The Omega BDC 250 is easy to use and eliminates the guesswork of where to hold on game at long distances. |
By Dave Henderson
A poet once noted that dusk creeps upon us on little cat feet. But tonight it's loping in, bringing with it the curtain of darkness that signals the end of another hunting day.
Confident of its cover, a handsome, wide-racked 8-point buck is following the curtain into the greenfield. I confirm the deer's size and progress through the lenses of my binocular.
When he reaches a spot that I estimate to be about 80 yards distant, I place the shotgun scope's crosshairs on his chest and press the trigger.
The buck whirls at the shot and makes an obviously quite healthy sprint across the food plot and out of sight.
I had a steady rest, a good sight picture and a perfect trigger squeeze. How could I have missed?
Pacing off the yardage from my stand to where the buck was standing gives a depressing answer. He was more than 120 yards away instead of 80.
Living in an area where muzzleloaders and shotguns are mandated for deer hunting, I've spent the better part of my adult life relying on similar yardage "guesstimates" and rainbow trajectories in the field.
Granted, over the last couple of decades, the effective range of muzzleloaders and slug-shooting shotguns has lengthened considerably, which has prompted longer shot attempts. In my case, the result has been shooting over and under far more animals than I care to remember.
Knowing the exact yardage to the target is, after all, essential in a game with fast-decelerating ordnance and parabolic trajectory. That's why today, a laser range-finder is a constant companion on all my hunting trips.
A scope that could translate that distance into the proper place to aim would be a major problem solver.
I know, however, that there are hunters who still think that mounting a range-finding scope on a muzzleloader or shotgun makes about as much sense as putting racing tires on a school bus. And you would have a point if you're still launching patched round balls with blackpowder or rifled slugs out of a smoothbore shotgun.
This group was shot at 100 yards using the 100- to 300-yard aiming circles of the Omega scope. The offline shots were a flyer and a sighting shot. |
But if you've recently wandered into the 21st century, where saboted 2,000-fps bullets make 200-yard-and-farther shots a possibility, you're likely more open to the idea of range-finding optics. Actually, range-finding equipment is far more critical to success with short range ordnance. Bullet drop is more pronounced with muzzleloaders than with centerfires at moderate ranges.
Understand that this comes from a guy who was hunting with shotgun slugs in the days when hitting a 5-gallon can three shots out of five at 50 yards qualified you as an "expert." Muzzleloaders in those days were pretty much limited to short-range hunting, since a .50-caliber ball only carried about 300 foot-pounds of energy by the time it traveled 100 yards.
But even when you know the exact range, knowing how much to elevate the sights is problematical.
Over the years, I've tried a wide variety of range-finding scopes on shotguns and muzzleloaders. Most of those optics required a modicum of adjustment time, an extra hand and far nimbler mind than mine to use effectively. And all were built with long-range riflery in mind.
It's safe to say that none of those scopes' designers envisioned the special needs of muzzleloaders or shotguns, where "long range" is situated at the starting point for prairie riflemen.
Wait a minute. More than 40 percent of today's whitetail hunters use shotguns and muzzleloaders. That's a market share that deserves to be catered to.
Nikon got the message and responded with the new Omega range-finding muzzleloader scope and its BDC (bullet drop compensating) 250 reticle this year. Paired with a laser range-finder to give you the exact yardage to a target, the Omega gives you a dead-on hold out to 250 yards.
The fact that the eye relief is a generous 5 inches throughout the magnification range and the scope is parallax-free at 100 yards rather than the normal centerfire 150 also shows that the scope is made with the muzzleloader and shotgun hunter in mind.
The BDC reticle is available in Nikon's Monarch, Buckmasters, ProStaff, Team Realtree and Omega Muzzleloading line of scopes. |
The 3-9x40mm Omega is designed to give the shooter dead-on aiming for an inline muzzleloader loaded with 250-grain bullets over 150 grains of Pyrodex. (Research was done with a Thompson/Center Omega 28-inch barrel, hence the namesake.) The unique BDC 250 reticle features aiming circles - actually hollow mil-dots that allow a view of a target that might otherwise be obscured by a solid dot - situated below the intersection of the crosshairs. The five circles are meant to be placed on targets at 100, 150, 200, 225 and 250 yards.
