I was at a family reunion last weekend and I had the opportunity to chat with my cousins about hunting and the outdoors in general. Many stories were shared and we discussed some of our experiences that ended up as follies.

Rifles scopes eventually became the focus as one after another of us related the poor experiences we have had with inferior scopes, inferior mounts and inferior matches with our firearms.

The end result in most stories was that a good buck escaped a hunter because of faulty equipment, a poorly executed shot or both.

The following items must match up for the perfect shot when the opportunity presents itself: a proper firearm, good optics or sights, well-matched ammunition and the hunter's marksmanship skills.

As you can see, plenty can go wrong in the brief window of opportunity that is called the perfect shot offering. That's why the hunter must do all that can be done to eliminate problem areas.

In most situations, you have a great deal of control over many of these elements and are prepared when the opportunity for the perfect shot comes your way.

As I was discussing earlier, the subject of follies came up and one of the biggest culprits was poor optics. Many stories found poor scope qualities and letdowns in the field to blame.

A wise friend once told me that you will never regret investing in a quality scope and no one ever complained that they saw their target too clearly.

I took that advice to heart and always have invested in the best scope I could afford. Scopes can run from anywhere from $50 to thousands of dollars and many fall into the $150-to-$450 range.

The good news is that a quality scope is a lifetime investment and many quality scopes have that kind of warranty. If you can have one fine rifle and scope, your chances for the perfect shot would be much greater.

If I was to go scope shopping right now, the basics that I would look for would be these:

•I would select my favorite rifle caliber in the action I am most comfortable in shooting accurately. Don't choose too much gun or too little.

• I would select a solid mounting system for the scope, which includes both a base and rings. The mounts would be matched to the rifle in both a low-, medium- or high-base setting determined by the size of the scope.

For example a 2x7x33mm wouldn't require the barrel clearance of a 4x14x55mm scope — in this case size matters.

Most hunters stay in the middle ground with a 3x9x40 variable scope with a medium-height base mount and usually utilize 1-inch rings to secure the scope to the base on the rifle.

This connection must be rock solid and some shooters tighten the set screws with Loctite. Loose screws will throw your shots off and drive you crazy at the target range.

Some inferior scopes have been known to fog up, have crosshairs that move or even fail to stay sighted in from shot to shot due to the recoil of the rifle.

Cousin Ken told us of a rifle scope that he bought from overseas that he had a great deal of trouble sighting in. He ran out of shells before he figured out the problem: right meant left and up meant down — yes, all the adjustments for the scope were pointed in the opposite direction of the adjustment arrows.

• One other bit of advice is to stick to one model of scope if you have many different firearms to choose from when hunting.

Over the years I have hunted with many different caliber deer rifles, but I always topped them with the same quality American-made scope. A clear sight picture, consistency once sighted in and ready for action in the harshest climates have made a believer out of me.

If that chance of a lifetime comes my way, I don't want to be telling the cousins about how I wished I had a better scope on my rifle.

So that's the scoop on rifle scopes, look over your equipment now and have one of the competent Butler County gun shops help you pick out the right outfit.