Short range (like 50 - 150 yards) for a Rifled Shotgun

dreadpirate · Sep 10, 2018

Will be shooting 20 gauge sabot rounds out of a cantilever barrel 870. Deer is the intended target. Recommend a scope.

akalma · Sep 10, 2018

Nikon ProStaff Shotgun Hunter 2-7x32 seems fits this need.

Jerry M · Sep 12, 2018

Leupold 1.5X5 on my slug gun.

John from MD · Sep 12, 2018

Bushnell 1.5-4.5x 32 Bright, waterproof and inexpensive. Mine has withstood 12ga and .44 magnum loads and is still working fine.

Mini14tac · Sep 12, 2018

Have a Leupold 2-7X33 VXII on my cantilevered 870. Have not had to touch it in years.

tallen702 · Sep 12, 2018

I run a Nikon Slughunter BDC 200 on my cantilevered Mossy 500. It's fantastic and reasonably priced.

Biggfoot44 · Sep 12, 2018

And from the old school ; fixed 4X will nicely do everything a slug gun can do .

dreadpirate · Sep 12, 2018

The Nikon slughunter has 5" eye relief. This Bushnell has 6" eye relief. Could be a good thing for a shotgun with a decent kick.

https://www.opticsplanet.com/bush-rs-bnr-711436.html

mike j · Sep 12, 2018

I like my nikon slughunter, clear view and good in low light conditions.

tallen702 · Sep 12, 2018

dreadpirate said:
The Nikon slughunter has 5" eye relief. This Bushnell has 6" eye relief. Could be a good thing for a shotgun with a decent kick.

https://www.opticsplanet.com/bush-rs-bnr-711436.html

Depends quite a bit on LOP. On my mossy, 6" of eye relief would be almost too much.

dreadpirate · Sep 12, 2018

tallen702 said:
Depends quite a bit on LOP. On my mossy, 6" of eye relief would be almost too much.

I guess if you have at least 4" of eye relief, that will work.

Goldslammer · Sep 12, 2018

For the price, you can't beat the Nikon. Got mine on sale for $129.
It's working out great on my H&R 20ga

AlBeight · Sep 13, 2018

dreadpirate said:
Will be shooting 20 gauge sabot rounds out of a cantilever barrel 870. Deer is the intended target. Recommend a scope.

Nikon Slughunter 3-9. The Nikon 2-7 referenced has lousy eye relief. Like eye socket cracking bad eye relief. The 3-9 Slughunter BDC is $50 more, and well worth it. Never got scope bit on any firearm, ever. Shotguns, to muzzleloaders, to 338 Win Mag. That damn Nikon 2-7 (on H&R Ultra Slug Hunter 12ga) has busted me open twice at the range and once in the field, and smacked my eye pro at the range several others but I escaped the damage somehow. Back to the 870 for me, after I put on the 3-9 Slughunter. Gonna smash the crap out of the 2-7, sadly, it’s nice glass and the reticle is good. Just bad engineering with crap for eye relief. BTW, no matter what Nikon’s specs say for eye relief, it’s wrong. It sux

Biggfoot44 · Sep 14, 2018

I haven't said my usual for at least several months :

At shotgun slug distances ( and rifle hunting in even fairly open woods ) , generous eye relief, and a wide field of view are far more important than magnification per se . Ease of rapid target aquisition , and margin of error of hastily shouldered boomstick .

You don't need to count every hair on Bambi's shoulder , just be able place crosshairs just behind front leg , 1/3 way up chest ( or your prefered aiming point, not starting that debate in this thread ).

I actually hedged my answer in my above post . In actuality a 2.5- 2.75X would be my ideal for that role .

Yeah, yeah , variables could be turned down ( but my experience optical clarity suffers for 0.5- 1.0 of X at either extreme of magnification range . If I'm going to nearly always have a variable at one (functional) extreme , I'd rather have a fixed power that is ( some combination of ) lighter, more compact, stronger , more rugged) .

tallen702 · Sep 14, 2018

Biggfoot44 said:
I haven't said my usual for at least several months :

At shotgun slug distances ( and rifle hunting in even fairly open woods ) , generous eye relief, and a wide field of view are far more important than magnification per se . Ease of rapid target aquisition , and margin of error of hastily shouldered boomstick .

You don't need to count every hair on Bambi's shoulder , just be able place crosshairs just behind front leg , 1/3 way up chest ( or your prefered aiming point, not starting that debate in this thread ).

I actually hedged my answer in my above post . In actuality a 2.5- 2.75X would be my ideal for that role .

Yeah, yeah , variables could be turned down ( but my experience optical clarity suffers for 0.5- 1.0 of X at either extreme of magnification range . If I'm going to nearly always have a variable at one (functional) extreme , I'd rather have a fixed power that is ( some combination of ) lighter, more compact, stronger , more rugged) .

My Nikon Slughunter 9x30 will likely never see anything past base magnification as I hunt smoothbore with it, but the optical clarity, light pick-up, and slug-hunting purpose-built design made it the superior choice for me. I'm actually really tempted to swap it on over to my front-stuffer this year given it's magnification qualities as my Traditions Durango definitely has much more ability to reach out and take a deer down at much longer ranges.

dreadpirate · Sep 17, 2018

AlBeight said:
Nikon Slughunter 3-9. The Nikon 2-7 referenced has lousy eye relief. Like eye socket cracking bad eye relief. The 3-9 Slughunter BDC is $50 more, and well worth it. Never got scope bit on any firearm, ever. Shotguns, to muzzleloaders, to 338 Win Mag. That damn Nikon 2-7 (on H&R Ultra Slug Hunter 12ga) has busted me open twice at the range and once in the field, and smacked my eye pro at the range several others but I escaped the damage somehow. Back to the 870 for me, after I put on the 3-9 Slughunter. Gonna smash the crap out of the 2-7, sadly, it’s nice glass and the reticle is good. Just bad engineering with crap for eye relief. BTW, no matter what Nikon’s specs say for eye relief, it’s wrong. It sux

LOL - well it can't be any worse than the eye relief on the scope that comes with the Remington cantilever barrel. That thing is minimal at best. Not very bright glass. No margin on the eye relief; you have to be right on or the scope edges go black.

[EDIT] So that's why I am looking for a better alternative. And in case you are wondering WHY I got the scoped version of the barrel; I found it on Ebay for a good price.

dreadpirate · Sep 17, 2018

Hmm - looks like the longer eye relief scopes have a more narrow field of view, is that right?

OLSKOL59 · Sep 17, 2018

Got the barrel/scope combo for my 870 too. 1 shot and scope went on my beater 22. Put a 4x Bushnell sportveiw and been good for 18?+ yrs

Magnumite · Sep 18, 2018

+1 on the fixed power shotgun scopes.

Biggfoot44 · Sep 18, 2018

Yes , laws of physics . But the positive trade off , is the longer eye relief scopes are more flexible at providing a "good enough to be usable " view if your eye is somewhat closer or farther away than theoretically ideal distance from scope .

Short range (like 50 - 150 yards) for a Rifled Shotgun

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