Thank god! Here I thought I was just getting carried away. Again. Still.
Sorry but they make some damn good optics you don’t need to mortgage yer house to get🙄…a lot of gun store employees are low wage dimwits.
This meme was just starting to lose meaning a decade ago and look at the options now. What is more impressive is how the quality optics have stayed around the same price if not come down. Good for now but something thermal would probably be the next scope purchase…… unless the wife gets into rifles.
Safe, a thermal might be a damn fine idea if the spousal unit starts tooling up, can’t be too careful… 😉
Exactly. The old rule of thumb about paying twice as much for glass as the rifle has been dead for years.
Yep! Nothing wrong with vortex. Own several of them and prefer them.
It seems to me we are in a golden age not only of firearms, but also of optics and other accessories.
I suspect a $500 optic today would have run you $1500 or more for the same features and quality, a decade ago.
A 20k+ military thermal from the Fallujah era is outmatched by several options around 3-5k. The material/machining efficiency cost reduction is amazing but the digital processing is downright astounding. Shame there is only so much that can be done to lower the cost of gen 3 night vision.
I have (haz?) Leupold classic glass on my Brownings, assembled together a quarter century ago. Cost a bit back then, but worth every dime to this day.
20 years ago I put a $1000 Leupold scope on a $500 rifle. Never looked back.
They’re crying cause they couldn’t fleece the guy for another grand.
👍
400 dollar Ruger American .243 and a 200 dollar Redfield scope. For my needs it is all I need.
But what about muh wants n muh desires?? I’ve noticed lately that by the time my latest tacticool weapon light purchase lands in my mailbox they’ve already got an upgraded model available. Diminutive basturds.
You do you. I got off that merry go round a long time ago.
True dat, yo.
I already hit the point where I have all the lights, blades, tools, gats, gear, belts, holsters, et al I could ever need. Nowadays it’s about ammo and training.
Buy the Rifle. Use the 200 for ammo.
It comes sans sights.
Oh. Never thought about that.
350 dollar Savage Axis .308 and a hand-me-down Konus scope from my brother. Don’t know what he payed for it, but it’s clear and holds zero.
I wanted a .243. I saw the Ruger and bought it. My son was with me and he saw the Savage in .308 and bought it. They’re both good. At my age I prefer the softer shooting .243 and the deer around here are runts. I can use the .243 for them and yotes.
Can also do a number on steel at football field range with the right fmj. Shame it was a reloading equipment needed round up here for several years.
“Can also do a number on steel at football field range with the right fmj.”
You can ring steal out to ~1100 yards with .243 well enough to get a “hit” call in competition too.
Didn’t know it could reach that far reliably, neat. In this case I meant plates needing replacement but good to know re distance options.
I limit my shots to a max of 300 yards. I recognize that my age and eyes are just not up to further distance. At 300 yards this rifle and scope will do a good job all day long.
What’s great about the .243 is how ‘forgiving’ it is about bullet weights. I hunt in CA. We cannot use lead ammo. So I use 80-85 grain copper bullets. But for practice I use whatever cheap lead cored ammo is available. That pure copper stuff is pricey. My leaded ammo is 100+ grains, depending on what’s available.
With a .243 you don’t have to fiddle with the scope between different weights of bullet. They all hit where the crosshairs are.
SAFE:
At 95gr .243 craters the everliving shit out of 3/8ths mild steel plate at 600m. If I was behind the plate I’d be worried that they’d occasionally make it through. Damn near gets through 7/16ths of some of the tougher stuff at 100m, craters out an area about the size of a nickle and 90% of the way through the plate in the latter case, sort of a PITA to fill in and smooth out, actually.
@jwm:
I use 95gr exclusively. But then, I don’t hunt with it. Either Hornady Superformance or I roll my own as basically a copy of the Hornady round.
