Target Shooting
You may purchase a riflescope for sport hunting. However, if you have never tried target shooting, you should, as it can be exciting. There are all types of target shooting – normal “target” shooting, trap shooting, clay shooting, skeet shooting, etc. There are about 7,000 shooting ranges in the U.S.A. alone and the majority of them are outdoor ranges but most are away from large cities and are in rural areas. I am sure there are thousands of shooting ranges spread throughout the rest of the world also. However, as the number of target shooters is large it indicates that people will travel to take advantage of this exciting activity. There are over 30 million people in the US who target shoot each year. It is a growing activity. This activity can be for individuals or a family activity. The percentage of women target shooters has been increasing rapidly.
Many young people get involved with target shooting at an early age and above all else learn how to safely use firearms. Besides recreational target shooting, competitive shooting of all types encompasses many shooters. It starts in high schools and colleges around the country but mainly in rural areas. Competitive shooting takes place year round all over the world. Many countries have national competitions as well as worldwide competitions. Best spotting scopes are useful for target shooting in scoring accuracy in competitions as well as just knowing how well you are doing in recreational use. Some very general criteria for choosing spotting scopes for target shooting at various distances are below. Power is a very important factor at the range and high powers must be sharp to be effective. Note there are so many different apertures and powers
available:
100 yards (meters) – a 50mm aperture (with 15-45x or 18-36x, etc.) is good enough at this distance although a 60mm aperture (15-45x or 20-60x) would provide more details.
200 yards (meters) – a 50mm may begin to struggle at this distance where a 60mm may be better.
300 yards (meters) – a 50 or 60mm may struggle at this distance where a 65 to 70mm may be better. A normal quality 80mm (20-60x) will provide better details.
400 yards (meters) – I’d suggest a higher end 80mm model with better optics once you get to this distance as a 60mm and normal 80mm models may struggle.
500 yards + (meters) – this distance is best observed with higher end 80 to 85mm spotting scopes or even 100mm or larger sizes.