Low Light

[Ralph]

I have an exocet 200 I bought this month. I was in the edge of a woods. I heard footsteps but could not see anything. After looking through my binoculars I could see a deer about 20 yards ahead. I could see well outside the woods. My question is. If I had a varizone scope could I have seen the the deer in the low light of the woods?

[GaryL]

You leave a little out like the power and brand of binoculars you were using, The Varizone is really good on light gathering and at 20 yards I would say yes.

[Ralph]

I was using nikon 8x action binoculars. I could not see the profile with the naked eye. I think you answered my question that you can see better with the scope than the naked eye.

[ed martin]

ralph, i had a drop zone and the cross hairs were hard to see in low light becauls they are black. this year i went reddot, you can keep both eyes open and dim the brightness of the dot for low light. for 49$ at walmart i think their the cats ass

[GaryL]

Ayep cross hairs you can see but the the other range markers are hard to see in low light, I like some of the red dots but most unlike a scope do not collect light....

You might check with wabi, as he use's a red dot at times but I do not remember what brand. Their are some real good ones out there....

[wabi]

I'd say the scope gives the best view of the target, but the crosshairs can be very hard to see. The red-dot has a very visable aiming point, but not great at light gathering. Red-dots were designed to be used with both eyes open. The eye looking through the sight will see the aiming point, and the other eye should pick up the target. Sounds complicated, but it's like the eye doctor explained bifocal contact lenses to me. The eyes are seeing two images, and the brain has to sort out the correct one.
Now the ethics sermon.......
In my opinion, if it's that dark you shouldn't be shooting! An unnoticed limb or brush can easily deflect an arrow, and a poor hit could easily be the result. And that's not from reading stories, that's a lesson learned the hard way! I'm getting to the point I won't shoot at one after sunset on an evening hunt even though there's a good half hour of legal time left. A poor hit, trying to track at night, and finding ruined deer the next day just isn't the thing that makes a good hunt. I want to be 100% sure I can hit the spot I'm aiming at, and there's nothing to interfere with the shot! I may not kill as many deer as I used to, but I don't spend as much time searching the woods with a flashlight knowing my chances of recovering an edible deer are slipping away quickly.

[Woody Williams]

I use both a Maxzone scope (Excalibur Exomag) and a Red Dot (TenPoint QX4) and theer sia big difference in how late I cna hunt.

I lose 10 minutes of hunting with the Red Dot.

The dots really shine and I can get on a target well, but there is absolutely no light gathering..

To me the perfect crossbow scope would be the VariZone with red dots for yardage points.

[PRB]

I wonder if any of these would work good ?
http://www.eabco.com/Muellerreddot.htm

[PRB]

Oh yeah. Wishful thinking I guess.
How about this one ?
Just one dot I believe ?
http://froogle.gunbroker.com/Auction/Vi ... 08677#DESC

[wabi]

PRB,
That's the one I have! (the Hammers 2x42)
Very good with almost no parallax, but not as bright of view as the 0- magnification red-dots.
Right now it's mounted on my muzzleloader, and seems to fit it better than the crossbow For target shooting with the crossbow it was working out great, but for hunting I just wasn't 100% happy with it. Never had any specific problem, just didn't like it for the up-close crossbow shots because of it's limited field of view.