Exploring specs of a spotting scope?

I posted a very similar set of questions when I was living in Houston a few years back. I got some great input from the people here, so here's a link to their great comments.

I cannot tell you if 50mm is adequate for you, since I ended up going with an 80mm objective lens. I will say that spotting .22 inch diameter holes on paper at 300 meters is not an easy thing to do unless you have good optics and good atmospheric conditions. Using shoot n see splatter targets will make seeing those small holes much easier for sure!

I ended up with a Vortex Razor HD 80mm spotting scope that I got on sale when they changed their line over to the new style. I've added a 30X (fixed) eyepiece with an MRAD scale. That is useful for me because I enjoy shooting .308 at 600 to 1000 meters and I want my spotting scope and rifle scope to use the same units of measure. My longer range setup turns out to work very well for seeing small holes at those short and intermediate ranges....but just because I spent a chunk of money on glass doesn't mean that's the wisest choice for you. For my purposes the optics maxim of "buy once, cry once" has very definitely held true for this scope. I flinched at the cost, but the sting went away completely once I realized that I now have a spotting scope that will meet or exceed my shooting needs for the rest of my life.

As a point of reference, the first spotting scope that I tried for range use was a Konus 20-60X80mm:

I seem to remember being able to see my 7.5mm Swiss holes on shoot and see targets at 300 yards using that....but how much success I had was definitely dependent on the conditions.  With the bright colors of the shoot n see, image clarity becomes very important....as in "hmmm, is that orange-yellow blob just one bullet hole, or are there two that are sorta close together?". For my money, when it comes to seeing holes in the target magnification is nowhere near as important as the clarity of the image. My Razor HD scope with the fixed 30x eyepiece (on a good tripod) allows me to see far more than the Konus at 60X. I believe that is due to the Vortex having ED glass, as well as the overall quality of construction being much higher. 

Whether you want to get a straight or angled spotter is 100% dependent on your own ergonomics. If you have a high quality, rock solid tripod that will let you mount the scope at the same height as your head when you're shooting from the bench, then a straight scope is great! If your head will be higher than the scope when you're set up for shooting, then an angled spotter is the way to go for sure.

For what it's worth - if you've in Central Alberta, I'll happily loan you my Konus 80mm and you can see if that scope will get the job done for you. The glass is not as good as the Zeiss you have on your CZ (yes, I have rifle envy), but it may be good enough to do the job with shoot and see targets.