i mean drive them pretty hard on my on my eyebrow ridge to get where you want but that's all you know that's what's helping stabilize them and make them steady or like you know when you let like a picture that you're trying to look into a window

with your hands where you make that little like yeah yeah you kind of like you find ways of doing that that gives you a lot of stability with your right and that you know having your hands up there too you know you're blocking that side light that lateral light from coming in on them. But once you go beyond 10, it's black and white at that point. You're into the zone now that really you're going to get the most benefit by using a tripod. Ryan Callahan freehands 12s. And Giannis and I talk bad about him behind his back.

Yeah. I've done it too. Because we're like, there's no way he's freehanding those 12s. Has he sat down behind him on a tripod? Oh, yeah. He's done it. He's done it. He's like a guide.

He's done a ton of hunting. In our defense, we do it behind his back. We also do it to his face. Yeah, I'll be like, dude, you can't honestly tell me that you're freehanding those 12s. He likes to set up with a tripod. His deal is this. Likes to look through a tripod. On a mountain hunt, backpack hunt, he doesn't want to carry two.

Exactly. He spends most of his time tripod knocking. So, yeah, if he's walking up the trail and something catches his eye. Short, quick look. He'll have a short quick look i i ran the same pros and cons and i'm like i value that what is that quick look to the point where i'm i'm willing to suffer behind the tripod in order to have like more stable, quick look. Yeah. Well, you're definitely going to get more detail doing that.

Absolutely. He may be able to quickly ID an animal, but he's not going to see the level of detail that you will do. Yeah. He's like, no, that bear's eight and a half, not eight. Yeah. It's not like that. Before I started really picking apart the hillside coos deer hunting

and elk hunting in Arizona, I learned to use binoculars in Colorado from the senior guides that I worked with. And their whole thing was, as we were still hunting through quakey patches or the edge of quakeys and timber, looking for elk that were coming out to feed, they're just like, always bring up your binoculars. Bring up your binoculars. You can only see 80 yards with your eyes, 100 yards with your eyes. As soon as you bring up those binoculars, you just x-rayed another

20, 30 yards, and that's where those 8s and 10s, I feel like, just really apply. That's something we haven't gotten into. That's a good point. You could be still hunting for snowshoe hares. I'd feel like, it's great you bring that up, because that's like a whole other kind of

all this tripod talk and all that not being like oh can I extend my vision to 800 yards it'd be like what's 50 yards away binoculars have a great you ask any birder people who look at birds they're like no I'm talking about

I'm looking at a bird 10 yards away man but I want to know does he have a slight yellow crown? You know? Right. So that's a whole other aspect of using binoculars is like finding deer in the brush. Yeah. Right?

That are laying right, hiding in plain sight. Right. Yeah. And it's, you know, that's the reason that, you know, people will end up with different sizes of binos and, you know, going back to the rifle scopes, you know, that we sell guys four or five, six different rifle scopes, because at the point that you can afford to do

that kind of thing, of course, you can, you know, you can key on specialties doing it. So when a guy's saying like, when a guy's kicking around, he's like, I'm going to buy eight, let's say, let's say eight by 32. How does it usually go? Like there's usually like around 30, some variability, around 40, around 50 objective lens.

Yeah, that's pretty common. And when you hear, when someone says eight by 40, eight by 50 binocular, what they're talking about is eight power, 50 millimeter objective lens. Right, just the same way the rifle scopes were on that. If you're weighing between 40 and 50 objective lens right just the same way the rifle scopes were on the if you're weighing between 40 and 50 objective lens is it fair to say you're just asking yourself a weight a weight and clunkiness versus image quality or is it more complicated than that it's maybe a little more

complicated than that you know you can you can use those same exit pupil numbers we talked about earlier, dividing magnification into objective lens size to get kind of a crude way of estimating brightness. And typically the binos are all, they're not going to go much beyond that 7mm range. So they're typically, they're all going to give you a workable range where there's concrete benefit from going from that 32 to the 40 to the 42 to the 50 but for each user you have to you know you have to decide on that because as that lens goes from

30 to 40 to 50 you can envision that the size and the weight of that binocular go up correspondingly so while you do you know you do increase the low light performance by doing that, you, you know, you're carrying, packing around a larger, heavier binocular, typically a longer binocular when you go to those bigger objective lenses. So there's always a, there's a, there's just a trade-off in there and everybody comes in a different spot. Someone who would buy a, you know, a lower power binocular with a big objective lens obviously you're buying something there that's made to really be focused on low light performance yeah and the trade-off is it's probably going to be a bigger heavier binocular you know that's not all that practical

during daytime use so it's you know it's a matter of picking what matches what you're doing what works but you know what what matches what you're doing. What activity are you doing? I've found that through the years, as I've gotten more interested in glass and more interested in glassing and optics, I've found that I've gone, I've tended to go in binoculars, higher magnification, from 8s to 10s, and then bigger objective lens. Part of it was switching to a bino carrier. Sure.

