The elephant in this room might hide buff, too
- Condition: New
- Price: $20 AUD
- Location: VIC
- Listed on: ssaagunsales.com
Seller Type: Private User Licence # 431-725-90B Location: ESSENDON NORTH, VIC, 3041 Phone #: *** click to reveal *** Description: “. . . the most dangerous thing in elephant hunting is often not the elephant you’re shooting but other elephant you may not even be aware of. The tunnel vision that is part and parcel of shooting with a scope can get you killed . . .” (‘Safari Rifles II’ by Craig Boddington, p422) Craig was right, at least in terms of scopes made since ‘Safari Rifles II’ was published in 2009. But though he analysed rifles for Africa and their histories seven ways to Sunday over 594 pages, scopes got the short-back-and-sides, with little about their evolution. And though ‘tunnel vision’ can indeed hide elephants, it may also obscure grumpy buffalo and lions, dangerous animals that can also be found in groups. Had Boddington dared to criticise modern optics, he might have mentioned that things used to be different, that once it was possible to buy a new scope that showed no more tunnel vision than a ghost-ring aperture. Though even two magnifications can hide acres of countryside, it was once possible to have 1x scopes that hid almost nothing at all, yet put the target and aiming means in the same focus. Add any magnification and heaps of horizon must disappear, of course – in modern scopes, roughly equal to the scope’s field of view multiplied by the power. In area terms we can lose acres and hectares. So why does that black ‘tunnel vision’ really matter? Wel...
