🕌 🚥 🕌 Rifle scope for hunting: review, description, specifications 🦉 🐻 🙅🏼

Driven hunting for ungulates - a gamble, and most importantly, a collective action. The hunters work as a well-coordinated team: some drive the beast, others wait patiently in the places allotted to them. Nobody is attempting on someone else’s prey, and the meat is fairly divided among all participants. By tradition, driven hunting for moose or wild boar often ends with a friendly feast by the fire, where fresh meat is prepared.

But one of the main features of a true hunter is ambition. No matter how outwardly modest he is, he always wants to make a successful shot and lay down his prey. Although the meat is divided evenly on the driven moose hunt, the elk’s head, along with its fangs and horns, is given to the hunter who killed the beast as a deserved trophy. In addition, he owns the right to redeem the elk skin, which by law is the property of the hunting estate.

Therefore, even experienced hunters strive to increase their chances of a successful shot, equipping weapons with optical sights for driven hunting. There are many sights. They differ in cost, country and company of the manufacturer, size, principle of operation. In order to find the best paddock scope, you need to figure out what the pen hunt is and what requirements it has for sights.

Driven hunting

This is one of the oldest species of hunting for ungulates. It is organized and led by, as a rule, experienced gamekeepers who know the terrain and game living on it. The leader is responsible for the safety of all participants, and the results largely depend on his skills. Hunting is carried out only in the daytime, each beater must be clearly visible from afar, for this equipment is usually supplemented with bright vests.

Hunters are divided into two groups: beaters and shooters. Ideally, sophisticated gamekeepers play the role of beaters, but they are not always enough. Beaters are also divided into two groups. The first drives the animal directly to the shooters, the second is located on the flanks of the first group to prevent the moose or the wild boar from going beyond the salary.

Arrows form a shooting line and wait for prey in strictly designated places (numbers), knowing ahead of time their sector of fire. The distance between hunters is usually 80-100 meters and depends on the type of weapon and its range. Hunters are prohibited from shooting without a signal from the head of the hunt. Also, they categorically must not leave their room, shoot in the direction of neighbors, or hit an animal that is in a foreign sector.

Requirements for sights and their varieties

Undoubtedly, the results of a hunter most of all depend on his experience, skill and luck, but a high-quality and well-chosen optical sight for driven hunting can be an excellent help, and sometimes a decisive factor for a well-aimed shot. The right choice of sight is determined by the conditions in which the hunt takes place: shooting is carried out during the day at a distance of 50-100 meters, the beast moves quickly, in addition, the shooting line has to be reached on foot, so the dimensions and weight of the weapon are important.

Since daytime shooting, there is no need for thermal imaging sights for hunting. They are useful at night, but ungulates are forbidden even at light twilight. Intimidated beast, wanting to save life, runs very fast, the hunter has little time to really aim. Therefore, optical sights with a large multiplicity are hardly suitable for driven hunting. They perfectly help when shooting at long distances and at a sedentary target, but it’s very difficult to catch a rushing elk or a wild boar in such a sight.

Varieties

Given the conditions that the driven hunt puts forward, it is most reasonable to use the following varieties of sights on it:

open or closed collimator;
collimator with a magnifying nozzle or lenses;
optical with single multiplicity;
optical with variable multiplicity (up to x4).

Collimator sights without magnification

Collimator sights first appeared in aviation about half a century ago, are used by hunters relatively recently, but they are already quite competing with optical sights and thermal imaging sights for hunting. Collimator sights are:

active (with battery) and passive (without power);
closed type, structurally made as their optical counterparts, and open type with one lens;
holographic or laser mark of a sight.

But all varieties have one principle of action: the luminous flux (parallel rays) directed at the target is projected onto the lens. It is enough for the hunter to combine the mark with the target and shoot. Moreover, collimator sights-pens allow you to aim with both eyes, while seeing the beast in the reticle and the surrounding landscape. Even after the recoil from the shot, the collimator’s aiming line does not go astray, the hunter fully controls the situation, this is especially important when shooting at fast-moving targets.

Collimator sights with increase

To increase the scope, sometimes collimators are equipped with either their own magnifying lens or an additional removable magnifying nozzle. Such a tandem can significantly expand the functionality of the sight: to increase the accuracy of long-range shots, while maintaining the advantages of a collimator.

However, it should be borne in mind that in driven hunting, the speed of aiming and firing comes first. Therefore, the mounting of the optical sight should allow you to quickly remove it in order to use the collimator sight, which is more preferable when shooting at short distances.

Advantages and disadvantages of collimator sights

Advantages:

Aiming with two eyes.
Compact and lightweight, especially with open sights.
Simplicity and usability. The collimator is an excellent assistant for beginners, because it greatly simplifies aiming and compensates for the lack of skill, and also allows you to accurately shoot offhand and from uncomfortable positions.
Excellent combination of aiming speed and accuracy.
Durability. Provided that this is not a dubious Asian fake. Experienced hunters and specialists are advised to purchase high-quality, proven devices from well-known manufacturers. These include branded sights "Cobra", Hakko, Aimpoint, Leapers, Sightmark, Leapers.

Disadvantages:

Inaccuracy appears when firing at long distances because the collimator directs parallel light rays at the target and does not take into account the downward ballistic trajectory of the charge. However, this drawback is hardly noticeable in driven hunting, where animals are shot at from 50-100 meters.
Volatility. Active collimators are powered by batteries, which, according to the law of meanness, have the property of "sitting down" at the most inappropriate moment. But an attentive hunter will not allow this, he will turn off the power when the sight is inactive, and will take with him a spare set of batteries.
Lens contamination. Snow, drops of water, dust, various rubbish, getting on the lens, interfere with the hunter. However, they are easy to remove, in addition often the manufacturer provides for special lens caps and visors to protect the lenses.

Single-fold optical hunting sights

In essence, such sights work like collimators, helping the hunter quickly and accurately aim for game. Single multiplicity allows you to perceive a picture with both eyes the same. An eye looking into the eyepiece sees the reticle imposed on the target, and the other eye sees everything around. Both images are easily combined without distortion into one. The hunter perfectly controls the situation, not losing sight of the animal, as is often the case when using sights with magnification.

In addition, sights with a single magnification are cheaper and less overall than sights with varying multiplicity. Lightness and compactness become important characteristics in a driven hunt, where shooters sometimes have to travel long distances to their numbers.

Variety of optical sights

Fans of more functional optics sometimes prefer to equip weapons with sights that can change the multiplicity. So they can, if necessary, increase accuracy when firing at targets located further than a hundred meters. However, for driven hunting there is no need for devices with an increase of more than x4. A large increase significantly narrows the viewer's sight, it becomes very difficult for him to catch moving game in sight.

To illustrate: a single-zoom scope when shooting at 100 meters provides a 42-meter wide view, and a six-fold increase narrows the view to only 7 meters. It is very difficult to catch and hold a fast-moving boar and even a huge moose in the sight, which means that the probability of hitting is significantly reduced.

Advantages and disadvantages of optics