Deer Hunting at Every
D I S T A N C E
From close-in to way-out,
tailor your scope to the conditions
BY ANDREW MCKEAN
One undeniable appeal of deer hunting—aside from days under crisp autumn skies—is its unpredictability. Even after you’ve scouted and patterned deer for weeks, they’ll do something that throws your planning to the winds, forcing you to adjust to their capricious nature.
But each of us prepares for a certain set of circumstances, terrain types, and hunting conditions that typify the place and style we plan to hunt, and while deer might call an audible in the middle of the season, the correct equipment enables you to cover a bandwidth of deer behavior and habitat.
When I hunt whitetails in the dense woodlots of the East, for instance, I carry a mid-range rifle or even a shotgun topped by a quick-pointing scope that can handle the running shots that often define public-land deer hunts on small acreages from Iowa to upstate New York. Conversely, when I gear up for a Western mule deer hunt, I’m looking for a rifle-and-scope combo that could handle nearish shots but enable long shots in windy or high-angle conditions.
We can spend a lot of time arguing about the caliber or action type that is best suited for each of these situations, but when it comes to optics, I plant my flag on a few configurations of reticle style and magnification that can be even more critical to my success than the firearm they’re mounted on. Happily, Trijicon has a battery of scopes that can handle every deer-hunting scenario in North America, from the tight cover of the Southeast out to the misty canyonlands of the West.
Importantly, the Michigan-based brand has capable in-between optics, those scopes with enough magnification to make precise shots at longish distances but with simple no-fuss reticles that enable quick shots at close to middling distances. Each of these deer scopes—no matter their product line or configuration—offers a combination of bright glass, precise controls, and durable construction that will prove a capable partner for this year’s deer season and an heirloom optic for many seasons to come.
Here’s how I configure my deer-hunting rig for success at any—and every—distance.
One of the happiest trends in optics over the last couple years is the renaissance of the low-power variable optic. Sometimes called by its abbreviation, LPVO, these low-magnification scopes are optimized for close-quarters combat. Think a home-defense optic on a shotgun, or an AR-mounted scope that can be deployed in tight, dark, highly reactive conditions.
Those same situations describe deer hunting for an awful lot of hunters east of Missouri. In much of the piney woods of the Southeast, or the overgrown oak-and-maple hardwoods of Pennsylvania, deer hunting happens inside 100 yards, often within bow range, and often faster than I can describe. For these conditions, hunters need a bright scope with a simple reticle and low magnifications that enable both-eyes-open snap shooting at either running deer or at a buck that might materialize right below a treestand.
This isn’t always rifle hunting. In some states, Delaware and New Jersey among them, rifles are forbidden and shotgun hunters rule the deer woods. The allowance of straight-wall rifle cartridges in states such as Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Maryland has given rise to a new breed of deer rifles chambered in old favorites like the .45-70 Govt. and .444 Marlin but also upstarts like Remington’s new 360 Buckhammer, the .450 Bushmaster, and .350 Legend.
Whether atop a shotgun, lever-action rifle, or even a muzzleloader, Trijicon’s Huron LPVO can direct any shot inside 100 yards, and has enough reticle references to allow hunters to reach out to 300 yards when conditions dictate.
The 1-4x24 Huron is designed with versatility in mind. Its straight 30mm tube is configured for low-profile mounting on a wide variety of firearms styles, from bolt-action rifles to rail-ready shotguns and carbines. The scope is built for speed, meaning it enables instinctive shooting. Parallax is fixed at 100 yards, and once you’ve focused the image with the diopter to your particular eyesight, you are ready for any shooting situation. The capped turrets are tuned to MOA references, but for most purposes I zero my Huron at 100 yards and hold right on the crosshairs of the reticle. I especially like the spring-loaded turrets, easy to reset to zero without tools or fuss after you’ve sighted in your gun.
At 1-power, the Huron has a field of view as wide as a picture window, and the combination of excellent glass and contrast-boosting coatings make images bright and vibrant. The scope has liberal mounting dimensions, enabling mounting on everything from long-action rifles to just about any ring and base combination.
The Huron’s BDC reticle—it has four holdover references below the center crosshair—enables shooters to tune their loads for mid-distance shots out to 500 yards with a 200-yard zero, as long as the scope is set at 4-power. Trijicon’s BDC Hunter Holds Reticle is tuned to MOA references, and for shooters familiar with that language, boasts 15 MOA of holdover and 10 MOA of windage holdoff. Those windage references enable holds for both 5 and 10 mph crosswinds, a key advantage for precision projectile placement in high winds beyond 100 yards.
