Thinking back when I took this ragged horn sika I remember how dark it was and how I could no longer see the cross hair on the animal but could make out the vertical and horizontal lines outside of his body and used them to put the aim point on the vital area. My aim was true and the 475 did the rest.. Have any of you guys been in a similar situation where it was to dark to make the reticle but you still made your shot???

Hmm. Over the years not really. I was always afraid of wounding an animal. Most of my hunting has been in the New England area where shots are hard to come by. So you want to make sure of what you are shooting at.

Just my experience.

Once when I was hunting black bear in MN, a bear came in right at last legal light. Although it was dark in the timber, there was a little light in the sky. I had to look at the sky to find my crosshairs, and bring scope back down to the bear. It worked.

I missed a buck with my CVA Optima bp like that on opening day of black powder last season. Shot over him. Clean miss.

I haven't found myself in that position. Usually the thought of screwing it up and having to track an animal half the night is enough to dissuade me. This is the reason I stick to high end glass. The first and last 15 min of each day are quite a bit brighter through it. There was one time I nearly had to pass on a nice 10pt buck because he was down below/against the trees at the end of the day and I couldn't see him through the reddot sight. Then a doe came by and he walked out into the middle of the field and had much better contrast against the trees behind him and gave me a shot. If I had been using one of my leupold scopes, it would never have been a problem.

Edit. I've taken to rifle scopes with illuminated cross hairs when possible for this reason too. I am also very particular about maximizing contrast with my target color and configuration when shooting paper.

A black hog earlier this year at 171 yards.
If it wasn't for the white rock gravel road he was on it would have been impossible. XP-100 in 6.5 PRC
It was dark-thirty, and even with a good riflescope it was difficult

Not exactly, but on the last day of deer season last year I saw a nice buck right at dark perfectly silhouetted against the red sky. He was standing still on a ridge about 200 yards away and I had a scoped FA 454 rested on my stand. I looked at him through the scope, but couldn't pull the trigger because if I missed, the bullet would go over the ridge and end up who knows where. Maybe he'll show up again this year.

Not with a handgun, but several times with a rifle. I?m in Texas, so I kill lots of hogs. I usually hunt until black dark because even if I wouldn?t try a shot on a deer in that last ten minutes, I will shoot a hog any way I can. We are overrun with them and lots of times they will venture out in the very last light. A black hog and crosshairs make for a difficult shot, but with good glass I make it count more often than not. When it?s not deer season, I have an AR with an NV scope that eliminates that problem.

In over 35 years of handgun hunting I had this happen twice. Once with a whitetail and the sika above. When you use handgun scopes as long as I you get to really know them. I would not recommend this practice to someone new to handgun hunting...But don`t fret all you ethical shooters because I found a old/new stock Burris 2-7X E-Dot scope , in my gun shop, that has a tiny red dot in the center of the crosshair so I don`t have to worry about a low light ethical shot to the vitals anymore..

Good looking animal!

I?ve done that before as well. Good shooting!

I?ve noticed that my Burris and Weaver scopes don?t handle low light as well as Leupold.

I would agree with that

👍🏻

A number of years back I tested different make binoculars to see how they would perform at low light... My target was a standard red stop sign about 300yds away. I used Zeiss, Bushnell, Swavrowski and one other brand I can`t quite remember. I can say that as the sunlight decreased the quality of the better made binocular`s increased. I could see the red sign better in low light using the Zeiss and Swavrowsk as compared to the other makes... The Leupold and Burris (in that order) LER scopes have given me the best performance at low light...

You pay a premium for the first and last 15 min of shooting light. In the middle of the day, there's not as much difference.

We are quickly running out of pistol scopes in the marketplace. I, for one, am hesitant to buy used off of eBay. Leupold, Burris, and who else is still making handgun scopes ?

If you buy a used Leupold, and it is bad, they will fix or replace it

I missed an opportunity at the biggest whitetail I've seen hunting with irons in a popup blind. He strolled by in the predawn darkness at 20 yards. I couldn't see my sights so had to just let him go. Most memorable hunt of my life and the most miserable. I ended setting on a very uncomfortable chair all day without food or water hoping he'd return. Never seen him again.

that hurts....

i've had both good and bad with that tactic. from what i could tell the bad was a clean miss. the good has been dead critters just as if you were shooting them with good light. most of the time i was shooting back in the timber, where shooting in the open i would have been fine

Like DryCreek, I'm in Texas and we kill hogs however we can - as long as we're sure of the backstop. For other game, I'll skip it if I can't see well enough. As y'all said, an illuminated reticle pretty much solves this problem.