To start, I don't have fantastic eyes, I'm 6.25/7.50 nearsighted without corrective lenses, and have a slight red/green color defiency--like a lot of other people have.

I can tell the clarity difference between a $39 Walmart special and a Leupold VX1 or the like of course, but I've been upgrading or thinking of upgrading scopes on a few rifles. After looking though a pile of scopes, it seems like any noticeable glass quality differences you're going to see are only noticeable at 500 yards plus, or the last very few minutes of shooting time for hunting.

I know there's great differences in scope construction obviously, and erectors and turret quality among other things. From my perspective, all "decent" scopes look good in the daylight, at least out to a few hundred yards.

I currently own decent optics from Leupold, Steiner, Nikon, Sightron, and Vortex. I've compared them to Swarovskis up to the new DS series at $4,000 plus, Nightforce, Razors and VX6 scopes that I have available to look through locally outdoors, and I'm seriously splitting hairs to quantify them optically, and I'm going to spend cubic dollars to get an extra few minutes of shooting time at sunrise or sunset....while a plain old VX2 will get you past shooting time already.

If I was shooting 1,500 yards and needed to minimize mirage, or was twisting turrets all day, yeah you're going to pay for that of course. But is the whole "glass quality" thing mainly a whole lot of marketing ? I hear about guys stating how magical the new scope is on the new 6.5 Whizbang chassis rifle....and I'm just wondering how much is real, and how much is "butt dyno."

Thanks!

For background - A nice Leupold VXIII or MK4 is my go to scope and I'm happy.

To step up to a higher end scope (for me Schmidt and Bender) what you will get is better light transmission.    Not much, but noticeable at dawn and dusk or at night.  As my eyes age, this becomes helpful as more light is needed all the time.

My $0.02

For me, scopes are like triggers.  You can dry fire a trigger and it feels fine.  However, when you are prone behind the rifle, trying to hold it all together and make a challnging shot, the trigger feels like a mile of dirt road.

You'll only really see the quality of something under real use.

That said, there is the principle of diminishing returns.

A $500 scope is dramatically better than a $100 scope, but a $1400 isn't dramatically better than a $1000 scope.

go get behind an entry level scope and a high end scope at dusk... and report back.

usually at that price point, you start paying for features... illuminated reticle, reticle features, etc....

You'll need to be looking really far away at pretty small objects to see what the difference is. It'll come in as color separation on small things far away and low resolution. The way I go about it is: I look at a 4x4" fence post at 1000yrds and a sign with 4" tall numbers on it. If you want a standardized test that you can do then you need to use something like the optical resolution test target below.

In all reality after about 300-500 bucks worth of price point from a company that prides itself on its optics, you're paying for improvements in execution of the mechanical bits, marketing hype and for incredibly small amounts of actual improvement.

Nope, you're not the only one OP.
Once they are adjusted properly and equally I can't tell much difference between my good ones and cheap ones. Looking at eye charts at distance have shown minor differences.

I question anyone that makes clarity claims, yeah was the non clear scope adjusted right?
I am equally skeptical of audio snobs making claims so.... maybe I'm just not refined enough to appreciate minute differences.

Excellent answers everyone, I really appreciate the time. I've been beating my head against the wall with scope choices, and really had to step back and think about how many times a dramatically better scope would have improved my odds of making a shot at a target, or game animal, and realized probably none.

I have looked at a VX3I directly against my Sightron Big Sky, a VX6 and a Swaro Z6, all with 40mm or larger objectives, and all set on equal power, or powers to deliver at least a 7mm exit pupil, and while the Z6 was "better" in the low light after dusk, I had a very tough time deciding how to decide how much. None of the colors popped drastically more, and it wasn't like turning on a light switch compared to a basic VX2 or Vortex Viper. Of course there are things I like better about this scope or that scope, but I think I should focus more on deciding what features or reticle I want, and making sure I like the eyebox, instead of if I can see the letters on a sign 1,500 yards away a bit bettter. My current shooting skill level would be much better served by more trigger time than a high end optic I think.

I understand my eyes may likely be the limiting factor here, and wanted some informed opinions. Thanks again for your helpful answers guys!

