You sure have an open invitation to it's use. I like the idea of anyone that is looking for a scope to be able to look through as many scopes as possible.

I live at the foot of a mountain, with mountains all around. Many times folks come to the house and get into comparing binos, rifle scopes.

It's sure been interesting how peoples minds change about what they think was really good before the side X side comparison. 

I was told by a fellow that shot a lot of magazine cover photos one time, that a truly great lens is one that cuts through the haze. I've never found his words to be untrue. 

Spotting Scope Testing
Nov. 7, 2007
The bidding to date:
Jesse Miller, 11/2/07, responding to my message. Jesse is a retired eye doctor.

Joe:  Several factors to consider:
    The brightness of the paper may have some effect.
    Mirage and the other factors you listed all may at times have an effect on the results.
    Also, yes the eyesight of the person doing the testing will affect the results. People with eyesight problems will not score any scope as highly as a person with good eyesight.
    So I will recommend that all of the afore mentioned conditions be recorded with the results.
    It would seem to me that the tests should only be done when two or more scopes can be tested at the same time under the same conditions. This would work even better if two people can independently test the same scopes. This whole thing will require some cross referencing, or maybe quite a bit. The more data you can get the more definitive your results will be.
    One way to tighten the controls would be to use a limited number of testers and then have them test a number of scopes at the same time, under the same conditions. 
    Hope this is a help. Jess.

I made a test target with a sentence in Times New Roman, sizes of  72, 48, 36, 24, 22, 20, 18, 16, 14, 12, 11 and 10 points. These are the sizes available on my computer.

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. 
I downloaded these into a .pdf file as recommended, and printed the AF target. It certainly looks good to me.

On Nov. 7, 2007 we did some testing.

     First, the 72 to 10 type script target doesn't work. The problem is that there's nothing between 36 and 24 point, and some of us needed another choice.

     Second, three people lied during the testing.
(This is one of my strongest interests and research subjects: the lies/inaccuracies and their invisibility to researchers.)
     I explained how to do the tests for both targets.
     Get focused on the target.
     Fiddle with the power if variable, get where it looks the best.
For the type script, 72 to 10 point target, tell me the smallest line you can comfortably read. 
For the AF target, tell me the smallest target on which you can see the bars and white spaces between. I had a copy of the AF target in hand for them to point at.
Two testers claimed to be able to read the 24 point line, one read it as ">>>27 point", the other as "....21 point", and I queried them. 
I lied to myself, claiming that I could read the 24 point line.
I KNOW it isn't a competition, the other testers know. We have this "compete" gene.

Here are the results, after explanation and negotiation:

Bright and sunny conditions

B&L 20X, 36 point, #6 on the 3rd largest set, John
Simmons 20-60X60 at 60X, 36 point, #6 of the 3rd largest set, Tony
Simmons 20-60X60 at 60X, 36 point, #5 of the 3rd largest set, Joe B.
30X STS, 36 point, #4 of the 3rd largest set, Joe B.
30X STS, 36 point, #5 of the 3rd largest set, Tony
20X Bushnell Sentry, 36 point, #4 of the 3rd largest set, Joe B.
Kowa TSN821, 27X, 36 point, #5 of the 4th largest set, Raoul
(The Kowa was in one of those blankies, Raoul isn't real good at English. I read "TSN821" off the scope, there may be more info under the blankie.)
This is an imposition on people at the range, responses varied from "sure" to "no".
     Nobody even claimed to be able to read script smaller than 24 point, nobody could read 24 point, some fibbed but were caught.
My script target is out. I'd like another script target with finer graduations in sizes, and different words-to catch the guessers.      

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, are:
 
Bright and Sunny
Cloudy
Dark and overcast

Thanks;
joe b.

Yeah.. after all, no conclusions he prints after putting in the time to collate the data could POSSIBLY be useful to anyone else, right?

Paul F.

We need a symbol for scratching of the head, or maybe I'm all alone, and the only one that doesn't get it?

Quote:


Tom;
Most everything I do in the gun business has to do with writing down experience and experimental results in a public location for all to access. 
The first edition of "Cast Bullets For Beginner And Expert" was ~100 pages, and was published by the CBA.
The second edition was completed in May. 
Times have changed.
The second edition, ~500 pages, with ERRATA = everything we've written since May, is available at (You need to Login or Register to view media files and links), in FILES, free for all, no copyright. Readers must sign in, but that's no chore.
The book is available on CD for $5, and in a hard copy for $27. Delivered. This after months of work by Dave Goodrich and Todd Wolf getting it into .pdf format and so that it worked at cafepress. Thank God for those guys, they not only had opinions, they wrote articles for the book and actually HELPED.   
We've offered John Merz anything in the book to be printed in the Journal; I've sent John a CD. Our deal with John is that if he prints an article, and if he's paying for articles, then the $$ goes to Rudi for the archives.
I sent Rudi a CD and a print copy.
The cost of the CD and the book is slightly less than the price. All records are open. All excess money from CD and hard copy sales will go to Rudi for the archives. 
So, Tom, yes it's leading somewhere, and yes I want free research, and yes, it's for an article I plan to write unless I can get somebody else to ramrod this project.
Thank you for your interest.
joe brennan

Shooter, JoeB has had problems with this board in the past. I agree that he is attempting something very commendable; he usually is, whenever he asks us and others for help. And I don't believe he's in danger of making any personal big bux out of this or any of his other quests.

But I hafta agree with you about his approach. I spent lots of years counting various kinds of beans in the nucular bidness, and have been repeatedly confronted with the obdurate attitudes of some desk-bound 'experts', but sometimes JoeB's approach is mystifying even to me.

'Apples to apples' is the term I remember from my salad days, which is merely one way of saying that any proper experiment will allow only one variable at a time; everything else must remain the same if the data is to be useful in any meaningful way. This automatically eliminates any variable except the scopes, in any test, meaning that even if the paper and ink and size and definition was exactly the same, you still have the unquantified variables of individual eyesight and optical conditions at various times and locations.

Ain't no way to overcome those two variables except by comparing scope against scope side by side with the same viewer under the same conditions. Enough of these comparisons will yield a ranking, ultimately, if enough data are correlated and reported properly.

Anything else is, IMO, a pipe dream.
Good luck JoeB, Joe

I was very hesitant to post anything about this being the  "new guy"  but I've been in the "game" many, many years and could see the mistakes being made.  Like J. D. Steele said,  there are more than enough variables that cant be controlled such as individual eyesight,  optical conditions at various times and locations, etc., certain things like that can not be controlled, but when you have the opportunity to set a control such as Paper it should be done, if for no other reason than to eliminate as much as possible a variable. 

The real bottom line is what 3sixbits and some others have said,  it's up to the individuals eye as to how good he or she sees something,  every year at the Camp Perry National Championships many of the new spotting scopes are set up side by side by some of the vendors on commercial row,  you can look at things from 50 yds out to 1000 yds., if a shooter is that serious about a spotting scope they should do all the homework it takes and get to places like Camp Perry, take a look at what's there and buy what works for them. Of course I realize that not everyone can make the trip to Camp Perry so this test would be the next best thing, if it was carried out with the least amount of variables.
  Shooter