Quality spotting scope for 300 yards

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Dunkelheit

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I am not looking for the best of the best, but it should fulfill the task it was purchased for. My limit would be $700. Any experience or recommendations ?
 
It's not going to happen - even with a quality (Kowa, Zeiss, Swarovski) scope the lighting and most especially the behind target backdrop needs to be just so to have a chance, and then only with 30 cal on a perfect day. At 200 yds when the stars align and I'm shooting 30 cal, my 82SV Kowa gives me a fighting chance but the collusion of circumstances is rare and doesn't last long. It's why high power matches are run in relays so that there are target pullers that mark the shots - otherwise it'd be a lot easier (and faster) to just tell folks to buy better scopes before they come out to play.

Choices that can work are quality shoot'n'sees with a decent scope or a digital camera set-up on the target with monitor/receiver at the line.

/Bryan
 
A 14-16" Meade would probably do the trick, but you probably don't want to know what they weigh and cost.
 
A Swarovsk with the adj. 20-60X eyepiece will do this pretty easily, but only when set at 40X or above, especially for .223 holes. At this high magnification, the less expensive scopes will either wash out or get too dark to see clearly in every case. You'll also need a real stable tripod to stabilize it for clear viewing.

You can get by with 20X or so with budget scopes, but your target spotters need to fill those holes with orange golf tees or similar, in order to pick them out.
 
My spotting scope cost roughly double your budget. Add another $250 or so for the Manfrotto tripod to hold it stable enough to use at high magnification. I use targets with minimal amounts of black on them sometimes adding Shoot'n'see pasters as well and I still cannot reliably pick out .223 holes at that range. .308 holes are a bit more forgiving. I do pretty much everything possible to stack the odds in my favor and it still doesn't work much more than half the time at that distance. It isn't a problem of magnification or resolution, my scope has plenty of both. Most of the time it's a problem of mirage. It adds enough distortion that at the magnification required to pick out the holes, the whole target is just a blob. Doesn't matter how good the glass is, it can't remove mirage.
 
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