OP, where I see the difference is on the edges of the glass...most I have looked thru have been pretty equal looking thru the center, but crank the turrets and get the edge more central in the sight picture and the crappy starts showing thru...

The better scopes tend to cut through mirage, have better edge to edge clarity, resolution and a better overall image. Above 16-1700$, all optics should be exceptional. I have evaluated a Sightron SIII, PST, PST Gen II against Vortex AMG’s, Razors, Razor Gen 2’s and Nightforce Atacr’s. The higher end scopes were better, and definitely offer a better image, but how much is up to the end user. I know for certain that there were details as close as 70 yards that I could see with the ATACR and AMG that the lesser scopes couldn’t pick out, sans the SIII (great resolution for price).

Sub 1000$ scopes can get the job done, but there isn’t one that I’ve seen that competes with the upper scopes in overall image quality.

Basically the red section is the same as saying better scopes see through dirty glass better, it's bullshit. It doesn't matter how good the scope is, it cannot alter the medium you are trying to look through.

Better resolution means I can make out the target through mirage easier.  The post you quoted is correct, but incorrect word choice.

At extended ranges the better glass on my PMii or Razor makes it much easier to spot the the edges of plate than with my gen 1 PST.

But you're correct, mirage is going to be there regardless of what's used.

Besides optical quality, high dollar scopes should also (but not always) mechanically preform better. As in tracking accurately when you dial them.

Example, I have one of the long discontinued Horus Blackbird 1.5-8 with h58. It’s a decent cheap scope because it has the h58 reticle so once I zeroed it I just use the holds.

The blackbird is nowhere near as nice optically as a Shortdot though.

So if you go less expensive with you be able to just use holds if your optic doesn’t track well?

Just an example.  Hope that makes sense.

Most shooters have a poor understanding of optics, hear things and then start repeating what they hear because they heard it from someone they regard as an expert, even though it's not accurate information.

My other hobby is astronomy and it's very demanding on optics as it's dealing with not just with atmospherics, but also very small point sources of light where resolution is critical and at the same time you have one extreme where  aperture and lens coatings are critical to meet the need for light gathering ability, and at the other extreme you have bright targets that place a premium on elimination of false color,  You also have wide area targets where spherical aberration and coma at the edge of the field of view is a concern.  Most of this applies to rifle scopes, just in a less noticeable degree.

One of the first mistakes most shooters make in selecting a scope is thinking that increased magnification results in increased resolution.  That's not the case at all.  Resolution is determined primarily by the size of the objective lens, followed closely, but secondarily, by the quality of the optics in the system.   Physics is what limits resolution in an objective lens once you run out of improved quality, more diameter is needed if you want greater resolution.

What that means is that if you have two scopes with equal lens quality, and one has a 50mm objective lens while the other has a 56mm objective lens, the 56mm lens is going to have greater resolution.

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The second mistake shooters make is choosing too much magnification for the objective lens diameter.  Exit pupil is determined by dividing the objective lens diameter by the magnification.  If you have a 56mm objective, and your maximum magnification is 14x, you'll have a 4mm exit pupil.  56mm/14= 4mm.  If on the other hand your scope has a 25x maximum magnification your exit pupil is now only 2.24mm and if you chose the same magnification in a scope with a 50mm objective, the exit pupil is now only 2mm at 25X.  To get the same 4mm exit pupil in that 5-25x50mm scope you have to dial the magnification down to just 12.5x.

Why is exit pupil important?  Your pupil gets larger in low light and smaller in bright light and you need to take full advantage of that pupil size to get maximum brightness and sharpness in the perceived image.  For example, on a bright sunny day using a 5-25x50mm scope at 25x, the 2mm exit pupil will still fully illuminate the more or less 2mm pupil diameter you have in bright light and fully illuminate the foveal vision (sharp, high resolution) area of your retina.  However, near dawn or dusk where your pupil is now 4mm in diameter, you have to dial the magnification back to 12.5X to get maximum image brightness.

In comparison, with a 4-14x56mm scope, on a bright sunny day, much of the light from the 4mm exit pupil at 14x will fall outside your small 2mm pupil and be "wasted", but your retina will still be fully illuminated.  And near dawn or dusk with a 4mm pupil, your pupil and retina will still be fully illuminated at 14x.  Plus, with equal optical quality you are getting higher resolution on the bight days and in low light you are getting both more resolution and a usable 14x versus a usabel 12.5x.