But the real advantage of the Huron isn’t its distance capabilities, it’s its speed. Mounted on a fast-pointing carbine or shotgun, the Hunter Holds reticle allows for snap shots, wide-view running shots, and those situations when you have mere seconds to recognize and make a fleeting shot opportunity. Given its battle-proven construction, the Huron can handle all the wet, cold, knock-about conditions that define deer hunting across much of the continent.
Whether you’re talking ground-blind whitetails in Midwest farm country, walk-about hunting on the river bottoms of the Great Plains, or blacktail hunting in the foothills of the Northwest, deer hunters must often make shots anywhere from 50 to 350 yards on short notice. It’s hard to prepare for that sort of variation with distance-specific optics, but it defines about 80 percent of deer hunting around the country. When I honestly don’t know what I’m going to encounter in the field, I reach for one of the most versatile riflescopes in my collection, the 2.5-15x42 Trijicon Credo HX.
This is a sophisticated version of the classic 3-9x40 scope that you’ll still see mounted on rifles in the safes of your father and grandfather. There’s a reason this configuration has endured over the decades. It simply works, at low magnifications in dark and tight-cover conditions and at higher magnifications in the broken country that defines deer habitat across most of the continent.
More specifically, the 30mm Credo HX brings some key attributes to the deer-hunting game. Let’s start with external controls. The elevation turret is uncapped, and thoughtfully indexed to enable quick “dialing” to a distant aiming solution. Tuned to MOA values, with .25 MOA click values, the turret can go from a 100-yard zero out to a 500- and 600-yard shot with 20 MOA per revolution and a whopping 100 MOA of total elevation adjustment.
The scope has side parallax, which enables pin-point focusing from 10 yards all the way out to infinity. Outside the parallax knob is the illumination control, firing up whole-reticle red illumination with 10 intensity levels, from subtle just-visible illumination for nighttime and low-light conditions to blazing daylight-bright illumination that makes the reticle pop in full daylight.
About that reticle. The second-plane MOA Center Dot reticle enables close shots with both-eyes-open quickness, but its real attributes come into play in mid-range shots, between about 250 and 400 yards. The reticle is squared around 30 MOA. That’s 30 MOA of holdover plus 30 MOA of windage holds on either side of the fine .25 MOA center dot.
With a 100-yard zero and a standard-velocity round like a .270 or 6.5 Creedmoor, the reticle references give me relevant holdovers out to about 350 yards. After that, I consult my bullet drops to either hold or dial for solutions. The reticle is actually more capably configured for a 200-yard zero. I can get another 100 yards with the holdover hatches, which gives me fast references as far as I care to shoot at game animals. I could go farther for inanimate targets, but any living game requires us to practice to make quick, sure killing shots.
Put all its attributes together, and the Credo HX is quick, precise, and versatile, the very definition of this do-everything scope. Happily, it has the additional attributes of being built around excellent glass, durable controls, and an objective bell that’s engineered to be big enough to capture plenty of light but small enough to enable low-profile mounting options.
TIGHT-COVER
WHITETAILS
MID-RANGE
DEER OPTIONS
DEER
LONG-RANGE
Hunters who just a few years ago would never take an 800-yard shot at animals are mounting big precision scopes on rifles that can pull double duty on the steel-gong range and in deer season for open-country bucks. It makes sense. If you can consistently ring steel at 1,500 yards, you should be a deadly deer hunter at half or a quarter the distance. For this type of crossover hunter, Trijicon’s Tenmile scope brings prodigious talents of precision and durability to the field. This isn’t your woodlot scope, but it actually has a surprisingly capable place atop what we used to call beanfield rifles in the Southeast and really comes into its own on the long-range rifles showing up increasingly in the vast prairies of the Plains and the cross-canyon deer country of the Mountain West.
My favorite Tenmile is the 4.5-30x56. That’s a crazy-wide magnification range, and if I’m being honest, it’s too crazy. I find I use my Tenmile in the 10- to 22-power range, for reasons I’ll explain in a bit. But the 34mm scope stays on my deer rifle because of its bright glass, its extremely useful first focal plane reticle, its satisfyingly tactile turrets, and its tasty two-color red-and-green illumination.
This is a scope that was built for engaging far-away targets, but it’s included in a class of riflescope that ambitious hunters have adopted, knowing that while they may never shoot at extended ranges, the Tenmile gives them the capability to make the most difficult shots they might encounter.
