Choosing a Rifle Scope
A rifle without a scope is just a long pistol. Look, I’m tired at the moment and that’s about a profound as it’s going to get. While you’ll probably never see that phrase on a motivational poster, it’s arguably accurate. While there are some people that can shoot amazing distances with a pistol and some people regularly shoot rifles out to 1,000 yards with no scope, those of us who are human have a limit to how far we can shoot with iron sights. A scope, in this case, makes all the difference in the world.
As with all things in retail, there are choices to be made. This is, again, one of those situation where you do get what you pay for. As the price goes up, the quality scales as well. With just a bit of fiddling at a store, it’s hard to imagine a $1000 scope being much better than a $100 option but once you get into the field, the difference is monumental. It ultimately comes down to 2 things: optic quality and durability.
If you look at how optical lenses are made, you’ll see that it’s a surprisingly manual and extensive process. It’s safe to say that if they’re making lenses for a $100 device, they may cut a few corners. Perhaps the glass won’t be as high of a quality or they’ll lower the standards during polishing. When you’re in bright sunlight at 100 yards or more, those corners will show themselves. First off, the distortion will be worse. It’ll be very hard to make out details. Think of it like the resolution of a camera. You’ll be able to see more detail, zoom and work more with a 12 megapixel image as opposed to a 1 megapixel photo.
The durability part comes down to the build quality. The firing of any gun produces a very violent set of actions on the gun itself and you want something that can stand up to it. A cheaper scope can be shaken apart, depending on the caliber. There’s also the case of the crosshairs inside. When you have that gun zeroed out, the recoil of a rifle can actually knock the crosshairs out of alignment. You’ll hear reviewers and such referring to a scope “holding zero” sometimes. That’s what they’re talking about here and it’s a pretty important thing. You don’t want to waste ammo realigning your sights every 10 shots, do you?
To be honest, if you’re only ever going to be shooting at 100-200 yards, the optical quality isn’t the biggest deal in the world. The durability is more important for about 90% of the things people will be using a rifle for. Those people who shoot long range competitions and such will benefit from the higher quality optics than your hobbyist hunters will. That being said, there will come a point of diminishing returns on the price.
The average rule of thumb is that you want to spend at least have of the cost of a rifle towards buying a scope. That means if you bought a $750 rifle, for example, you’d want to put at least a $375 scope on it. It’s not a perfect rule, mind you, but it puts you in ballpark quality to match your rifle’s quality. Unless you’re really going to be doing some high-end stuff with your rifle, I would go much above the $800 range. That’s just me though. If you’ve got the money and you want to spend it, go right ahead. Keep in mind, this is a bare minimum to spend on the scope. There are some that say you should spend the same amount and a few that will say you should spend more. Like I said before, however, it’s a ballpark rule of thumb for price vs quality.
Before we go further, let’s talk about the terms and parts with a scope. One of the main words you’ll hear is the “objective” of the scope. This is just a fancy word that means “the big part of the scope that points at the target”. It’s where the light comes in. You have the crosshairs which are the bars inside of the scope that you use to actually point the rifle at your target. Then there are the turrets. These are where you adjust the crosshairs so that it lines up with the path the rifle shoots (the process being called “zeroing”). There are some other items you’ll find on occasion like flip up caps for protecting the lenses, parallax levers for dealing with parallax (that’s another article) and other “nice to have but not entirely necessary, depending” type of things.
When you see a scope being described on a box or label, you’ll see it expressed like so: 6-24×50 or 3-9×25 or 4×32. Ultimately it’s [Number]x[Number] or [Number]-[Number]x[Number]. You can relax, thought, because that’s not implying complex algebraic equations. The first number or set of numbers before the “x” is telling you how much it will magnify. So that 4×32 scope, for example, will magnify the target 4 times which means it will appear 4 times closer than it actually is. A target at 40 feet would appear to be 10 feet away. If there’s a range (like the 6-24 or 3-9), that means it’s a variable zoom and you can change the magnification anywhere between the first and second numbers. The second number (the one after the “x”) is the size of the objective in millimeters. So in our first example, the 6-24×50, it would be a scope that will give you magnification between 6 and 24 times and the objective of 50mm across.
So what should you look for? That’s not the right question. The first question you should be asking is “what are you planning on using it for?” You see, there really aren’t any “one size fits all” solutions for scopes. Each one is going to have a different purpose. While any scope can technically be used for any purpose, you’ll get better performance in the end using a scope meant for its intended purpose. So if you’re only ever planning on punching holes in paper at a range, a hunting scope isn’t going to be the best option. At the same time, I don’t know if I would use a tactical scope while deer hunting.
This all leads me to another rule of thumb: you want simple in the field and complex in a range. Believe it or not, if you plan on using it for hunting then you can go with a pretty simple scope. A standard crosshair is more than acceptable. You don’t want huge, exposed turrets because they can be snagged and damaged by trees and bushes as you move through the wilderness. That can either screw up your zeroing or even damage the scope altogether. At the same time, if you’re looking for those 1000+ yard shots, having a scope with big, sub-sub-sub MOA adjustment turrets and a reticle with bullet drop calculations and such built in is where you would want to go.
I should note that tactical scopes are a whole different beast and that would warrant a different article.
There is one last thing I need to mention and it’s by far the most important aspect of buying a scope: the mounts. You don’t want to duct tape your scope to your rifle. Skimping on the mounts is the equivalent of that. Let me put it another way, let’s say you bought a Ferrari 458 Italia. This is one of the finest cars on the road and, not only a showcase in engineering excellence but it can be argued that it’s also a work of pure art. Upon getting your 458 home, you immediately swap out the tires and wheels with a bunch of cheap, re-treaded spare tires you bought from Crazy Dave’s Discount Tire Hut and took it out to the race track. How well do you think that car would perform on those skinny, cheap tires? With the power and such of the 458, I would give it until maybe the third turn before those tires disintegrated and potentially wrecked the car.
The scope mounts are the same thing. Do not put a Ferrari on your rifle then put el-cheapo tires on it. The scope mounts will make sure that your scope stays in place when you shoot and this will ultimately help your accuracy. I actually saw, on a message board I frequent, someone that had a $1500 scope on his awesome rifle then had $15 scope mounts he bought from WalMart. They broke after a couple hours of shooting and that $1500 scope was destroyed in the process. Credit where it’s due, he was brave as heck to admit it publicly. The forum ripped him to shreds. It was brutal…and funny. With that in mind, I’m going to write this in all caps and even bold it to make sure you know I’m being serious: DON’T SKIMP ON THE MOUNTS.
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