In both scopes after dark where your eye is now dark adapted with a pupil size in the 6mm range, you'll have to reduce the magnification to increase the exit pupil to 6mm to get full illumination of the retina, but that will be 9.3x in the 56mm scope and 8.3x in the 50mm scope.  In addition however, the 56mm scope has 2463 square mm of surface area. compared to 1963 square mm for the 50mm scope.  That equates to 25.4% more light gathering power for the 56mm objective, which makes the image that much brighter, all other things being equal.  So that extra 6mm in objective lens diameter provides a 9.3x rather than 8.3x image that is 25% brighter.

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A third thing some shooters mis understand is lens coatings.  Lens coatings increase light transmission by reducing internal reflections.  However a single lens coating generally only reduces reflections for a single, or vary narrow range of wavelengths of light.  That means the lenses have to be coated with several different coatings to reduce reflections across a broad range of the visual spectrum.  In marketing terms:

"Coated" = a single coated on at least one lens in the scope (this will produce a dimmer and washed out image image with less contrast)
"Fully Coated" = a single coating on all of the lenses in the scope (this will improve brightness but will still have lower contrast and washed out color)
"Multi Coated" = at least 2 lens coatings on at least one lens in the scope (this may be better, but will be far short of a fully multi-coated system)
"Fully Multi-coated" = multiple coatings on all lenses in the scope

However even in the "fully multi-coated" class not all lens coating perform equally, and scope manufacturers use propriety coatings that they guard pretty closely.  The good news is that most decent quality fully multi coated scopes will transmit 95% or more of the light in the key color wavelengths, and most shooters won't notice the difference between 95% compared to 97% light transmission.

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Most shooters don't understand things like spherical or chromatic aberration.   Spherical aberration is a distortion of the image that occurs out on the edges of the optical system due to how the light is bent by a less than perfect lens, and /or less than perfect correction in the optical system.  Chromatic aberration is more critical because it affects the whole image.

In an uncorrected lens system you'll see chromatic aberration as a rainbow effect around bright objects.

In an achromatic objective lens (a doublet of flint and crown glass bonded together) you'll see chromatic aberration as a purple fringe around a bright white light or along the edge of a light surface.

What is less obvious is that this false color is caused by the wavelengths of red blue and green light coming to focus at different points.  Those different focal points for the different wavelengths of light results in a blurred image in the uncorrected scope.  In a more expensive (medium expensive) achromatic objective lens, the blue and red wavelengths come to focus at the same point, leaving just the green light at a different focal point.   This results in a much sharper focus and much less false color.

Apochromatic systems use a triplet in the objective lens to bring red, blue and green wavelengths to the same focal point. The downside is that apochromatic lenses cost a lot more to make at a suitable high level of quality.

Chromatic aberration is a bigger problem in shorter focal ratio scopes than it is in longer focal ratio scopes, and focal ratios around f/5.6 to f/8 tend to offer the best balance between depth of field and image sharpness, and at those ratios chromatic aberration is an issue.

Extremely low dispersion (ED) glass means that the glasses used in the objective lens creates less difference in the focal points of different wavelengths of light. That means sharper focus and less false color.  It also means the scope costs a lot more money to make.

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Generally speaking when it comes to production costs, all of the good stuff discussed above costs more.

Large objective lens cost more to produce to an equally high level of quality as a objective smaller lens and the increase isn't linear but is closer to being exponential.  The good news here is that manufacturing techniques overall have improved to the point that 50mm and 56mm objective lenses of very good quality are much more affordable than they were 20-30 years ago when 40mm and 44mm was about as large as rifle scope objectives got.  So you can now find decent scopes with a 50mm objective in the $500 price range, and you find decent 56mm objective scopes in the $1000 price range.

Quality lens coatings are also expensive, but again there's been enough manufacturing progress that you can very get good light transmission across the visible spectrum (with good color and high contrast images) in a $300 scope if you keep the objective lens diameter down in the 40-44mm range and in the $500 range with a 50mm objective.