Among its best attributes, the first focal plane Precision Tree reticle enlarges in size from what amounts to a fast-fire red-dot at its lowest magnification all the way up to a hyper-precision target scope at 24-30-power. Here’s where I’ll inject a dose of deer-hunting reality. First, there are precious few situations in which I could imagine needing this scope to be fast instead of precise. That means I would probably use magnifications in which I could quickly see reticle references, and for me that starts at about 10-power, when the entirety of the modified German 4-plex reticle is visible in the scope. From about 10x up to 15x, the reticle enlarges to offer enough holdover and hold-off references such that I can use the .25 MOA center dot to make quick and sure shots at deer that might surprise me at sub-200-yard distances but which give me enough references to shoot confidently at moving targets out to 400 yards.
At distances beyond 400 yards, I make a couple of assumptions about the situation and my scope’s capabilities. First, I assume the animal is not moving. A buck beyond 400 yards probably doesn’t know I’m in the neighborhood, which gives me the time to make a precise range and then to deploy my knowledge of the specific ballistics of the load I’m shooting. I can consult a mobile app or I can use a dope card to dial a shooting solution, and the Tenmile’s turrets have useful indexing and click-value positivity to dial my way to a hit.
If instead I choose to use reticle references to hold for a distant shot, I have the Precision Tree’s first focal plane landscape of hashes (elevation references) and dots (windage references) to confidently place a shot at distances out to 600 yards. Depending on conditions, I could shoot farther but in a deer-hunting situation normally defer to restraint over capability.
At 2 pounds, this is not a lightweight scope, but it’s intended to be a durable, precise companion on range-weight rifles. The surprising feature of the Tenmile is that many frontcountry hunters choose the weight as a fair exchange for the dead-on repeatability of the scope.
Looking at Trijicon’s deer-friendly scopes, I’d probably opt for the Credo HX for a mountain deer hunt, when every ounce counts against you. But for big-country deer hunts when you hunt close to a road with the Tenmile mounted to a chassis gun or a PRS-style rifle, there’s no better long-range deer rig than the Trijicon.
Widening my view to the entirety of the Trijicon collection, there’s a scope for every budget and expectation. Specific scopes may differ in configuration, product line, and reticle type, but they share hard-wearing durability, bright glass, and repeatable controls that make them worthy partners to your favorite deer gun, whether a slug shotgun or a hyper-precise chassis rifle.
This article was sponsored by Trijicon.
Tight-Cover
Mid-Range
Long-Range
Trijicon’s Huron LPVO
can direct any shot inside 100 yards, and has enough
reticle references
to allow hunters to reach out to 300 yards...”
...the Credo HX
is quick, precise, and versatile,
the very definition of this do-everything scope.”
...many
frontcountry
hunters choose
the weight as a
fair exchange
for the dead-on repeatability of the scope.”
With a 100-yard zero and a standard-velocity round like a .270 or 6.5 Creedmoor, the reticle references give me relevant holdovers out to about 350 yards. After that, I consult my bullet drops to either hold or dial for solutions. The reticle is actually more capably configured for a 200-yard zero. I can get another 100 yards with the holdover hatches, which gives me fast references as far as I care to shoot at game animals. I could go farther for inanimate targets, but any living game requires us to practice to make quick, sure killing shots.
Put all its attributes together, and the Credo HX is quick, precise, and versatile, the very definition of this do-everything scope. Happily, it has the additional attributes of being built around excellent glass, durable controls, and an objective bell that’s engineered to be big enough to capture plenty of light but small enough to enable low-profile mounting options.
At 2 pounds, this is not a lightweight scope, but it’s intended to be a durable, precise companion on range-weight rifles. The surprising feature of the Tenmile is that many frontcountry hunters choose the weight as a fair exchange for the dead-on repeatability of the scope.
Looking at Trijicon’s deer-friendly scopes, I’d probably opt for the Credo HX for a mountain deer hunt, when every ounce counts against you. But for big-country deer hunts when you hunt close to a road with the Tenmile mounted to a chassis gun or a PRS-style rifle, there’s no better long-range deer rig than the Trijicon.
Widening my view to the entirety of the Trijicon collection, there’s a scope for every budget and expectation. Specific scopes may differ in configuration, product line, and reticle type, but they share hard-wearing durability, bright glass, and repeatable controls that make them worthy partners to your favorite deer gun, whether a slug shotgun or a hyper-precise chassis rifle.
This article was sponsored by Trijicon.
Whether atop a shotgun, lever-action rifle, or even a muzzleloader, Trijicon’s Huron LPVO can direct any shot inside 100 yards, and has enough reticle references to allow hunters to reach out to 300 yards when conditions dictate.
