Prefered Scope finish?

[Jim White]

To all;

Which finish do you folks prefer? I like matt myself but I'm seeing some good deals with silver & gloss finishes out there for Leupold scopes and I was wondering for coyote hunting how does that works out? Of course, its going on a laminate stainless steel rifle too.

Thanks!

[Sagebrush Burns]

AThe finish of the scope should match the finish of the rifle.

[dannybracy]

Jim, I think it is which finish you actually like. I, like you, prefer a matte finish. But I don't own any blued rifles, if I did, I would probably buy a gloss finish scope to "match" it. But, I guess I didn't take my own advice on that one b/c on my LRPV that has a stainless action and barrel, I do not have a silver scope on it, I have a matte finish Leupy on it. That is b/c, like you, I found a deal on a matte Leupy that I COULD NOT pass up. I love it and think it still looks good b/c the LRPV has a black HS Precision stock on it. So the gun goes from black to stainless, back to black.....

For 'yote hunting I currently run my AR and I lighly wrap tan and green strips of burlap around it to help camo my gun. It is super easy and just tie it off w/ some bailing string. Some strips I leave a 3-4" section free so that it can blow in the wind a bit like the grass around me. Simple and cheap. Also put some around the barrel and stock, but keep that separate from the strips that you put around your scope. You don't want any tension "squeezing" the scope toward the barrel.....

So, this is just my opinion.... if you are going to run the gun for a coyote gun, so you would probably run a 3-10 or a 4-14 power scope, I think that the Silver Leupy would look excellent on it. Camo it somehow for hunting situations and take it off when you don't need it. B/c the stainless might cause some seen glare anyhow, so I would camouflage it somehow.

Then when you are done hunting with it for awhile, you can take the strips of burlap off and you could really show off that sweet looking stainless rifle in the laminate stock. ---------------->By the way.....take some pics and show off that sweet lil stainless you got!!!

I know I wasn't much help, but I think there are some ideas to think about. Good luck. -Dan

[Jim White]

Danny,

Thanks for the reply. I have two 204’s a Remington 700 VLTHSS and a CZ-527 American. Both were bought with the thought of shooting ground squirrels (lots of shooting). I’m treating my 204’s like target rifles, therefore they all get the pillar bedding, free floating, and trigger tuning treatment. I try to squeeze every bit of accuracy out of it, and even with factory barrels, I can usually do a darn good job.

Remington 700 VLTHSS; I was going to get a Savage (I really enjoy the two 17-HMR’s I have and I’ll vouch for Savage every time)) but I found this Model 700. It was a used firearm but it looked brand new and it was $250.00 less than NIB Savage or Remington models with thumbhole stocks. So long story short she’s getting the accuracy treatment right now and I should get her back late next month. I figured this would definitely be ideal for squirrel blasting as it takes a while for the barrel to heat up.

CZ527 American: Meantime I have this sweetheart of a rifle that I came oh-so close to unloading. Someone had won this gal but he preferred another caliber. I thought it was a varmint model (what I preferred) so I threw down five-Ben Franklins and walked away with a NIB CZ, laser bore sitter and 3 boxes of ammo. Did some load testing and found a load that group consistently all daylong .300MOA, or less. I just finished mounting a Zeiss 4.5-14x50 I picked up in trade from SWFA and I’m going to dial her in tomorrow leaving the barrel fouled and put here away. As a CZ American, she has the lightweight barrel. Good for Coyote (I imagine), not so good for squirrel’s because it heats up so quick.

Regarding scopes, I like the silver/silver look and for blasting sage rates, prairie dogs, it probably doesn’t matter. But coyotes are crafty little guys and without concealment I was wondering if the silver/silver would be an issue. I’ve taken a real liken’ to the Leupold with the Varmint Reticle for the 700. My other questions are;

For coyote hunting, is 6.5-20 to much power (that’s what I was looking at)? I’m presuming this is done in open territory for the most part. If it is also done in the woods, along tree lines (and so on), I’d be concerned of with the Varmint reticle washing out because they look awfully thin.

