Kowa82mm Angled Spotting Scope TSN-82SV - Body Only

I've owned 3 other spotting scopes in my life, 1 TASCO and 2 Bushnells. The Bushnell Spacemaster is a great scope for the money and unless you are punch paper or banging steel at 1000yds, probably all you need. I've demoed Sightron, Alpen, Bushnell in the five hundred dollar range. They all were no better and sometimes worse than the Bushy Spacemaster. This model Kowa with it's 80+mm objective has been around for a long time. Over time there has been changes to the body material and substitution of supposedly better glass with better coatings but basically the design has been unchanged for 20+ years. I paired this scope body with the 25X long eye relief eye piece. Took it to the 1000yd range today and had it up and running by 9am. There was a very light mirage and temps were in the upper 50's low 60's with a light wind. I focused on the silhouette at 1000yds and was blown away by the image. It was so much clearer, crisper and brighter than any other scope I had tried before. And the kicker is the long eye relief. The spec says 32mm and maybe that is true to get the full field of view but all I wanted to see was the target and I was easily twice the stated eye relief away from the eye piece. Truly amazing and that is what sold me on this scope. I had looked thru a friends 20 year old model at 100yds and was doing the same double eye relief looking at 30cal bullet holes. Now I know why this scope (design) has been in continuous production for so long. Highly recommended if you have an application for it. It ain't cheap but as I am learning in my old age, buy once and cry once. It ain't gonna get any cheaper.

If anything goes wrong with your Kowa scope or eyepiece you will get no help from Kowa in fixing it. I have repeatedly contacted Kowa about replacement of a lost eye cup and have not been able to get a reply, much less help with the problem.

I have an older tsn820 with 27x and 20-60 variable eyepieces, all worked flawlessly for years. The paint on scope has gotten sticky , they tell me has to go back to Japan and will take 6-8 months to get repainted. Variable eyepiece clearest at lower powers, nearer 60x not so much. Still, I like this scope.

I can't afford the $2,000.00 - $3,000.00 range scope, but between the scope body and the eyepiece, which needs to be purchased separately, I have just over $1,000.00 invested. Very nice glass for the money. Needs a sturdy platform (tripod). Crisp sharp image all the way through the zoom range (20-60 power). I experienced some tunnel vision effect at the higher power, about 50 to 60 range. I'm going to try the LER eyepiece as well, to have an option for those long days of scouting and glassing.Update 11/27/2016: Finished my AZ Whitetail deer hunt, and the scope was amazing. Crystal clear images. A friend of mine has the Vortex Viper, 85mm. We set the scopes up side by side and he was very impressed with this scope. I looked through both and after we compared the scopes we agreed the KowaTSN-82-SV has a sharper/crisper view than the Vortex Viper. Vortex is a very good scope as well, I own a pair of Vortex binoculars. If you are considering purchasing a spotting scope, you can't go wrong with the Kowa TSN-82SV. If you are considering a Vortex spotting scope I would recommend spending the extra money and give the Vortex Razor HD a look. I'm a firm believer in putting my money into good quality glass, be it binoculars, spotting scopes, or rifle scopes. Good luck.

Awesome and durable scope. The environment I use this in is wet at times, hot, bumpy, dusty, etc and this scope takes it no prob.

This is one nice piece of equipment. I have had others that were (I thought) was great scopes, but this one is really great.

Very good quality. I like the versitality and the ability to digiscope with it.

Good