I picked this for flat-shooting consistency over long range without having to hoof the weight of .308 when I need to carry it for 40-60miles. Each .243 is 4.6g lighter than my preferred .308, 690g less when carrying the full 150 round loadout. 1.52lbs saved. That’s food and water I don’t have to carry to fuel the movement of bullets that, to me, are functionally equivalent to what I have.
It’s part of a bigger set of mass-culling options I picked over time. OG loadout was 19.8lbs heavier than what I tote now. Ammo account for 7.6% of the savings. The downside being that the original loadout was a lot cheaper.
I bought a $200 Konus red dot once. Was a pos.
Seeing gazillionare Jay Leno riding a $200K jet bike wearing a pos 10 year old HJC helmet gets my goat. But then again, I’m so cheap I’ll put paint on my sights instead of springing for modren optics.
Silver paint pen gang represent!
Can you hit what your aiming at consistently edition
That’s what puts the fun in fundamentals. Now to get the ammo together so I can get to trying to shoot closer to what the rifle is capable of.
Spend what you need to. Spending more is not going to make you a better shooter.
Jim w.,
And that is why I am still using iron sights.
And I would be as well, if I could still see the damn things.
+100
My range group usually does two ‘iron sight’ shooting days per year.
A rifle with a damaged/failed optic and without BUIS is a club.
I have not graduated to scopes, yet. Might do so once I feel like I’ve mastered the iron sights on my rifles. Getting better but work and family still getting in the way of range time. I need to re-think my priorities.
You miss-spelt yer own name. I usually catch myself doing Rider/Shootee…
Rider/Shootee,
That made me laugh….twice!!
👍
It’s a bit like my table saw, it’s good for fine woodwork only to the extent it produces accurate cuts. As such, I could put a $400.00 Unifence on decent Sears table saw and it would have been worth the investment. In part because the fence could be pulled and put on an upgrade.
Oh, and, when I was a kid, I took Sam Israel (at the time, the main land owner in Pioneer Square, Seattle) hunting. He appreciated my help and bought a scope for my old, $75.00 Swedish Mauser. The scope was worth several times what the rifle was worth.
SIDE NOTE: Even then, around 1967, his rifle cost about 1/4 as much as my dads first house.
I do have a $2500.00 thermal scope on a $700.00 rifle. Of course the rifle is 40 years old and the scope is 2 years old. And I have a couple cheap scopes on more expensive rifles. But, the scopes and the rifles do what I ask of them so there is no real problem. And yes I have a couple POS scopes laying in the random junk box on the shelf over the safe. Decent optics are available for reasonable cost. As are perfectly accurate rifles available for under a grand.
Fair, but the cheapest thermal worth buying as a handheld monocular is like $700. In comparison to that, you can get quite a bit of regular old visible light optic for that price.
Thermal isn’t cheap and quite a bit of the price is due to the lens being made from Germanium which is $1000-$1200/kg these days just for the raw material. Just some of the good quality 1″+ lenses are over $6000 by themselves.
For those of us nearsighted mouthbreathing Neanders who are partially deaf in both eyes:
Many optics just don’t work for us.
I can barely use a 4x scope, I use an 8x.
Cheaper VARIABLE scopes fall apart because they are mechanically complex internally, and the price point dictates cheap crappy mechanisms. I’ve done a few autopsies on them. Don’t bring one home!
Fine, and complex reticles sell to long distance shooters, but not to me. BEEFY pointers (like the German WWII sniper reticle and Russian PO sniping 3x) WORK for us visibly challenged. I made my own reticle inside a 2 1/2 power Weaver over forty years ago. It used three sewing needles and worked great and looks nice on my ‘95 Mauser. A few reticles now imitate it. This reticle “guides” my eyes directly to the where the bullet is going, without obscuring the spot. Good!
Many new aiming systems show big promise to simplistic schlubs like me.
A HUNTING scope should be Simple, Rugged, Absolutely Unbreakable. Or it doesn’t deserve to be sold.
