In 10 short months, he was headed to Utah's famed Devil's Canyon with a bull elk tag in hand. Naturally, the one-in-a-lifetime hunt called for a new rifle, and most every new hunting rifle needs a scope.

"So I have been looking online, picking through catalogs and have even been to a few shops to look at scopes, but there are a million choices," Morin said. "What's the perfect scope for my rifle?"

It's something that seems simple enough at the onset, but matching the right piece of glass to a firearm takes some thought if you hope to maximize the pairing's field or range performance. A few decades ago, the decision would have been pretty simple since there were just a few makes and models around. Now, the Cabela's Fall Master Catalog alone lists 77 models from Leupold and 41 from Nikon. The variety of available power ranges, reticle patterns, lens coatings, parallax adjustments, and objective sizes is staggering.

A lot of guys choose the scope based on what manufacturer has the best looking box or most breathtaking display in the gunshop. On a recent range trip, I saw an M4-configured AR mated with a monster

6-24X target scope, with a sunshade and adjustable objective, no less. A man is entitled to use whatever he wants, but the M4 would have been just as deadly at average 5.56mm ranges and much handier if the target was up close and personal if it was paired with a variable 1.5-5X or even a 3-9X.

On a recent mule deer hunt, my hunting partner picked up my rifle and peered through the optic at a distant target. "Man, these little marks below the crosshairs are cool," he opined. "What are they set for?"

I could have told him, had I not switched to a heavier bullet for this hunt and not had the time to compute the ranges at which the bullet's trajectory would coincide with the aiming marks. Instead, I offered a sheepish grin and shrugged my shoulders.

"You could probably shoot better if you actually knew how it worked," he said.

No kidding.

I did know that my zero and the bullet's trajectory would still allow me to "hold on hair" of an average-size mule deer buck out to 300 yards. I was stumped in Colorado, but I usually make it a point to know if my fancy new reticle works as advertised in the manufacturer's instructions.