The 1-4x24 Huron is designed with versatility in mind. Its straight 30mm tube is configured for low-profile mounting on a wide variety of firearms styles, from bolt-action rifles to rail-ready shotguns and carbines. The scope is built for speed, meaning it enables instinctive shooting. Parallax is fixed at 100 yards, and once you’ve focused the image with the diopter to your particular eyesight, you are ready for any shooting situation. The capped turrets are tuned to MOA references, but for most purposes I zero my Huron at 100 yards and hold right on the crosshairs of the reticle. I especially like the spring-loaded turrets, easy to reset to zero without tools or fuss after you’ve sighted in your gun.
At 1-power, the Huron has a field of view as wide as a picture window, and the combination of excellent glass and contrast-boosting coatings make images bright and vibrant. The scope has liberal mounting dimensions, enabling mounting on everything from long-action rifles to just about any ring and base combination.
The Huron’s BDC reticle—it has four holdover references below the center crosshair—enables shooters to tune their loads for mid-distance shots out to 500 yards with a 200-yard zero, as long as the scope is set at 4-power. Trijicon’s BDC Hunter Holds Reticle is tuned to MOA references, and for shooters familiar with that language, boasts 15 MOA of holdover and 10 MOA of windage holdoff. Those windage references enable holds for both 5 and 10 mph crosswinds, a key advantage for precision projectile placement in high winds beyond 100 yards.
But the real advantage of the Huron isn’t its distance capabilities, it’s its speed. Mounted on a fast-pointing carbine or shotgun, the Hunter Holds reticle allows for snap shots, wide-view running shots, and those situations when you have mere seconds to recognize and make a fleeting shot opportunity. Given its battle-proven construction, the Huron can handle all the wet, cold, knock-about conditions that define deer hunting across much of the continent.
One of the happiest trends in optics over the last couple years is the renaissance of the low-power variable optic. Sometimes called by its abbreviation, LPVO, these low-magnification scopes are optimized for close-quarters combat. Think a home-defense optic on a shotgun, or an AR-mounted scope that can be deployed in tight, dark, highly reactive conditions.
Those same situations describe deer hunting for an awful lot of hunters east of Missouri. In much of the piney woods of the Southeast, or the overgrown oak-and-maple hardwoods of Pennsylvania, deer hunting happens inside 100 yards, often within bow range, and often faster than I can describe. For these conditions, hunters need a bright scope with a simple reticle and low magnifications that enable both-eyes-open snap shooting at either running deer or at a buck that might materialize right below a treestand.
This isn’t always rifle hunting. In some states, Delaware and New Jersey among them, rifles are forbidden and shotgun hunters rule the deer woods. The allowance of straight-wall rifle cartridges in states such as Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Maryland has given rise to a new breed of deer rifles chambered in old favorites like the .45-70 Govt. and .444 Marlin but also upstarts like Remington’s new 360 Buckhammer, the .450 Bushmaster, and .350 Legend.
Whether you’re talking ground-blind whitetails in Midwest farm country, walk-about hunting on the river bottoms of the Great Plains, or blacktail hunting in the foothills of the Northwest, deer hunters must often make shots anywhere from 50 to 350 yards on short notice. It’s hard to prepare for that sort of variation with distance-specific optics, but it defines about 80 percent of deer hunting around the country. When I honestly don’t know what I’m going to encounter in the field, I reach for one of the most versatile riflescopes in my collection, the 2.5-15x42 Trijicon Credo HX.
This is a sophisticated version of the classic 3-9x40 scope that you’ll still see mounted on rifles in the safes of your father and grandfather. There’s a reason this configuration has endured over the decades. It simply works, at low magnifications in dark and tight-cover conditions and at higher magnifications in the broken country that defines deer habitat across most of the continent.
More specifically, the 30mm Credo HX brings some key attributes to the deer-hunting game. Let’s start with external controls. The elevation turret is uncapped, and thoughtfully indexed to enable quick “dialing” to a distant aiming solution. Tuned to MOA values, with .25 MOA click values, the turret can go from a 100-yard zero out to a 500- and 600-yard shot with 20 MOA per revolution and a whopping 100 MOA of total elevation adjustment.
The scope has side parallax, which enables pin-point focusing from 10 yards all the way out to infinity. Outside the parallax knob is the illumination control, firing up whole-reticle red illumination with 10 intensity levels, from subtle just-visible illumination for nighttime and low-light conditions to blazing daylight-bright illumination that makes the reticle pop in full daylight.
About that reticle. The second-plane MOA Center Dot reticle enables close shots with both-eyes-open quickness, but its real attributes come into play in mid-range shots, between about 250 and 400 yards. The reticle is squared around 30 MOA. That’s 30 MOA of holdover plus 30 MOA of windage holds on either side of the fine .25 MOA center dot.