September 23, 2010
By Joseph von Benedikt
By Joseph von Benedikt
One of the finest on the market, Leupold's Boone and Crockett reticle is designed specifically for big-game hunting and combines several excellent virtues into one aiming system.
First, it's inherently simple; for a close-and-fast shot your eye still goes straight to the primary crosshairs without confusion. That's important.
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Second, the cross-hashes for distance work make sense — you don't have to have a PhD and manual to decipher how to sight-in and what marks to use when reaching way out there. Third, it has windage reference marks on the hash lines, but for just one speed: 10 mph. While varmint shooters may desire marks that can be used when the wind is kicking 20-mph dust in their eyes, big-game hunters shouldn't be shooting far enough to need a hash mark in that persuasive a breeze.
And lastly, the B&C reticle is housed in one of America's favorites. Leupold optics are a nonentity nowhere and envied everywhere. The 3.5-10X 40mm version I'm partial to has been atop my rifle during the hunts that yielded the two biggest mule deer of my life.
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I suspect it may be along on many a future hunt in the rugged, unforgiving terrain of the Rocky Mountain West.
Joseph von Benedikt
Raised in a tiny Rocky Mountain town 100 miles from a stoplight or supermarket, Joseph von Benedikt began shooting competitively at age 14, gunsmithing at age 21, and guiding big game hunters professionally at age 23. While studying creative writing at the university he began publishing articles about firearms and hunting in nationally distributed magazines, as well as works of short fiction about ranch life. An editorial job offer presented an open door into the industry, along with an eye-opening two years stationed in the Petersen Publishing building in Los Angeles.
A position serving as Editor in Chief of Shooting Times magazine took von Benedikt and his young family to Illinois for four years. Homesick for the great Rocky Mountains, von Benedikt swapped his editorial seat for a position as a full-time writer and moved home to the West, where he's been writing full-time ever since, along with hosting the Backcountry Hunting Podcast.
Favorite pursuits include high-country elk and mule deer hunting, safaris in Africa, deep wilderness hunts in Alaska, and wandering old-growth forest in Europe for stag, roebuck, and wild boar.
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