What are your do’s and don’ts when it comes to cleaning these expensive scopes. Are there any kits that you like to use?
- Less is more.
Yes, everyone wants their lenses to look like something that belongs on the cover of a photography magazine. However, it’s very easy to Over clean and do damage to your lenses.
My other favorite hobby right after hunting and shooting is astronomy, astrophotography. Talk about a hobby where just making a Mis-measurement by the width of a human hair can screw you up. Yet, despite having telescopes out under the night sky for hours upon hours, most experienced astrophotographers will tell you they don’t clean their Scopes more than once every several years unless something crazy happens.
So if you can see the reticle clearly and see your target clearly, I don’t care if they’re any splotches dust, Etc just use the scope and leave it alone.
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Prevention is better than cleaning. Be sure to buy a good scope covers or something to help keep the dust, dirt, ETC off of the scope in the first place.
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In terms of the actual protocol. When I first started hunting I was all about a lens pen. But as I learned more and more about rifle scopes, and then especially once I started with telescopes, the experts were very much against them. They work great the very first time but then will pick up dirt and Grit and likely damage the scope on the second cleaning. These days I tend to follow more of the telescope cleaning instructions which is all about moist cloths and dabbing, never rubbing.
But as mentioned above, I think it’s been years since I’ve actually cleaned one of my scopes. If I can see through them I’m leaving them alone.