Regarding finishes, a gloss finish VX-3 would look nice on top of that CZ but it would be hard to replace that matt finish Zeiss.

Jim

[Bergcrane2]

I tend to agree with you guys. For hunting, matte is the way to go, but for toys silver is fine. I have a Savage 17HMR in stainless and a gray laminated stock. The silver scope with nickel rings looks sweet.

[Rick in Oregon]

Jim White: Like you, I do alot of squirrel shooting. I have two types of squirrel rifles; bench rifles and walkabout rifles. Any of my walkabout rifles can and sometimes double as coyote rifles, but most of the time I use a dedicated Model Seven in .243W as my coyote gun.

That said, I'm partial to matte finished scopes for all my rifles. I still have some gloss models in the safe mounted on rifles with a like finish, but for almost all use and especially on game rifles, I much prefer matte, even on all stainless steel rifles.

Below is my pet Model 70 in .270 Win that I've hunted with since 1970. I just can't imagine either a gloss scope on her, and no way a silver finish scope (which of course looks okay on stainless rifles and "toys" as Bergcrane mentioned) on a hunting rifle....but it's purely subjective, and you aksed.



This rifle has harvested in excess of 200 deer for me (some at very long range), still has her original hammer forged barrel, but had a complete McMillian workover, then sent to Robar for her matte finish. She wears a Leupold 2.5-8X Matte scope with Mil-Dot reticle, and shoots Sierra 130's into 5/8" clusters over the old H4831 (I still have one can marked "WWII Surplus Powder"), which was the powder for the 20mm aircraft cannon. I can't imagine anything but a matte finish scope on this rifle.

Lest I get hammered for "200 deer", I'll qualify that by saying that when I lived on the big island in B.C. in logging camps, we could take ten deer per year....

[bullfrog]

10 deer bag limit. Can you even imagine that down here these days. Would be sweet for a season, but it would be the last season...ever.
Thanks for posting the pic of the model 70 Rick. That is one sweet looking .270.

I had a buddy bring a ruger 243 stainless w/ a silver scop on it coyote hunting this year. Looked nice. However, we called one in and sure enough he caught the movement of my buddies rig as he drew aim (I was letting him have first shot). Needless to say, that dog got away despite several hail mary shots from me.

[Rick in Oregon]

bullfrog: We used to joke about our island deer being about the size of a German Shepard, hence the "need' for a herd of them to make a nice dinner. They were smallish Blacktails like our Western Oregon deer, just a bit smaller. Hunting them in clearcuts was about the only way, as the bush is so thick up there, you'd never see them in the "jungle". The clearcuts offered some great LR shooting opportunities though, so I got to stretch the legs on my M70 often.

Silver Scopes: Never had one, probably never will. Just not my thing, and I've seen the scene you described before too here with coyotes, and two times with mule deer. Not for me.

[Jim White]

Well, here's how it turned out.

When I started this I was thinking about one of those Leupold VX-3 on SWFA they have discounted right now. The one I wanted was a 6.50-20x40, 30mm w/side focus, w/ Varmint Hunters reticle. The downside is it was silver. I don't have a problem with silver but I would want everything to be silver, including the scope rings. Regarding scope rings, I've really taken a liking to the Burris Signature series with the plastic inserts for two reasons;

- No scope ring lapping required, and;
- No scope ring marks.

Unfortunately, they don't make that style in silver for a 30mm scope. Well, fiddlesticks ... back to the shopping list.

At the same time, I've been fighting elevation controls on my 308 target rifle due to Nikon scopes just not having enough of internal adjustment. As it turns out, I found a Leupold VX-3 8.5-25x50 w/fine duplex reticle on the SWFA website. It was about $100.00 more than the one listed above so I checked on it and I saw that it has 94 minutes of internal elevation, which is what my 308 needed.

So for now, the Nikon Monarch 6.5-20x44 (dot reticle) will end up on my Remington 700 in Ruger 204.

Thanks to all for the help and who knows, I may have to send it back in for a reticle change. I'm figuring though 8.5-25 power may be a tad to much scope for a 204 but we'll see how it works out.

Thanks again!

Jim White