That’s what we need, regardless of cost, high or low.
What the heck good is ANY optic that fails?
How important is a “feature” on a broken rifle scope? How angry are you at the paperweight that is bolted to your favorite rifle that just rendered it useless?
Been there, too many times.
Depending on when and where you hunt, that $169 Vortex Crossfire II would be more than adequate for use on a $1200 deer rifle.
The salesman in that meme is only regretting that he couldn’t get more commission by upselling the customer.
That expression is remarkably similar to that of everyone who’s heard of the 17 originally proposed original Amendments, knows the 5th Article and the arguments about conscription surrounding that article and then hears people argue that the 2A doesn’t cover [insert mouthbreathing comments here].
The tears are for how fucking stupid and brainwashed most of this country is. Shit, you rarely hear 2A folks talk about this.
And since I know that people are too lazy to bother researching this themselves, here’s the original text, which was altered in a later draft specifically to avoid allowing easy draft dodging in a time where conscription was basically the only way to raise a military:
A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the People, being the best security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed, but no one religiously scrupulous of bearing arms, shall be compelled to render military service in person.
Daniel Boone nor Siimo Hayha-Finland, nick named “The White Death” with over 500 kills, used a fancy scope.
I’ve got a ~$400.00 MSRP (I paid $150.00 for it slightly used for about a month) (a Sig Sauer Sig Tango MSR LPVO 1-6x24mm SFP), optic on a $2,200.00 rifle.
The $150.00 optic, just for giggles to see how the ‘cheap’ myth stood up when challenged by someone: I’ve literally frozen it in a block of ice (a half gallon of water, dunked it in, stuck it in the freezer) for a week – heated it up in the oven for hours – left it out in the elements (sun, rain) for days – dropped it from height (20 feet) five times – threw it against a wall and down range a few times – left it submerged in the deep end of the pool (12 feet deep) for several days. Looks beat up, scratched and dinged, edge of tube has a chunk dented in, still works fine with no problems, still zeroed exactly where I put it, have over 6,000 rounds on it now.
One of my more expensive ‘battle proven’ (supposedly) optics ~$1,799.00 MSRP – EOTECH Vudu 1-10×28 FFP (I picked it up for $250.00 new in an auction still sealed in the box): Broke – would not adjust W/E after an accidental (not really that hard but more than a very light tap) smack on the edge of the table. (note: EOTech did replace it under warranty, replacement works fine)
(note: The Sig Tango-MSR 1-6x24mm is a version of the Sig TANGO6T 1-6x24mm that got the military contract for the Squad Designated Marksman Riflescope (SDMR) and the Squad Variable Powered Scope (S-VPS) and the Direct View Optic (DVO) programs.)
I’ve been known to put a $1200 scope on a $169 rifle.
I wasn’t aware you were never allowed to upgrade a scope as the budget allows
“Budget”?
There’s something about the whole “special store”, “special forms” thing and the fact that optics are just mail order home deliver that makes it feel okay to drop $2k on a rifle and $200 on a scope. One feels harder to get so you have get all you can while the other is always available 24/7 so just stack trash until you’re finally ready to go big.
I own one pistol and three magazines. I’m almost embarrassed to be here. 😎😎😂😂
If it fits your needs/wants you are good to go. Can always accumulate more as things change. On the more important end does your pistol work for you and do you get enough practice?
Nothing wrong with that Ginder12.
I spent the majority of my 20s owning nothing but a Beretta 92FS and two mags.
I had several range buddies who owned dozens of firearms I got to shoot regularly though.
Get in with the right range group and the collection/abilities/manual of arms knowledge will quickly grow.
Ginder12, yer doing just fine unless you have crazy dual weilding skills. Then yer one short.
Yes, buy a ~$450 Savage Axis XP with a $150 Weaver scope included instead. It’s going to shoot better than almost any shooter can get out of it.
