I use Kowa as well, but I have two, 1 real good one and one not so good. Both are 20x 60 eye pieces. The good one is a straight scope with floride lens. The not so good is a 45 degree eye piece (some loss I think from that) and regular kowa glass (some more loss I think). Both are 77mm scopes.  Good scope I can see .22 holes 200 yards most any day (as long as my mount is solid). The not so good the light has to be just right. Varibles are going to exist no matter what you do. Any good test you try to minimise the varibles between tests otherwise you are guessing.

You know the really odd thing about spotting scopes seems to be that there is all kinds of trade offs. When you get into these big scope, you know it's not going to be the scope you pack into the Alaskan range for your sheep hunt. However it works great to leave in base camp after the bush plane flies you and your gear in.

The Leupold scope is just the ticket for that climb after the sheep.

That's what I mean by trade offs. When it comes right down to it, we try and use the best we can for the job at hand.

Many a guide in this state carry the Leupold spotting scopes and think that for weight and size they offer the best performance. These are not a class of people that will compromise on gear.

Indeed, Alaska is the place that puts gear to the worst kind of tests. I got this big old Kowa when I was doing a lot of bench rest shooting and my Son was just getting into High power shooting. The other good thing the Kowa does vary well, it allows me to hall the summer visitors out, set up the tripod along side the highway so they can look at sheep, goats and whatever else happens along the way.

You are right about the power factor in scopes, you are less effected by mirage at the lower power range of eyepieces.
That is why you don't see to many people going over 27X even in the bigger scopes.

When I got this big old Kowa, I was shooting a lot of .224 at two hundred and need to be able to see my bullet holes, it was much easier to judge the group size with the spotter at 27X than it was to judge the group through my 36X rifle scope. Until I got the scope I always thought my group were bigger. Coming off the line, people would ask about my group and I always thought they were from .100 to .200 bigger than they proved to be when scored. Other shooters got to thinking I was lying to them.  

P.S. It's a bad thing for people to think you are sand bagging them. They don't trust you when the money gets down on the table.

While I'm in complete agreement with your method of testing and think it shows nothing but wisdom. I don't believe this is what Joe B. is looking for. He has vary definite ideas of how these tests must be conducted, please withhold common sense methods, that do nothing but distract shooters and would cause irreparable harm to the entire shooting community.

Perhaps you just forgot that common sense, is uncommon in today's America.

Do not feel to badly, we are all guilty of this same slip once in a vary great while.

Please do not feel this post was in anyway, in other than given in any spirit, but of the most gentlemanly sort! 

Right after I got my Nikon Sky and Earth 80mm 20 to 60x, I was spotting a bud shooting his new .20cal BR, at 200 yds That was a good test.

I spotted all his shots that got to the target even in the black, and the Nikon was only about 450 bucks or so.

A scope is only as good as the last lens it goes through and that is the atmosphere.

To an earlier reply;

THere's nothing magic about the Kowa's. Yes, they're good glass... and "everyone" uses them in Highpower Rifle (and probably other sports also).
There are other scopes that are mighty fine glass too.

I have a (discontinued) Mirador fixed 28x that spots holes up with the Kowa TSN821...
A guy I shoot with has a Nikon 60mm (I think) that is some of the clearest glass I've ever seen... I think he has a 24x fixed, but he can spot holes in lousy mirage when we can't see s***.

Sure, you MOSTLY get what you pay for... I wouldn't expect a $150 scope to be quite as good as a $950 Kowa... But there ARE some scopes in the sub $300 range that are quite a bit better than you might expect FOR THE MONEY.  We put a new Konus next to a Kowa TSN-1 and were quite impressed by the Konus... and the Konus cost $189.
Sure, this is all anecdotal.... but I've stopped jumping to conclusions about "cheaper" scopes before I have the chance to look through them.

I agree with the premise that a good objective side by side test is important to be able to accurately judge a scope. One scope one day, and another the next isn't going to tell a guy how the two scopes compare, only how they did on their respective days.
The "reading text" test would be good as a measure of resolution.   

IMHO of course..
Paul F.

Quote:

It started, for me, on the MSN BPCR forum. It's running there, on the CBA forum, and on Cast Boolits forum, and here. So I guess that's four. As usual, the Cast Boolits forum has helpful posters, and not so many critics/experts as there are here. Anyhow;
Steven Dzupin on Cast Boolits clued me in to (You need to Login or Register to view media files and links), where there are downloadable copies of scope-testing targets, including the 1951 Air Force resolution target. Note that the right hand of the three targets is composed of lines of print. Nyah, nyah!!
I downloaded these into a .pdf file as recommended, and printed the AF target. It certainly looks good to me.
Thanks, Steven, I'll keep working on it.
Anyone willing to do some testing, please make a copy of the AF target, and try it out. Record the scope make and model and power, and the light conditions, for now 
Bright, Sunny
Cloudy
Dark, overcast
Thanks;
joe b.
PS, someone her said he owned a Unertl Team Scope. Wuould you be willing to run a test to give us a benchmark?
Thanks again;
joe b.

4227, I'm hoping that we can spend more time together @ E-G this year rather than missing each other as we did last time.  I should be there for the whole gig this year.  Maybe we can get together on the end and set up a "stop by and take a peek" stand with a couple of scope stands to compare other folks scopes side by side with the "Unertl Gold Standard."  In spite of protestations to the contrary side by side would be the most valid and easily judged comparison.  JMHO, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it! 

Froggie

Boats, the varibles I was talking about are induced varibles that you want to avoid in you test setups not the scopes.