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What makes a deer rifle 4x power scope the best scope?

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Sprintracer4

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I read in the article that was leading me to this place that have fixed four power scope is the best scope for a deer rifle. Can it real deer hunter tell me why?
 
The only thing I would add is it does depend on where you are hunting. Any place your shots are going to be less than 150 yards the fixed 4 power scope is king. If you are talking about 375 yards or less then a 3x9 power variable is best. Beyond that, in my opinion, you need a sniper rifle and sniper scope.

As a "real deer hunter" hunting mostly in the midwest for whitetails, most of my deer have been taken without any scope just iron sights. The scoped rifles come out when I am reaching out past 100 yards.
 
I trend to agree with most of the other posters; most deer are taken at under 100 yards, particularly around here. You really don’t need much magnification at that range.

The first time I went “up north” —where I could use a rifle—deer hunting, I asked my buddy what my longest shot would be…when he told me 100-150 yards, I just mounted a 2MOA Bushnell (pre EoTech) red dot on my 6.5x55…because I knew that if I zeroed it at roughly 75 yards, I’d hit in that dot anywhere from 100 feet to 150 yards.
 
I agree that when hunting in the woods that a 4x scope is adequate when shots are a maximum of 150yards. I usually hunt in open fields where longer shots are possible. I usually use rifles with a little more magnification especially with these old eyes. Most of my rifles have either 3x - 9x, or 4x-12x scopes. My target rifles have 16x or 6x-18x scopes. I think the higher power variable scopes are a necessity especially when hunting out west where distances are much greater. Just my 2 cents. :)
 
We regularly zero'ed the BARs about 350 for hunting in Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, etc. My Missouri guns are either '94s with irons or 30-06 autos with 3x9x40 on high rise mounts.
 
HansGruber said:
I trend to agree with most of the other posters; most deer are taken at under 100 yards, particularly around here. You really don’t need much magnification at that range.

The first time I went “up north” —where I could use a rifle—deer hunting, I asked my buddy what my longest shot would be…when he told me 100-150 yards, I just mounted a 2MOA Bushnell (pre EoTech) red dot on my 6.5x55…because I knew that if I zeroed it at roughly 75 yards, I’d hit in that dot anywhere from 100 feet to 150 yards.
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I think this is the best way to go. No need to find your 'perfect' cheek weld and all the other happiness just point n shoot. The only other thought would be mating it with a lever action (or MSR). For such a range and flighty game fast follow up shots may be necessary. My .02
 
For many, many years I hunted open, improved pasture lands with opportunities sometimes out to >400+ yds. However I rarely took a shot at anything over 300yds+- a few'. In most of those years I had the same old "Redfield" Tracker 3-9X44 mounted. Best I can remember usually kept it about 4-5X, occasionally 6X.

Just remember the higher X setting you use, the less light transmitted through the scope and the harder it is to see clearly. Higher X's also cut down on field of view in all scopes.
 
Talyn said:
Light transmission depends on the size of the ojective lens, and the quality of the glass lenses.
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Absolutely true in fixed power applications, however in vari-power scopes, I'm pretty sure you'll find that regardless how much light enters the objective “window” or lens, The higher the magnification, the less light that gets out. The amount of light that exits the scope at the eyepiece depends on the power level.

A really good and easy to see example of this is when using binoculars. Most any good set of binocs will definitely show a loss of brightness as the power/magnification is increased. (y)(y)(y)
 
Regardless of whether its a fixed or variable power scope my point that the size of the objective and the quality of the glass is a constant, as well as with binoculars.

Plus, quality binoculars are fixed power, whereas variable-power binoculars are basically cheaper models made by lesser well-known manufacturers.

Perceived brightness decreases when the field of view decreases.
 
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Rifle scopes, like all telescopes collect light and bring it to a point on the focal plane. Formed by the objective, the larger the brighter, the image is examined by the ocular, the lens at the rear. As you go up in magnification all you are doing is examining a smaller circle in the center of the original image. Since the light is constant, as you zoom in you basically expand the center of the field of view to become the entire field of view, and it does get dimmer. In astronomy the lowest power eyepieces are used most often, as a bright, sharp image is more revealing than a dim, blurry high magnified blur. Very good scopes can maintain their clarity to impressive magnifications, but like other posters have said, shooting at a large target like the kill zone of a deer, from less than a hundred yards, why bother?
I did put a giant, ridiculous variable scope (up to 24X) on a .223 bolt action once and we used it for sniping tiny targets at about a hundred yards just for the heck of it. The primers of 7.62X54R rounds, for instance. (Don't try this at home.)
Fixed 4 powers are rugged, simple and lighter to carry so they're a good choice for hunting deer.
 
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