Aussie_Vic wrote:G'day all
I've been checking out scopes for my future Lithgow LA102 or Ruger .223.
Looking for a scope to get the job done while out in the field between $300 to $700.
I have heard Leupold, Bushnell and vortex have all great scopes.
What would you guys suggest?
Cheers
It will depend on the purpose(s) you want it for.
If you plan on spotlighting you'll want better glass, otherwise, for daylight hunting, even most of the cheaper stuff works just fine these days.
For hunting you will want something lighter and smaller than you might use on a target, varmint, or vehicle rifle.
If you want to shoot paper, you'll want higher magnification, so you can aim more precisely, and so you can see your bullet holes. 18-power works for me to see .22-calibre bullet holes to 200m, 40-power is better for longer distances. 40-power can give me tighter groups at closer ranges as well, but the scopes are big, bulky, heavy, and have limited adjustment for general use. If you're primarily shooting at paper you can also go for a much finer reticle, under .25MoA thick, but such fine reticles are very difficult to pick up easily against a bush background for hunting. For hunting you need to be able to wind it down to about 4-power max. 4.5-18x40 works nicely for me for most things.
You don't want a first-focal-plane scope for any kind of precision shooting or hunting. When you're walking out you want to wind the scope right back for widest field-of-view for close-range and snap-shooting. In an FFP scope this is when the reticle is the finest, just what you don't want. Then, when you're in position or shooting longer distances you wind the scope right up. But with an FFP scope this is when its reticle is the fattest, completely obscuring your tiny target.
If you're only shooting at close ranges, say to 300m, you don't need tactical turrets as you won't need to make adjustments in the field. You might also be fine with a fixed parallax, but if you want to shoot rabbits back to 50m or closer you might prefer adjustable parallax, but you don't want an adjustable objective (AO) scope, they're very difficult to adjust from a firing position, get a side-focus adjustment.
Reticles are also greatly varied, from a simple crosshair, or a duplex crosshair (two thicknesses), or dots, circles, arrows and such. Also various hold-over marks, either bullet-drop (BDC) graduations (supposed to match a specific cartridge and load but rarely does), or standard grids. These allow you to make more precise allowances for elevation and wind, but can clutter the screen somewhat until you get used to them.
You'll also want to decide if you prefer to work in minutes (MoA) or milliradians (Mil) adjustment. Minutes are one-sixtieth of a degree, which is 29.07mm at 100m or 1.047" at 100yd (also 1-1/8" at 100m). Milliradians are one-thousandth of the distance, so 100mm at 100m. I prefer minutes, but Mil's do offer a couple of advantages at long ranges. Often MoA scopes are graduated at one-inch at 100yd, rounding off the extra twentieth of an inch, which can be annoying for some people. At 600yd you might have a calculated 20-minutes of drop ( 125.64"), but if the turrets are rounded to 1", you dial up 20-MoA (120-inches) to find your group is nearly six-inches low (you always need to measure the actual graduation of your scope regardless of what it says it is). The other advantage is the ease of calculation, although I do just fine working in minutes using 29mm at 100m. Mils are big, so you're always working in tenths. I've used Mil scopes, but don't own any.
MoA scope adjustment is generally done with sixty indents or clicks per revolution of a turret (my 4.5-18x40 scopes have seven revolutions of the elevation turret - 105MoA). With quarter-minute adjustment you get 15MoA per revolution (436mm at 100m), with eighth-minute adjustment you get 7.5MoA per revolution (218mm at 100m), I can find multiplying 7.5MoA confusing when I'm dialing large amounts. Mil scopes I think tend to have 100-clicks, in .1Mil adjustments, giving 10Mil per revolution (1000mm at 100m).