Is it still necessary?

[Laurent 29]

Hello everyone.
I’m planning to buy a new combo—rifle, scope, and mounts, of course.
It will be used for Field Target (FT) shooting.
I have some questions regarding magnification; I should mention that I already own scopes dedicated to the discipline.
However, given the progress made over the last decade—scopes have evolved so much—is it still necessary to have 50x60 magnification?
Many of you have surely shot with BSA or Bushnell 8-32x40 scopes with good results...
I never used that gear because I wasn't involved in the discipline—or airgun shooting in general—back then.

Would a magnification of 32x or 40x be enough to get the job done? Unfortunately, I don't have the chance to test them out; here in France, we are 30 years behind the times when it comes to airgun disciplines—with the exception of 10-meter shooting.

 

[Frog]

Many people shoot on around 30-32x although some will range at a higher mag.

I have used a BSA 8-32 and it did pretty well in terms of being 'snappy' enough to range. On one occasion I shot with some one with a decent nikko and we compared notes - we never disagreed on target range by more than 1.5m (she'd say '41m' and I'd say 'a bit over 42' or vice versa). The sentinel x popular in BR can also be a viable lower cost FT scope...

 

[Laurent 29]

I had a feeling that high-magnification scopes weren't the only ones still being used.
I’d read a few times about shooters who had, say, a 50x scope but would actually use it at 40x for better target discrimination...