A bino carrier, like, just around your neck, you feel those ounces. And a bino carrier is kind of like, honestly, if I'm walking around with my bino carrier on, and you, like, I couldn't tell you. If you, like, secretly switched mine to a 50, I wouldn't know until I pulled them out. It's just, like, It's just not there. It's like the weight's distributed.

When you're crawling, they're not banging you in the nose. Very valuable piece of gear. You wind up getting a good carrier and you can carry a hell of a lot more binocular and it just doesn't bother you. There's one other thing we should hit on really quickly, Steve,

because as we've chatted through this, I keep meaning to say that. For example, in our lines of binoculars we have four or five different tiers of binoculars that's what I wanted to ask you and you see the same size say that 10 by 42 repeated in one series and the next and the next and the next and we get that question a lot about why is that what no I want that was actually the last question I wanted to ask you different 1042s and and for people to understand, when we talk about brightness and exit pupils and these quick ways of calculating that, the one thing that they can't take into consideration is the quality of the piece. Who can't take into consideration? The user or the fellow applying those mathematical formulas. So you could take, let's say you had a 10 by 50 binocular,

fairly common size. You do the math, you have that five millimeter exit pupil. Let's say you took a binocular that maybe retailed for a hundred dollars and contrasted that with a high-end binocular that say retailed for $2,000. Same exit pupil exactly between the two of those that five millimeter exit pupil and so someone might say well that's the same number these should be equally bright binoculars right they you know they both come out ahead in the same formula but the thing about optics is the quality of glass that's used and the quality of the coatings that are applied to that glass and how many of those coatings are applied and the the the you know the design of the optic the layout of the lenses how many lenses are used in there those

are all at least as important as those simplistic numbers of calculating exit people and that there's no way you can't you can't build that into that formula. And so that expensive 10x50 very typically is going to drastically outperform that less expensive model. Is it easier for you guys to answer the question, what makes shitty optics shitty? Or what makes good optics good? I think it's easier to concentrate on the good. Okay, what makes good optics good? I get all the time, like, why in the hell would I spend $800 on a pair of binoculars? I'm like, because they look better.

Yeah. You know, if you think about it. Because you look through them and you're like, that's where my money went. It is, yeah. You know, building the thing, if you can build something tighter and the mechanical tolerances are tighter and those lenses are more precisely held in a line it's going to increase optical performance it's going to make the piece more expensive to build whether it's a binocular durability it could yeah sure it could yeah um the quality of the

glass it's used you know there's glass is a simple commodity it can it can be had in very low-end form formulations that are full of chromatic aberration and distortion it varies widely coatings that are applied to the glass have a huge effect in in that and what coatings do is they they they reduce light loss to reflection so as light hits a lens a certain amount of it is reflected back off that lens rather than going through it into your eye. And so anti-reflective coatings reduce that and they allow more of the light to come through. And so the higher the quality of that coating and

by increasing the number of layers of that that are applied, you keep bumping up that light transmission number. That's where you get that term, you know, fully multi-coated optics. Yeah, you see that in catalogs all the time. I feel like that's one of the things that's just way over people's heads. It is. You see it

so often used that it just kind of blurs into the background. But that's what it means. That's what it means. It's reducing light loss is the idea. How long have we been talking, Danny? Hour and 20. Oh, really? Doug, conclud been talking, Danny? Hour and 20. Oh, really?

Okay. Doug, concluding thoughts, questions? Doug, you've been awful quiet. He just sitting there replaying that awesome turkey hunt we had this morning. It was fabulous. How can that Steve guy just talk to those turkeys? Well, it was it was it was it was it was incredible but uh and and i certainly have a new appreciation for you or enhance the wider appreciation i learned a lot about optics today before this

discussion i was thinking about this charlie brown cartoon about are you nearsighted or farsighted one of the like Linus has glasses on. And he said, well, I don't know. What does that mean? And they said, well, nearsighted means that you see things close. And they kind of explained it to him. And he says, glasses make me see better. So all of this, I was learning what I know about. He about boiled it down to the essence good optics make

me see better bam yeah you you it's a leap of faith like you're sort of no it's not a leap of faith because i have this like i have this moment in my life that i always talk about where i never had good binoculars. Okay. I never had money. It's not that I had tons of money laying around. I just didn't have money. Therefore, didn't have good binoculars. I was hunting caribou with this guy, and he had just got done guiding on the Alaska Peninsula for a year.

And somehow at the end of the guiding season, he came into a pair of good binoculars. We're sitting in our caribou camp, a grizzly bear is walking up the bank on the opposite side of the river. I'm looking at it. It's like a brown blob. I throw up Chuck's knockers, and I look through it, and I can see cowlicks moving across the bear from the wind. I'm like, let me see them sons of bitches again. What is that? I had an epiphany like that, too. My background is guiding. I guided for many, many years in the state of Idaho before doing this. And I, and I, I followed the same course.