Most importantly though, the adjustments on mid level scopes available today are precise and repeatable, with no perceptible back lash or lag in the adjustments, and that was not the case 15-20 years ago.

Consequently, if you buy a tactical scope like the Nikon X1000 series or the Vortex Viper series today for around $500, you're going to get a scope that is at least as capable as any scope you would have purchased 30 years ago for any price and it'll be better than almost anything you could have purchased for sane money 15-20 years ago.

What that means is that the average long range shooter today can be adequately equipped for under $600 and well equipped for around $1000.  Can you spend a lot more?  Absolutely.  Do have to spend more and or will it make you a better shooter?  Not really.

Can you comment on how HD glass and coatings can impact the image? I ask this because there are some optics that I don’t feel can ever offer as vivid of an image as some of the upper tiered optics. The image just appears darker with less contrast, regardless of fine tuning. With others, the optical system just doesn’t allow for the same resolution.

This has been excellent info everyone, it's much appreciated! I really appreciate Vortex stepping up with an opinion as well. Thank you all for taking the time to reply.

Sticky this?

Thank you, this is very illuminating. I'll need to read a few more times probably. I'm in the market for a longer-range scope for the first time and this is big help.

I can hit the 600 yard IPSC 9 out of 10 shots with my 16 inch Grendel.  The one miss would be my fault.

I use a 1-6x24 PA ACSS.  $289

You can just make out the splats on fresh white paint.

Top end glass makes the splats easier to see but won’t increase my hit ratio.

In low light the clarity drops off.  That is where great glass really shines.

I don’t take shots on game past 250 or so so the $289 scope works fine.

In bright sunny days cheap glass can work fine even at 600 yards.

If you’re in the market for a new scope, I’d suggest you venture over to SnipersHide. Lots of good discussion with comparisons on a wide variety of optics.

Thank you, will do.

One of the hard parts about scope optic design is that different colors of light focus just a little bit differently.   Different optics will handle that differently, and that's piled on top of mirage doing screwy things in the same manner.

I think the newer coatings and technology level the field to a degree. I have a an older Leupold Mk4 M1 illuminated and Mk4 M3 that I think are really good, but  I recently got a Leupold VX5HD and it blows them both away.

I can totally tell differences in glass.

Excellent replies again everyone! Thank you.

I went out for an hour or so last night with a Vortex Viper 3-9x40, a VX3i 3.5-10x40, and a Swarovski Z3 3-9x36. I DID notice some differences in things, but to be honest, I was really working to notice a difference in looking around at "average" stuff. Watching birds, rabbits, squirrels, trees and stuff, trying to make out details.

Until maybe 15 mins after sundown, on a clear evening with partial moon, I could not really tell any light differences out to about 200 yards with any of the three, but I did notice that tiny details were sharper with the Swarovski, but again, I had to really study to notice them. Well after the sun went down, and way past any legal shooting time, the Z3 started to appear brighter, and even with the standard duplex, I could have made a pretty confident shot in a game animal, where as the crosshairs in the Viper and Vx3i were harder to focus on.

After last night, it seemed the difference I COULD quantify in the end, wasn't so much "brightness" (although the Z3 did slightly win that test), but the contrast. The brightness difference was very minor to MY eyes, yours may be much different. It was certainly not a light switch difference with any of them. The dark colors did stand out more with the Z3, which made picking out an edge easier in the very low light, which in turn would lead to a more precise shot. It was not a fair contest between the three, but I felt these three were all similar enough to make some differences known.

Obviously better glass is better, and the scope with the smallest objective was indeed the brightest for me, it was also almost twice the price of the other two. I spent most of the time with the scopes all at 4-6 power, so as to keep the exit pupils at optimum for them. For me, if a scope isn't going to be used for late night hunting, I'll pay more attention to features, and for a rifle that will get used in the dark I'll care less about fancy turrets and make sure I get the best glass I can afford.

Thanks again for the replies everyone!

Awesome, my other hobby is also astronomy.

Great description of optical characteristics!

B

I've had to have eye surgery a few times to correct some issues (I'm 26 for reference so it's not just aging eyes) and Ive tried several higher end model scopes from brands like Nightforce, US Optics, Vortex, Leupold, etc.. and I honestly don't think my eyes are capable of making out the differences.

