Roskoe

For western big game hunting, I have settle on the 10X42's as being the best compromise of size, weight,and optics. And the best bang for the buck, IMO, is the Nikon Monarch ATB.

GMMAT

First Dan....ya gotta know what sac riding is to define it (your post is a good definition). Second....no...I'm not trying to get a rise out of him. Whena person asks a question in an information seeking thread.....and someone mentions that 8.5x50's are 100X better at low light gathering capabilities than 8x42's....I think a little clarification is in order. I'm also guessing the quality of your glass is a BIG factor in ANY of these optics threads.

In bowhunting situations....I'm not even sure larger is better (in either the magnification of the FOV numbers). Someone mentioned Matt/PA being a pretty good resource on this. I'll defer to him for clarification of what I'm attempting to say.....but "bigger" isn't necessarily better for bowhunting.

Or I may just be too old to understand all the hyperbole you kids rap at each other with these days. Highly plausible.

StrikeTrue

Simple threads get complicated really fast...

StrikeTrue

Double post.

vichris

I'm new here.....but I was an opticalman in the navy and made a living for several years servicing optics including thousands of pair of binoculars. I know optics. The article Spearchucker posted by Mark Mazour is excellent.

I'll tell you what I use. I have an 8 X 42 roof prism bino. I live out west in NM and find few situations where the 10 X would be an advantage. 10X gives a smaller exit pupil, a smaller FOV, and is harder to hold steady enough to really make that extra power worth having IMHO. Now I know alot of ya'll have 10 X binos but my recommendation would be to go for the 8 power with the 42 or 46 mm objective. The FOV, and twilight factor, on an 8X far outweights the power on a 10X.

TEmbry

Sorry for rapping about binocs?

The bolded statement made me laugh, they are INVERSELY related, one gets smaller the other gets bigger. So if you think less magnification is better, you in turn are saying more FOV is better. More magnification means less FOV. In other words, you HAVE to think bigger is better in one of the categories if you think less is more in the other.


Of course quality of glass is a big factor, that is kind of a given. I'd hope people would look for quality in every purchase they make. I do feel that once you reach a certain point (Nikon/Vortex), that IMO the price of the highest end models dont justify they improvement in quality.

Sure the $1800 Swaros have better glass than my set of $300 vortexs, but enough to spend $1500 more on? Not, imo. I'd say get the best glass you can reasonably afford, in a 8x or 10x, 40-50mm...you likely wont be dissapointed with any binocs in this range that are of good quality.



I retract all statements I have made to avoid any further confusion in NC. 42mm glass is far superior to 50mm for picking up light, especially in low light situations.My opinion that the science of bigger glass lets in more light, was completely wrong. I had it backwards it now seems.Not quite 100x better (have to speak literally on everything when avoiding confusion), but definitely superior none the less.

NCRemington700

I personally like my Nikon 8x42s just for the simple fact that I don't hunt wide open country and I can see pretty much everything I want with them. 10x binos are just too hard to hold still for my liking.

nksmfamjp

Well, since we are in a bowhunting area, let me suggest considering lower magnification. IMO, binos are for use spotting game from shooting range to maybe twice your shooting range. With a bow, shooting range is roughly 40 yards max. Double, is roughly 100 yards max. A good 6x or 7x bino can be quite bright with 30 - 40mm objective lenses. Also, with my xbow, treestand, harness, calls, pruning shears and other crap, the last thing I want during archery season are big binos. My solution is 7 x 42 Bushnell Discoverers. They are great for peering through the brush for antler glints and do ok in open country rifle hunting. They are a bit lacking Antelope hunting, but I would say that I need a better spotter more than I need more bino power.

For pure archery, I would like some 6x30's. . .

WV Hunter

LOL...you guys crack me up.

I too agree, lower power is better for bowhunting - unless you are hunting in the west or really open areas. I use 8x.

BTW...if you don't believe the 50mm lenses are far superior to 42mm....(all other things being the same) look through a rifle scope at dawn or dusk. Incredible the difference in what you can see with the 50mm. That said, QUALITY has alot to do with it also. A cheap 50mm is likely to be worse than a good 42mm.