Looking at the 3-15 x 44 cds with side focus and the 2-10x42 cds.

Questions: what reticle? Duplex or wind Plex?

What are the advantages of a lighted reticle?

Thanks

This is a loaded question and I am not the expert on windage. I do have a couple Leupold scopes with their lighted reticle and I love them. In the last 15 minutes of daylight (or first) the lighted reticle helps put the scope on the exact spot you want to shoot. Many people have worse eyesight than they think they have and it makes it hard to see the cross of the scope in low light. Their reticle don't light up the sky either. I highly recommend the lighted reticle. It was a game changer for me.

I like leupolds fire dot especially when running some sort of kill light at night for pigs. Red or green light will light up a black pig but seeing the crosshairs becomes the issue there, the dot is nice to have

I have a 3-15x44 with firedot reticle...love it. Low light conditions makes a huge difference, especially against a dark background.

Love the firedot. Makes pigs in the dark easy.

Wind Plex to me is for a very nitch market. Are you going to be shooting long range and holding windage? Is the scope otherwise equipped for shooting that far with a good elevation turret? Are you going to be shooting long range at all? If so this scope may be for you. Otherwise I consider it clutter on a hunting scope.

mostly hunting, the idea with the CDS is to be more accurate at farther distances and upgrading from a few 30+ year old scopes.

Yes, the wind Plex for longer shoots. I guess I should have asked, at what distance does the wind Plex reticle give you an advantage over the duplex?

Thanks for the comments.

For hunting? I’d say 500+. For target 300+

I don't know about the fire dot, but I have the VX5-HD you mention with the CDS. I also have a VX-6 with the CDS. It works. I've tested both. Send Leupold good data and you'll be impressed with the accuracy of the dial. I posted a hunt last year, three coyotes, three different ranges over a couple of hours, dialed all three and stacked 'em up.
The clarity of these scopes in low light is impressive to say the least.

I remember coyote hunting in western Nebraska a few years ago and the wind was blowing hard. When I put the data into my app, it said i needed adjust so many clicks or 42" to the right to account for wind drift. Many basic hunting scopes don't have that much adjustment in them....It was easy to guess 42" and I dropped the coyote on the first shot. Not sure if it was luck or skill, but I know without the app to tell me the windage amount, I wouldn't have came close.

I have one scope with the wind plex, but have found it useless. Much easier to let the app tell you how many clicks or how far for "kentucky windage"

Luck.

Distance is science, wind is art.

With known holds, in Mils, based on known cross wind, guessing that cross wind, down range, is the art.

I would get the Wind Plex reticle. I have a Leupold CDS scope and I got the Duplex reticle, and I wish I would have gotten the Wind Plex.