I can tell the quality of the build though, the materials, the machining, the fit and finish, etc.. so a lot of times that becomes my metric..

But yeah it has kind made it pointless to spend more than $500-1200 on a scope. I usually use mid level Vortex, Nikon, or SWFA for any hunting/precision stuff and acogs if I feel like having something "tough" or spendy.

wow some really detailed information in this thread far past what i can comprehend.

I just give Vortex as much money as i can afford to get the features i am looking for; and trust i am getting good bang for the buck.

Recently moved off my 17 year old Leupold vari-x III 4.5-15x50MM LRT...and went to a PST gen 2 FFP 5-25X50.
Did it mainly for the additional zoom, reticle and turrets.  Have not looked through them side by side, so i can't say i noticed an upgrade in glass?

I picked up a Razor HD LH 3-15x42, and was playing around again with a few other scopes, and I've reread the information provided by everyone multiple times, and I think it's very good. Just a friendly bump, hopefully someone else can get some use out of this post too!

But a $3000 scope is significantly better than a $1400 scope.

Usually you start paying for quality turrets that don't have plastic in them, durability and repeatability.

Amen to this... I've had the majority of major scope brands over the years and I now only purchase Schmidt Bender scopes... nuff said.

I'm just bumping this so maybe someone else can get some use out of it. I've looked through lots more scopes since I posted this, and there's still a ton of good info in the replies here. I have a tendency to over think things, so I've come back to re-read this post a few times.

I was out tonight with my Razor HD-LH 3-15x42 G4,  a Bushnell Forge 2.5-15X50 FFP MOA, a VX3 LR 4.5-14x50, and a VX Freedom 3-9x40 duplex watching rabbits in the moonlight go between snow and grass....I was quite surprised in how well the Forge did. The G4 in the Razor HD has really bold outer posts in low light, but the tiny center dot that I love so much in the daytime was unusable in the moonlight. I'll have a new Razor LHT 3-15x50 ordered this week, so the illuminated center dot should fix that problem, provided it's dim enough at night.

The Forge was as good, or better, than my VX3 LR 30mm tube, 50mm objective, which was surprising. The Swarovskis beat the VX3, but it was still pretty dang dark and I could have gotten that cottontail with the VX3, the Forge, or the Swarovski. I do think optic quality is somewhat subjective, just because a magazine or online reviewer says "this scope is the new hot ticket!!", may not make much difference to your particular eyes.

In my opinion, if you're not really going to use the extra features, don't beat yourself up trying to pay for them.

If you're not going to dial after zeroing, you don't need the fancy turrets, as long as the scope holds zero.
 If you're just headed to the 100yd range on a fair weather day, you don't need crazy good glass.
 If you're shooting by yourself and not going to compete, it doesn't really matter if you pick MOA or MRAD
 Clarity matters more than magnification. It's easier to see bullet holes with a good 16x scope than a cheap 24x scope.
 If you're going to compete, hunt in dark timber, want an ultra durable scope, want to use great turrets, want to see bullet holes at 500 yards or show off to the guys at the range; get your wallet out.

Again, thanks to everyone who gave great info here. I appreciate it, and hopefully this helps someone else too!

I need to get at least one scope in the forseeable future. This is all good information to help me choose without resorting to eeny meeny miney moe.

And a $3000 scope on clearance for $1400 because the manufacturer just released the new generation is the best kind of all.

any leads on a deal like that?

I don’t know of any off-generation $3000 scopes on sale right now but a good deal right now is the previously $950 Vortex PST 6-24x50 Gen 1s for $499 at Eurooptics.

Buy used, check out the EE.

Its harder for me to tell than some people but where scopes really shine is in the last five minutes of daylight and in the early morning just as the sun is coming up. That is where they show their true quality and clarity.

I can tell a difference between my Zeiss Conquest and my Nikon Buckmaster

Spending hours at a time behind a scope really makes me appreciate a quality optic.  Eye fatigue used to be a thing for me with cheap scopes.  Also once i got out opportunity to get out past 500 yards is where some of the optical and mechanical features of my Razor Gen II really shined and i could truly appreciate and justify the cost.  Now I’m hooked.