The BDC 250 reticle is unique among muzzleloading scopes, the numerical designation pertaining to the maximum-distance sighting dot. Nikon has also just introduced a scope with a BDC reticle for centerfire rifles. The scope allows for dead-on holds out to
600 yards.
The BDC 250 is capable of a pretty fine hold, as at 9-power, the interior diameter of the circles subtends 1.5 inches at 100 yards. The heavy-barred extremes of the crosshairs cover 2-inch diameters at the same setting, and the central length (inside the heavy extremes) of the lateral crosshair corresponds to a 54-inch width, giving the user a horizontal measuring reference.
Granted, the aiming/ranging system is very narrow in its precise use. There is, after all, a significant velocity difference - and therefore point-of-impact difference - between using Pyrodex pellets and granulated Pyrodex, and another difference if you're using Hodgdon Triple-7, American Pioneer or some other powder. There's also some variation between the ballistic coefficients and trajectories of various bullets or slugs.
But the "150 grains of Pyrodex and 250-grain bullet in a 28-inch barrel" is a base line designed to give the shooter something to work from. With surprisingly little range work, the differences between loads can all be worked out, and your particular load or slug can be fitted to the system.
For instance, I already knew where my Thompson/Center Encore .50-caliber muzzleloader and its pet load of 130 grains of American Pioneer powder and a Hornady 250-grain bullet and T-N-T sabot would shoot, and it took me just eight shots to adapt the BDC 250 reticle system to be spot-on at 75, 125, 175 and 200 yards.
The BDC reticle is very easy to use. The centerfire version of the reticle (right) has a crosswire and circles that correspond with 100- to 500-yard distances for standard cartridges (average muzzle velocity of 2,800 feet per second) and 200 to 600 yards for magnum rounds (3,000 fps or greater). The Omega scope reticle (not shown) is for shooting at 100, 150, 200, 225 and 250 yards. |
I also found that comparing the described load's muzzle velocity and bullet weight with high-velocity shotgun slugs puts you right in the same ballpark in terms of the aiming circles. Shotgun barrels, being lighter, thinner-walled and a fitting looser in the receivers precludes them from matching muzzleloader accuracy at extended ranges, despite similar ballistics. So for slug-shooting, I zeroed the center crosshairs at 50 yards for conventional-velocity (1,400-1,600 fps) slugs and 75 yards for high-velocity (1,700-2,000 fps) slugs. I found that the aiming circles were roughly accurate in 25-yard increments.
It took even fewer shots to adapt the system to my 20-gauge Remington 11-87 Sportsman slug gun and 265-grain, 1,900-fps Remington Core-Lokt Ultra slugs to shoot roughly the same yardages.
The "waterproof" claim was tested immediately with an hour-long bath in a 5-gallon bucket. The Omega passed the test, and it also handled an overnight session in the freezer without fogging - and with no discernible ill effects in performance.
Durability - actually, survivability - was tested by strapping the Omega on "Buster," a scope-eating H&R 980 slug gun. The scope performed well through shooting 50 rounds of 3-inch Winchester Partition Gold slugs, the hardest-recoiling slugs on the market. After the session, the scope shot the requisite "box" and maintained its 1/4-MOA adjustments.
The Omega is parallax-free at 100 yards, which works well for longer-barreled muzzleloaders, but can be considered a stretch for shotgun slugs. The difference, however, is negligible at the relatively short ranges in which a hunter uses those guns.
The bottom line is that the Omega will help you to make dead-on holds on game at distances in which guesstimates were formerly the rule.
Dave Henderson
GunHunter Magazine - October 2006
Nikon Omega BDC 250 Specifications
Type: Range-finding variable riflescope
Magnification: 3-9x
Max. Internal Adjustment: 60 MOA
Adj. Graduation: 1/4 MOA
Objective Lens: 40mm
Parallax Setting: 100 yards
Eye Relief: 5 inches throughout magnification range
Exit Pupil: 4.4mm
Field of View at 100 Yards: 25.2-8.4
Finish: luster, matte, silver, Realtree Hardwoods HD
Dimensions: Tube diameter, 1 inch Length: 11.3 inch, Weight: 13.7 ounce
Lens Coatings: Multicoated
Light Transmission: 92 percent
MSRP: $349-$369
Website: www.nikonsportoptics.com