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Frankly I hate scopes. Yeah, I know, everyone seems to use one nowadays, but not when I was a kid, and never when I was in the service. I spend 30 years in either the Marine Corps or the Army Reserve and in both services I fired many weapons and not - a one had any kind of scope mounted. As a matter of fact, except for the sniper guys no one used one -ever. Now I guess it's different, but not in my day.

So I became used to shooting over iron sights. While I generally prefer peep sights, I don't mind open sights either and in heavy brush (Vietnam anyone?) open sights for me are fine.

Okay, so you are all saying something like, "Well, if you just try using a scope you'll fall in love with them." Welp, I've tried and nope, I still don't like them. I don't like how they change the weight of the rifle, I don't like how they catch brush, I don't like how they can be knocked out of zero, I don't like how they narrow my field of vision, I don't like how they distort the distance to the target, I don't like how they slow my rapid shots, I don't like how I have to take my eye off of the target when I mount the weapon and they don't make me any more accurate when shooting off hand.

I shoot with a scope and then I shoot with iron sights and while I usually shoot better from prone with the scope it's just not that much better. If shooting sage rats, however; I shoot with a scope, but those little buggers are very small and the range very distant. Otherwise I'll shoot with iron sights. With my ancient eyes my range with a peep sight mounted on my Marlin 39A is limited to 75 yds.

In addition today a good scope will cost you as much as a nice rifle. Course many rifles are sold w/o sights...I guess so they'll sell more scopes. What a gyp.

You make some good points, Thumbuster. I suppose it depends on the terrain, normal shooting distances to your target and what not, but heck they shoot National Matches at 600 yards with peep sights so they do work!

You are also right about cost of optics, if you want good stuff you gotta pay, at least a couple hundred. There are some that can be had for less but you will notice the difference in glass quality when you compare the cheepy to something of reasonable quality.

It's your preference and choice, around here for hunting I prefer a scope as we do get to shoot a longer distances for woodchucks in hayfields, and occaisionally long shots on deer. It is handy for us Pennsyltuckians to count the points before pulling the trigger, too.

For me also, the extra clarity and magnification is handy when I'm out in a field to make sure of my backstop as well, but that's just me. But since getting an AR-15 and a Garand I have developed an appreciation for the small grouping that can be accomplished with peep sights, much better than I thought possible for a long time. So I like them both!

How about something like an EOTech or Aimpoint, how do you like those? All the extra cost and no magnification!

I've never shot a rifle with an Aimpoint or some other dot sighting. However I did when shooting through the gunsight mounted on an A-4 Skyhawk and I liked them. Different shooting however. Things happened pretty fast.

As for shooting chuckers at long range, yep a scope is just the ticket. I've got a Remington Model 788 in 222 and it's scoped with an old Weaver K6. It's still pretty bright. Love that rifle btw. Also it's plenty fast for normal varmit shooting. I've never hunted chucker with it however, (I've never hunted them at all.) but I'd love to. I'd rather shoot prairie dogs than eat when I'm hungry. While I never used a scope to do so when a kid, when I lived near Dodge City, KS, but today with my 222 I would.

When I was a kid in Kansas I shot coyotes with a Remington 600 in .243 and it was scoped, but the glass was pretty lousy. It was a tip off and I tipped it off. I had a fellow cayote hunter who shot cayotes with a .270 shooting 110 grain Speer bullets shot through a Remington 700. He did well with it, no scope either. They mounted sights on the rifle in those days.

Aint that the truth ... grrrrrrrr .....

I hear the arguements against the scope and in reality the scope probably cost me a shot at a running bear last year that my cousin missed. I wasn't ready when he shot and all I saw in the scope was a flash of black fur. With the open sights on my M70 I'm confident I could have at least gotten off a shot at it. But for me ... over the long haul ... I think the benefits outweigh those moments.

Of course if I HAD gotten off a shot at that bear and killed it (in a valley two steep and rocky ridges from the truck) ... It would not have made for an easy/good drag to get it out. So maybe the scope DID help me out that day

It's pretty heavily wooded where I hunt/live. Off hand shots are commonplace. I believe that I've never shot OH as well with a scope as without one. Seems to me that the magnification magnifies the wiggles. Also the spot weld is different because one has to raise one's eyes to peer through the glass. My model 70 a .270 is sans scope and I like it that way. It's a 1952 gun however and in those days I'd guess many hunters shot over the iron sights so the comb must be lower.

But really now, has anyone seen a hunter who uses a bolt rifle shoot over iron sights lately? Like within the last 25 years? I recall when everyone was mounting long eye relief scopes on their 94 Winchesters. Does one really need a scope to shoot that nifty little shooter to shoot at 50/75 yds? I put a peep sight on mine.

Gonna shoot a sheep? Yep you need a scoped rifle. I've never shot at one and since I'm getting a little long of tooth I'm not up to the hump anymore. I never will.

Do you remember sitting on the firing line and your drill sergeant was pounding on you to concentrate on the sight picture? Remember how he'd explain to you how to crawl into your sling and caress the trigger? Remember how you'd call your shot and they'd pull the butts and mark your target and you made a notation in your range book? You did it day after day for a week or more. All you did during range week was think shooting and do shooting. Remember how you'd work for hours sitting on the cement deck of the squad bay cleaning and re-cleaning your M-14? The pieces laying out in front of you. Well I relive those days every time I mount my rifle and while I use one sometimes, scope, is usually a dirty word.

Thumbuster I'm like you I don't really like scopes either but I have no choice now my eyes aren't what they use to be. When I look down a rifle with iron sights I can either see the back sight and a real fuzzy front sight or I can see the front sight and two rear sights. If I want to hit what I'm shootig at I have to use a scope now.Had no use for a scope till I started wearing glasses about 20 years ago. Nobody thinks about there good health or good eye site till they no longer have it,

It was GBS who said, "Youth is wasted upon the young." He was right. If I could turn back my body to 25 again I'd make much better use of it than when I really was 25. As we both know somethings are hard to fix, and eyesight is one. (The other part I'm not going to even discuss.) We try all kinds of glasses, but one pair doesn't seem to work for all things visual. Hearing? It's gone.

I find that if I look through peep sights and focus on the front sight that I can see well enough to shoot pretty well. I agree that a scope helps us to see and I do use one for varmit shooting.

However, when I see a 25 year old hunter spring for a scope as he is buying a rifle to hunt in the deep woods I ponder the reason why. Certainly it's done so often that many rifle makers don't even mount iron sights, so you really don't have a choice. Oh, you can mount your own open sights, but usually the comb has been made to lift your chin so that you can peer through the glass, and it's hard to line up comfortably with iron sights.

The solution? Buy an old rifle. That's what I do. After all many guns are seldom fired, I'd guess most of them are not shot. So older rifles can be just like they were when first sold. Do new do-dads make older rifles obsolete? What do-dads are they? Safeties on a new Marlin Lever gun? As everyone knows we have always used the half cock as the safety and adding another is redundant, PC and a pain.

I personally would like a better selection of "see thru" bases available. My post 64 M70 came with a trashco and see thru mounts ... but they were useless as that scope and the 3x9x40 I put on it covered the sights.

Youre right about most not even coming with iron sights today ... The M70's today only the Safarri version has sights on it. And Remington only offers the BDL with sights.

I think see through mounts are nice, but I'd rather have an easy to remove scope that can be re-attached without effecting the zero. They do have those, but spendy. When I was in my 20's I fired a Rem 600 with some kind of a tip-off scope mount. Can't recall what kind, but i didn't like it because when I tipped it off I also tended to cant the rifle.