firstcoueswas80 Report post Posted October 2, 2008 My first thought of the “mystery spotter” was nice. I liked the size. Short, compact yet a decent weight to it. I wasn’t happy with the sunshade however. It seemed cheap and cheesy. It slide in and out way to easy, and made a loud “clank” when it was all the way out… But who cares about that anyways.. On to the optics part! The spotter was compared side by side to a Cabelas Alaskan guide series spotter ($450 retail) and a Pentax PF 80ED ($1200 retail). This scope was compared several times at the shooting range, and in the field in all different light settings. Of course, the Pentax was chosen by all of our eyes with the Cabelas and Mystery spotter coming in edge to edge. Both, the Cabelas spotter and the Mystery Spotter were excellent from 20-45 power. Once each spotting scope was turned up to maximum power (60x), the light transmission left something to be desired. I was observing a small 3x3 Coues whitetail at about 1000 yards (guesstimate). I could tell it was a buck, and I could tell it had a 3 point frame. I could not count tines, nor could I see if it had a dropper, or a split eye guard until I looked through the Pentax. While at the range, I could easily see bullet holes, and the ½” as well as 1” line markers on my target. I had small letters written on the bottom of the page. The letters were K-I-M-B-E-R. I could not make more than half of these letters out at 100 yards with the spotting scope on a tripod, with little to no wind. I could clearly see them all with the Pentax. I could make out the same letters with the Cabelas spotter. Overall, for a $800 spotting scope (what I believe the price to be) I will give the spotting scope 4 out of 5 stars. It worked decent at the higher power, but I could tell difference from the higher end spotters. On a side note, it comes with ½ of the necessary equipment to digiscope. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