Thank god! Here I thought I was just getting carried away. Again. Still.
Sorry but they make some damn good optics you don’t need to mortgage yer house to get🙄…a lot of gun store employees are low wage dimwits.
This meme was just starting to lose meaning a decade ago and look at the options now. What is more impressive is how the quality optics have stayed around the same price if not come down. Good for now but something thermal would probably be the next scope purchase…… unless the wife gets into rifles.
Safe, a thermal might be a damn fine idea if the spousal unit starts tooling up, can’t be too careful… 😉
Exactly. The old rule of thumb about paying twice as much for glass as the rifle has been dead for years.
Yep! Nothing wrong with vortex. Own several of them and prefer them.
It seems to me we are in a golden age not only of firearms, but also of optics and other accessories.
I suspect a $500 optic today would have run you $1500 or more for the same features and quality, a decade ago.
A 20k+ military thermal from the Fallujah era is outmatched by several options around 3-5k. The material/machining efficiency cost reduction is amazing but the digital processing is downright astounding. Shame there is only so much that can be done to lower the cost of gen 3 night vision.
I have (haz?) Leupold classic glass on my Brownings, assembled together a quarter century ago. Cost a bit back then, but worth every dime to this day.
20 years ago I put a $1000 Leupold scope on a $500 rifle. Never looked back.
They’re crying cause they couldn’t fleece the guy for another grand.
👍
400 dollar Ruger American .243 and a 200 dollar Redfield scope. For my needs it is all I need.
But what about muh wants n muh desires?? I’ve noticed lately that by the time my latest tacticool weapon light purchase lands in my mailbox they’ve already got an upgraded model available. Diminutive basturds.
You do you. I got off that merry go round a long time ago.
True dat, yo.
I already hit the point where I have all the lights, blades, tools, gats, gear, belts, holsters, et al I could ever need. Nowadays it’s about ammo and training.
Buy the Rifle. Use the 200 for ammo.
It comes sans sights.
Oh. Never thought about that.
350 dollar Savage Axis .308 and a hand-me-down Konus scope from my brother. Don’t know what he payed for it, but it’s clear and holds zero.
I wanted a .243. I saw the Ruger and bought it. My son was with me and he saw the Savage in .308 and bought it. They’re both good. At my age I prefer the softer shooting .243 and the deer around here are runts. I can use the .243 for them and yotes.
Can also do a number on steel at football field range with the right fmj. Shame it was a reloading equipment needed round up here for several years.
“Can also do a number on steel at football field range with the right fmj.”
You can ring steal out to ~1100 yards with .243 well enough to get a “hit” call in competition too.
Didn’t know it could reach that far reliably, neat. In this case I meant plates needing replacement but good to know re distance options.
I limit my shots to a max of 300 yards. I recognize that my age and eyes are just not up to further distance. At 300 yards this rifle and scope will do a good job all day long.
What’s great about the .243 is how ‘forgiving’ it is about bullet weights. I hunt in CA. We cannot use lead ammo. So I use 80-85 grain copper bullets. But for practice I use whatever cheap lead cored ammo is available. That pure copper stuff is pricey. My leaded ammo is 100+ grains, depending on what’s available.
With a .243 you don’t have to fiddle with the scope between different weights of bullet. They all hit where the crosshairs are.
SAFE:
At 95gr .243 craters the everliving shit out of 3/8ths mild steel plate at 600m. If I was behind the plate I’d be worried that they’d occasionally make it through. Damn near gets through 7/16ths of some of the tougher stuff at 100m, craters out an area about the size of a nickle and 90% of the way through the plate in the latter case, sort of a PITA to fill in and smooth out, actually.
@jwm:
I use 95gr exclusively. But then, I don’t hunt with it. Either Hornady Superformance or I roll my own as basically a copy of the Hornady round.
