Ideal scope for me and rifle for youngsters

[swara kijana]

Some advice please .

My sight is not the best( wear glasses , age 57 ) and I am looking for recommendations on a good scope for my 7 x 64 . I hunt in South Africa . I know that this is a very broad question and no doubt part of the advice will be " the best you can afford " . I have looked at a friend's nightforce and although I was happy , I was'nt totally impressed or rather should I say comfortable !!

Then there is another question . I have a 11 year old son and an 8 year old . The former is a good shot and handles the 7 x 64 comfortably . The younger one is just starting and uses his left eye .

I feel that anown rifle would be better and the question is ; what to buy ? I was thinking either a 243 or a 270 and both with a silencer .

All advice appreciated in advance . Thanks .

 

[Velo Dog]

Hallo Swara Kijana,

Most people these days prefer variable power scopes but I prefer (for hunting anything larger than rodents), a simple 4x, with standard crosshairs or crosshairs with small dot.
With the excellent 7x64 Brenneke, if I was sure I'd only use it in open places like the Eastern Cape, the Kalahari, the Namib Desert and similar places, I might consider a 6x scope.
But, if this rifle is for general hunting in other places, I feel a 6x would frustrate me on things like bushbuck, nyala, warthog and many others found in thick bush, riverine forest and such.
I see that you live in the Eastern Cape and I am truly jealous, because I understand it to be a Rifleman's Paradise.

Anyway, for these fixed power scopes, Leupold is pretty good and affordable but if you can find a Zeiss or Swarovski or Schmidt & bender, Khales, etc., they are worth the extra money in clarity and ruggedness.
The Austro-German ones mentioned are unfortunately difficult to find lately, I don't know if they are even being made at the moment (variable power scopes are very much in style now).
I believe Leupold still makes their very good 4x scope today.

The good news is, a used but excellent condition 4x scope can sometimes be bought for a reasonable price, because they often sit on the gun shop shelf, gathering dust for a couple years and the owner might accept a low offer on the price to finally get rid of it.
I have had this good fortune more than once or twice.
Here in the US where I live, most hunters tend to want too much velocity in their rifle and too much magnification in their scopes and people evidently trade in their Grandfather's old 4x scope toward a huge new variable type.

Don't let a 4x scope fool you.
German, Canadian British and American Snipers in WW-II generally used no more than 4x scopes, in many cases only 2 & 3/4 power ones, to consistently shoot people through the helmet, at several hundred meters/yards.
If I could not hit a springbok through the vitals at 400 meters with a 4x scope on a relatively flat shooting rifle such as your 7x64, I could only blame myself for not practicing enough with it.
If I used a large scope in thick forest and a bushbok jumped out of my field of view and back into thick bush at 10 yards, until disappearing, I could only blame myself for buying too much scope.

As for the caliber to get for your 8 year old:
The only experience I have with silencers was on a 9mm MP5 submachine gun so, I cannot comment with any validity regarding putting one on a hunting rifle (I know it is popular in many places, and for good reason no doubt).

Anyway, I would avoid the .270 since it is so very similar to your 7x64 and would complicate your ammunition supply needlessly.
If I wanted to stay within that ballistic category, but with a silencer installed, I might just get another 7x64 and put one on it.

The .243 might be a fun rifle for everyone in the family, including the 8 year old, on certain species.
But, it is a very specialized caliber / not versatile in African terms IMO.
If you do not hand load, I would consider the 6.5x55 caliber for your 8 year old.
Very low recoil but also, it is versatile enough to use on quite a few African species.
I am only a beginner to Africa but have hunted and messed around with rifles constantly since age 16.
The .243 I feel is a bit dodgy on larger animals like kudu and tougher animals like warthog to name but two of the many.
The 6.5x55 might be marginal for these but, a 160 grain bullet vs a 100 grain bullet says it all, (again IMO).

If you hand load, you can select almost any reasonable cartridge and just load it way down for the youngster, until he grows into it.

Sorry for the length of this rant (too much coffee/caffeine this morning),
Velo Dog.

 

[ZG47]

Weaver Classic 4x, hard to beat. Some people might say Leupold 4x; andd I have been using Leupolds for 25 years BUT ... the Weaver adjustments are better, the field of view is greater and the eye relief is greater!

I learned 25 years ago that the true eye relief of one of the classic Leupold scope designs is typically about 70% of quoted specification (I bought a Leupold 4x, actually a 3.6x28, because it had an advertised eye relief of 4.4" but that claim was false. The actual eye relief was approximately 3.5" whereas the eye relief of my brand new Weaver alloy tube K2.5 was 3.7", i.e. exactly to specification). I identified a similar issue with the 6.5-20x Leupolds of the time and have never heard any reliable advice that the issue has been sorted. I also note that reliable performance below 80 yards with a 6.5-20x typically required the purchase of a spare objective lens screw-cap so that it could be drilled to create a close focus iris.

People bought Weaver KT scopes for decades because they were the only scopes with adjustable objective rings that would reliably deliver correct parallax settings at distances below 80 yards.

Yes, I continue to use Leupold scopes and the new lines introduced from the early 1990s appear to be true to specification but I do not view the brand through rise-tinted glasses. I trust that a Leupold and Stevens Instrument Company scope will be ruggedly constructed and that the optics will be built to the advertised specification (subject to a degree of scepticism in regard to eye relief of the Classic lines and close range adjustable parallax). I also know that they have an excellent warranty service, from which I have benefitted.

The .243 Winchester may be a good choice for the younger shooter, with a varmint projectile loaded down to the point where it becomes a suitable deer/goat round; until he is ready for a bit more power, at which point you could upgrade him to a Sierra 87gr projectile and later to a Hornady 87gr projectile (which an acquaintance of mine found to be equivalent in hardness to the Sierra 100gr projectile).

I suspect however, that you might do better by selecting a 7mm-08 rifle and developing a light load with a relatively soft 120gr projectile OR buying a CZ527/Zastava M85 chambered in 7.62x39.

Best of luck whatever you do and please show us a happy young hunter picture when it all comes off.

 

[Bert the Turtle]

I have never regretted my Swarovski Z6i. The 1.7-10x variable covers very well pretty much any reasonable application of a 7mm hunting rifle, the glass is excellent. Develop the habit of always keeping it (or any variable scope) at the lowest power. If you need more magnification, there will be time to turn it up; the converse is not always true. I'm sure there are other excellent scopes, but I have never felt the need to shop around. Whatever you do, buy the absolute best you can afford. I recently had to use a borrowed rifle that wore some significantly lower-quality glass and I assure you that anyone who tells you that scopes of the first tier are a waste of money are simply incorrect.

My son started hunting Africa at age 8 and uses his left eye. He started with a 22 on varmints and then graduated to a left handed Savage youth model in .243. Velo is correct that it is a somewhat specialized round best suited to the smaller animals. It can be used on much bigger animals with good shot placement (an I do think there is value in learning this from a young age) and appropriate deep penetrating bullets. I am not sure what the caliber minimums are where you hunt, so that may be a consideration, however, an 85g X-bullet from a .243 will kill cleanly animals of fairly large body size. Larger is better on the receiving end, but a child who grows up shooting a 243 and graduates to something bigger will be very well served having learned good shooting technique and shot selection. While the larger rounds give more options, for a resident shooter there is time to wait for a good easy shot. A visitor on limited time may want more gun to take more difficult shots.

 

[rookhawk]

Rifle:

6.5x55 or 7x57, light weight soft recoil for an eight year old but with the stopping power needed for about everything. They'll never outgrow those choices.