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Message: <blockquote data-quote="giosblue" data-source="post: 3323891" data-attributes="member: 134930">You sound pretty much like me Roy, even though you can afford it' it's hard to justify the expense when you can get nearly as good for a lot less money. And it's hard to find somewhere fairly local where you can see a range of scopes.Further update for you, RoyIn have Decided to send the Hawke and the Kowa back.The Hawke really looked the part, but I didn't like the helical focussing and the optics were a bit below par.The reason I chose the Opticron, was not only on price, but because the Opticron with 32x fixed was equal to the Kowa ( maybe even better) when set at the same magnification. The 32x on the Opticron is a stunner and this is what I normally use on the zoom. The Opticron when using the zoom is not as good as the Kowa, but it is still very good. I've just ordered a Opticron HR66 gaed. to see is that's as good as the ES80. the reason for this is because the ES80 is quite long and I would prefer something smaller if I can still get good optical quality.So there you go, that my choice and hopefully the end of my quest for a new scope.</blockquote>