[Dave Holl]

With optics you always get what you pay for. Most of us usually compromise due to budget issues.

So, I'm looking for that compromise, not the cheapest or the best, for the money.

Its use will include spotting groundhogs at 400yds, spotting elk on that far hillside, and sitting on a tripod in the fireplace room looking out the window.

What brand? What magnification? Angle eyepiece, or straight?

Thanks in advance for your advice.

Dave

[cremley]

400yds is a pretty good distance. I own a barska and I will recommend against that one for the range you are looking at. I can see 100yds with decent clarity but not much past that. What I will recommend is that you want as much eye relief as you can get. My barska has almost no eye relief and it makes it very hard to see anything without your eye pressed up against it, which moves and shakes the spotting scope. I would suggest going to a gun store that has spotting scopes and looking through all of them in all price ranges to see what you are after. My eye piece is straight which works well on a bench but I might want a tilted eye piece. I guess it depends on the height of the stand. and how you like to look through it.

[nra_guns_winner]

Sounds like you need one with a range finder built in. I'd go for the most expensive one you can afford to loose down that mountain side.

[Purdy]

You don't "always get what you pay for" but you you always have to pay for what you get

I have a Meopta spotting scope with a fixed 20X eye piece and also a 10-60X eyepiece. It is very good but the best I have ever looked through was Kowa, it was phenominal.