by Boatman » 24 Dec 2013, 10:10 am
There's basically two elements to a scope. What's best for the purposes of magnifying an image, and what's convenient/practical for use.
How they balance these two depends on the scopes purpose.
The 4.5-30 is a little outside of the norm because that's a pretty far range, 4.5x for stalking/close range and 30x for long range. Pretty sure that's like a $1,200 scope though, right?
As for the second one, that's definitely a bench scope.
46cm is a seriously long scope, too long for lugging around in the scrub, that particular one has a high magnification range as well which would make it no good for closer range hunting and would have a real small field of view.
When you're shooting bench though, and going for long range and ultra accuracy, the length or weight doesn't matter. It's not going to get in your way at all. They can more easily make the scope for optimal performance without having to do anything clever to get it into a compact size.
The same, if not better magnification performance are available for less $$$ because it's easier to make when weight/size isn't an issue. e.g. That second scope is about $700 according to a quick Google.