I picked this for flat-shooting consistency over long range without having to hoof the weight of .308 when I need to carry it for 40-60miles. Each .243 is 4.6g lighter than my preferred .308, 690g less when carrying the full 150 round loadout. 1.52lbs saved. That’s food and water I don’t have to carry to fuel the movement of bullets that, to me, are functionally equivalent to what I have.
It’s part of a bigger set of mass-culling options I picked over time. OG loadout was 19.8lbs heavier than what I tote now. Ammo account for 7.6% of the savings. The downside being that the original loadout was a lot cheaper.
I bought a $200 Konus red dot once. Was a pos.
Seeing gazillionare Jay Leno riding a $200K jet bike wearing a pos 10 year old HJC helmet gets my goat. But then again, I’m so cheap I’ll put paint on my sights instead of springing for modren optics.
Silver paint pen gang represent!
Can you hit what your aiming at consistently edition
That’s what puts the fun in fundamentals. Now to get the ammo together so I can get to trying to shoot closer to what the rifle is capable of.
Spend what you need to. Spending more is not going to make you a better shooter.
Jim w.,
And that is why I am still using iron sights.
And I would be as well, if I could still see the damn things.
+100
My range group usually does two ‘iron sight’ shooting days per year.
A rifle with a damaged/failed optic and without BUIS is a club.
I have not graduated to scopes, yet. Might do so once I feel like I’ve mastered the iron sights on my rifles. Getting better but work and family still getting in the way of range time. I need to re-think my priorities.
You miss-spelt yer own name. I usually catch myself doing Rider/Shootee…
Rider/Shootee,
That made me laugh….twice!!
👍
It’s a bit like my table saw, it’s good for fine woodwork only to the extent it produces accurate cuts. As such, I could put a $400.00 Unifence on decent Sears table saw and it would have been worth the investment. In part because the fence could be pulled and put on an upgrade.
Oh, and, when I was a kid, I took Sam Israel (at the time, the main land owner in Pioneer Square, Seattle) hunting. He appreciated my help and bought a scope for my old, $75.00 Swedish Mauser. The scope was worth several times what the rifle was worth.
SIDE NOTE: Even then, around 1967, his rifle cost about 1/4 as much as my dads first house.
I do have a $2500.00 thermal scope on a $700.00 rifle. Of course the rifle is 40 years old and the scope is 2 years old. And I have a couple cheap scopes on more expensive rifles. But, the scopes and the rifles do what I ask of them so there is no real problem. And yes I have a couple POS scopes laying in the random junk box on the shelf over the safe. Decent optics are available for reasonable cost. As are perfectly accurate rifles available for under a grand.
Fair, but the cheapest thermal worth buying as a handheld monocular is like $700. In comparison to that, you can get quite a bit of regular old visible light optic for that price.
Thermal isn’t cheap and quite a bit of the price is due to the lens being made from Germanium which is $1000-$1200/kg these days just for the raw material. Just some of the good quality 1″+ lenses are over $6000 by themselves.
For those of us nearsighted mouthbreathing Neanders who are partially deaf in both eyes:
Many optics just don’t work for us.
I can barely use a 4x scope, I use an 8x.
Cheaper VARIABLE scopes fall apart because they are mechanically complex internally, and the price point dictates cheap crappy mechanisms. I’ve done a few autopsies on them. Don’t bring one home!
Fine, and complex reticles sell to long distance shooters, but not to me. BEEFY pointers (like the German WWII sniper reticle and Russian PO sniping 3x) WORK for us visibly challenged. I made my own reticle inside a 2 1/2 power Weaver over forty years ago. It used three sewing needles and worked great and looks nice on my ‘95 Mauser. A few reticles now imitate it. This reticle “guides” my eyes directly to the where the bullet is going, without obscuring the spot. Good!
Many new aiming systems show big promise to simplistic schlubs like me.
A HUNTING scope should be Simple, Rugged, Absolutely Unbreakable. Or it doesn’t deserve to be sold.
