Hey all,
Was wondering what sort of scope would be good to put on a swift?
I was thinking a Schmit&Bender 3-12x42. Any suggestions would be welcome,
whether about the scopes themselves or recticles.

Thanks a Lot,
_Kar

I'm kinda fond of the duplex reticle, but I've been using it for a lot of years. As for scopes it depends on what your shooting. For coyotes and calling I use a low power variable in the 2 by 7 or 3 by 9 power range. When spring ground squirrel's start popping up an 8 by 32 variable goes on the new CZ 527 204 Ruger. There's nothing wrong with using two different scopes for two different kinds of shooting.

If you are going to do a lot of paper shooting, I would find the smallest crosshair possible. On the other hand if you intend to do more varmint shooting a duplex reticle will work fine. Schmit & Bender is top of the line you could not go wrong there. 3-12x will work fine for ranges up to 200 yards. If you plan to target shoot 300 yards + you may want higher magnification. Hope this helps.

one other thing. I'm slightly (well, quite a bit) short sighted. i'm thinking a higher magnification would be helpful here? Ie. a 4-16 or so? i can do pretty well with a 6x up to about 150 yards, then it gets harder.

Thanks,
_Kar.

I agree, my eyes ain't what they once were. Higher magnification can help, but remember you are gonna need to set your focus somewhere to make a happy medium. In other words if say you are deer hunting on stand where you might possibly get a shot from 50-300 yards or more, pick out a distance say 150 yards and focus your scope on whatever power you plan to use. Now check out an object at 50 yards and 350 yards and see how clear your picture is now. you might have to fine tune so that you aren't handicapped with an out of focus scope. Also take note of your field of view, it will be quite smaller at higher magnifications. I probably wouldn't go higher than 16x. The deer hunting club I belong to has a quality management program in place. We have to be discreet about what we shoot. Higher magnification can be very helpful determining the size of a buck's antlers from a distance. Think about what you want and try to determine the optimum magnification. There are countless combinations to choose from.