I went from incrementally increasing the quality of my optics every year. And I, and I had an epiphany one year, I was hunting with a couple of great big overweight Hawaiian guys that showed up with piles of brand new gear and boxes. And we sat out the evening we came into camp, it was an Elkhart, climbed up on a ridge just that night to climb out and look and i had a a mid-priced pair of i think it was pentax binoculars at the time decent decent optics and this guy pulls out out of his case this this big boxy hard case and he flips it open and he's got a brand new pair of likas which is very nice high-end brand of optic and he pulls them out and we're at that, we're looking into kind of a low-setting sun,

tough glassing. And I'm sort of struggling to see much because I'm getting all kinds of reflections coming into my binoculars. And this great big guy with zero Western hunting experience whatsoever picks this pair of binoculars out of this box. Starts blowing you out of the water with it. In eight minutes, he's picking out elk coming out of the trees. And I just, I couldn't believe it.

I thought he was seeing things. I just could not believe it. And I finally had to reach over and look through his binoculars, and it just was stunning. Lo and behold, elk here and elk there and elk there. And that, I mean, I still remember that to this day. It really made me feel good. Oh, yeah, it was like that for me.

I came out of there being like, I don't care what, I don't care if I got to move into a new apartment. I'm buying good binoculars. Exactly. I saved from that point on, I saved every tip I had for two years and I bought a pair of the exact same binoculars that that guy was using. Yanni? My takeaway, I can take it from what you guys both just said, and it'll be my closing statement,

will be that to really see that, both of you guys described experiences that happened in the field in certain situations, certain light. A lot of people go to Dicks or the Big Five or sportsmen and compare binoculars inside under fluorescent lights at max range of whatever that is. Yeah, you're trying to read the end cap sign.

Yeah, they all look great. That's a good point. And they do not look great when you're looking into that setting sun. Right, right. It makes a huge, huge difference. Yeah, well, you just buy a bunch of stuff from Vortex knowing you're going to return it all. Be like, I want one of everything.

A couple days later, you get a massive return, except for one bear. Editors, mark that. That's at $120. No. Go to your sporting goods store and be nice, seem reasonable, offer to leave your driver's license, and see if you can go out in the parking lot and have a look.

And try to do it late in the day, early in the morning. Don't just look at the end cap down the road, down the aisle. See if you can go outside. Try to go look at a bird. Do his feathers look sharp? Does the point of his beak look clear? I'll say this.

Mark Borman concluding thoughts. Well, this is just my one concluding thought. Is that whether I work for an optics company or not, or whether I work for Vortex, good quality optics are unequivocally one of the most important pieces of gear in your hunting arsenal. Dude, I know I've had like three concluding thoughts. I absolutely agree.

I absolutely agree. I would rather, if you told me you can hunt with boots and no binoculars or barefoot with binoculars, I would have a very difficult time. I'd be like, how about, can I get thick socks? Paul, including thoughts? No, I mean, I think we've touched on a lot of great things here. I mean, hopefully it's been of use to some of your listeners out there. Oh, yeah, I want to say thank you for just doing an unbelievable job explaining some of those, like the 40, 50 millimeter bell thing.

I mean, that was awesome. Yeah, I enjoy chatting about it. You know, I just talked about that experience I had in the field, and really at that point, to me, that sort of set a real interest in optics from that point out yeah I used them and I progressed into hunting for bighorn sheep which is extremely optics intensive I you know I've had that interest in loving that ever since so it's I enjoy talking about it it's been a lot of fun great now I have something concrete to refer

when people ask these questions we'll just be, if you have an hour and 30 minutes in an internet connection, I'll be happy to answer that question for you. All right. Yeah. Go to hunteat.com, buy Yanni's t-shirts so you look cool. Doug,

if you got land you want to manage, low in oak interest. Is your company named after that oak over there? Yes, it is. I'm looking at the damn oak right now, I think. Yeah, low in oak. Yep. One last thing I want to touch on.

If a guy has a question, he calls Vortex, someone answers the phone? Yes, indeed. Absolutely. Yes, indeed. This is going to sound awful, but someone who's fluent in someone answers the phone yes indeed absolutely indeed this is going to sound awful but someone who's like fluent in english answers the phone absolutely and they're welcome to the same questions we've been talking about here anyone can call in and ask any of those questions or you know any number of us there that are happy to help out and if uh the warranty you have is good for any optics in your line or not yes absolutely

like you buy it it's just something not right it's the warranty's cool it's it's it's yeah it covers the original buyer and anyone else down the road that buys it it covers anything really outside of losing it or having it stolen. We've seen stuff come in with bullet holes. We've already seen it. That's a true story. I like the razor

stuff. It's great. If someone just can't pull that off financially, he gets the same warranty. That has nothing to do with it. So let's see. So short of losing them, once you buy them, you're cool. You're covered.

You are covered. All right. Okay. Good. Thanks for joining us. Take care.