That’s what we need, regardless of cost, high or low.
What the heck good is ANY optic that fails?
How important is a “feature” on a broken rifle scope? How angry are you at the paperweight that is bolted to your favorite rifle that just rendered it useless?
Been there, too many times.
Depending on when and where you hunt, that $169 Vortex Crossfire II would be more than adequate for use on a $1200 deer rifle.
The salesman in that meme is only regretting that he couldn’t get more commission by upselling the customer.
That expression is remarkably similar to that of everyone who’s heard of the 17 originally proposed original Amendments, knows the 5th Article and the arguments about conscription surrounding that article and then hears people argue that the 2A doesn’t cover [insert mouthbreathing comments here].
The tears are for how fucking stupid and brainwashed most of this country is. Shit, you rarely hear 2A folks talk about this.
And since I know that people are too lazy to bother researching this themselves, here’s the original text, which was altered in a later draft specifically to avoid allowing easy draft dodging in a time where conscription was basically the only way to raise a military:
A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the People, being the best security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed, but no one religiously scrupulous of bearing arms, shall be compelled to render military service in person.
Daniel Boone nor Siimo Hayha-Finland, nick named “The White Death” with over 500 kills, used a fancy scope.
I’ve got a ~$400.00 MSRP (I paid $150.00 for it slightly used for about a month) (a Sig Sauer Sig Tango MSR LPVO 1-6x24mm SFP), optic on a $2,200.00 rifle.
The $150.00 optic, just for giggles to see how the ‘cheap’ myth stood up when challenged by someone: I’ve literally frozen it in a block of ice (a half gallon of water, dunked it in, stuck it in the freezer) for a week – heated it up in the oven for hours – left it out in the elements (sun, rain) for days – dropped it from height (20 feet) five times – threw it against a wall and down range a few times – left it submerged in the deep end of the pool (12 feet deep) for several days. Looks beat up, scratched and dinged, edge of tube has a chunk dented in, still works fine with no problems, still zeroed exactly where I put it, have over 6,000 rounds on it now.
One of my more expensive ‘battle proven’ (supposedly) optics ~$1,799.00 MSRP – EOTECH Vudu 1-10×28 FFP (I picked it up for $250.00 new in an auction still sealed in the box): Broke – would not adjust W/E after an accidental (not really that hard but more than a very light tap) smack on the edge of the table. (note: EOTech did replace it under warranty, replacement works fine)
(note: The Sig Tango-MSR 1-6x24mm is a version of the Sig TANGO6T 1-6x24mm that got the military contract for the Squad Designated Marksman Riflescope (SDMR) and the Squad Variable Powered Scope (S-VPS) and the Direct View Optic (DVO) programs.)
I’ve been known to put a $1200 scope on a $169 rifle.
I wasn’t aware you were never allowed to upgrade a scope as the budget allows
“Budget”?
There’s something about the whole “special store”, “special forms” thing and the fact that optics are just mail order home deliver that makes it feel okay to drop $2k on a rifle and $200 on a scope. One feels harder to get so you have get all you can while the other is always available 24/7 so just stack trash until you’re finally ready to go big.
I own one pistol and three magazines. I’m almost embarrassed to be here. 😎😎😂😂
If it fits your needs/wants you are good to go. Can always accumulate more as things change. On the more important end does your pistol work for you and do you get enough practice?
Nothing wrong with that Ginder12.
I spent the majority of my 20s owning nothing but a Beretta 92FS and two mags.
I had several range buddies who owned dozens of firearms I got to shoot regularly though.
Get in with the right range group and the collection/abilities/manual of arms knowledge will quickly grow.
Ginder12, yer doing just fine unless you have crazy dual weilding skills. Then yer one short.
Yes, buy a ~$450 Savage Axis XP with a $150 Weaver scope included instead. It’s going to shoot better than almost any shooter can get out of it.
Comments are closed.