# Using lit reticles for night hunting ??



## gunattic (Jan 9, 2005)

I've wondered about using lit reticles for night hunting.. Is that clear in the nd regs? the following is from the regulations: Use of night vision equipment or electronically enhanced light gathering optics for locating or hunting game is prohibited.

Wouldn't the lit reticle be considered "electronically enhanced" and aren't scopes "light gathering optics". Does anyone know for sure about the lit reticles?


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## Springer (Dec 21, 2004)

I would Email the NDGF, I usually get a response within 2 hours, Provided that it is M-F.


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## Gohon (Feb 14, 2005)

I don't think you're going to be able to see anything. All you will see is a big round black sight picture with red cross hairs. If your using a bright light of some kind the regular black cross hairs will stand out better. Now early morning and late evening in fading light it is a different story.


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## gunattic (Jan 9, 2005)

gohon, I beg to differ.. on a good moonlit night, at least when there was snow on the ground I checked the vis of my lit reticle scope.. it's very do-able. I was surprised at how well I could distiguish smaller objects even out to near 100yds. Just a fair to good scope with a 50 or 56mm objective will really brighten things up.


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## Gohon (Feb 14, 2005)

gunattic, are you talking about a scope with lighted reticles as indicated in your original post or do you mean a night scope which is a totally different thing. I've got a scope with the red lit reticles and you can't see a thing at night through it without another source of light. On the other had I have a set of Generation one night binoculars that work pretty good at night.


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## People (Jan 17, 2005)

On one of my regular scopes with the recital set to its lowest setting on a good bright night it would be pretty easy to take several hundred yard shots. Change it to its brightest setting and you cannot see any thing at all except red. Now if we had the 7B and a IR laser well then we can really make that distance grow.


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## gunattic (Jan 9, 2005)

Gohon said:


> gunattic, are you talking about a scope with lighted reticles as indicated in your original post or do you mean a night scope which is a totally different thing. I've got a scope with the red lit reticles and you can't see a thing at night through it without another source of light. On the other had I have a set of Generation one night binoculars that work pretty good at night.


Gohon, I'm talking about a regular scope with a lit reticle.. well, in my case it's lit dots, and at night, especially on a full moon lit night it's very easy to see/spot objects and it would be very easy to hunt varmints or fox or coyotes at night with it. I don't know what you have for a scope but it must be waaaay different from the ones I have.


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## Gohon (Feb 14, 2005)

Well............... unless a varmint was sitting on a hill with the full moon directly behind him I don't see how. I can't see anything through any of my scopes at night without a light source worth a damn, full moon or not. What model and brand of scope do you have that gathers all this light at night and makes hunting with them so easy????


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## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

Gohon, up here with a foot of snow and full moon nearly any scope will let you pull off a shot to 100 yards. I have shot at night and the crosshairs show good against the snow. You can't see it on the animal, but you can estimate where the crosshairs intersect. Sometimes the animal you are shooting at looks like a black silhouette.
I talked with the local warden, and he said you could not have any artificial light in the field. I was asking about a red dot sight.


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## Gohon (Feb 14, 2005)

> I have shot at night and the crosshairs show good against the snow


Now that I can understand. Where I live if you look through a scope at night all you see is black.


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## gunattic (Jan 9, 2005)

Plainsman wrote:


> .... I have shot at night and the crosshairs show good against the snow. You can't see it on the animal, but you can estimate where the crosshairs intersect.....


and make that a lit dot or reticle and that guess/estimate work is gone.
btw, I have several lit reticles.. but one of my best ones is the mueller with the dot. The scopes nowadays are a far cry from the old weaver 4x's that's for sure. 'course the old steel k's and t's were/are good scopes.


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## Aussie (May 22, 2005)

I was in the Canadian Maritimes last Febuary and couldn't believe how much light there was on a moonlit night.Turn IR and magnification down to lowest setting.You'll put venision on the table or antlers on the wall.

About half my hunting is done of a night spotlighting ferals and culling Kangaroos.

James


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