Scope ideas - under £1k

+1 For Sightron, I have 2 both 8-32×56 LRMOA 1 on a 260 and another on a 17 rem. Really good scope and tacking is good get me on the gong at 1000 ok and vermin at just over 1/2 the distance. And an added bonus is they are the best I've looked through when using an Archer.
 
Buy second hand you'll get more for your money and wont need to buy twice in the future.
I picked up a Meopta ZD 6-24X56RD for £850 last year. Its superb!
Brighter than my mates Swarovski EL 10x42 binos at dusk.
83 Minutes of adjustment.
If you can find one of these scopes I'd thoroughly recommend them.
On my Tikka .260 I can get out to 900 yards zeroed at 150 yards on a 0 moa rail. Iv'e wound down the turret to see whats left, and there's around 48moa going to waste, 900 yards is more than enough for me at the mo, but I could easily put a 40moa rail or uni mount to utilize this extra elevation should I need to in the future.
Cheers, hope you find what your looking for.
 
Hi all,


I have been watching this thread with great interest and there are some really viable options that have come out of it. Really helpful and thank you for all those suggestions. For anyone interested, I’ve added my thoughts below on the ideas mentioned. Perhaps the biggest surprise was the lack of any Nightforce suggestions which seem so prevalent on some other forums.


Also a great surprise and very interesting that the Deltas have ended up being so popular! As I understand it, they are made by the same factory as Bushnell and seem to get rave reviews wherever I look. If it had 20MOA more elevation adjustment, I’d be buying one tonight.


The Sightrons do tick every box even though I’ve always found the illumination knob placement a bit odd and can’t imagine “loving” one in the same way I look at some of my kit. That said, a scope is there to do a job.


Leupold a serious contender and ticks all the boxes - just found this one which I need to compare to the VX3 as not completely au fait with Leupolds.
https://www.leupold.com/scopes/rifle-scopes/mark-4-er-t-4-5-14x50mm


Meopta looks really interesting. There is a lot of conflicting data about the Meostar R2 2.5-15x56 version’s elevation adjustment range which I need to research further but at the moment, I think that it’s only 60 MOA whereas the lower mag R2s are much higher (which makes little sense to me)!


Burris - can’t get on with any of the illuminated reticles.


Bushnell LRHS 3-12x44 FFP - don’t think that I could get on with the reticle.


Trijicon is too limited in its elevation adjustment.


Optics Warehouse’s Zenith - fantastic scope for someone but sadly too low a mag for me:
https://www.opticswarehouse.co.uk/p...nder-zenith-2-5-10x56-illuminated-fd4-303038/


Steiner Rangers are cracking for the money. Used a friend’s the other day and was seriously impressed. The downside is that they don’t offer enough elevation adjustment for my purposes.


Falcon interesting but I’d rather have a larger objective lens if possible. Hadn’t really come across them before this though.


Thanks again for everyone’s help. Any more suggestions based on the original brief are most welcome.


All best,


Z.
 
I think that it’s only 60 MOA whereas the lower mag R2s are much higher (which makes little sense to me)!

From what I read about the Swarovski X5 is that as you get higher in the mag range and the extremes of the adjustment you lose image quality. For a company who puts image quality as a top priority they would rather sacrifice some elevation rather than have more elevation but have a degraded image at the top end of the mag/elevation range.

With cheaper scopes it's all about the stats (bigger tubes, higher mag range, more elevation) but often at the sacrifice of quality. I had a vortex that went up to x24 but never actually used it over x18 as the image quality worsened so much the extra mag was useless and the eye relief so fussy it was virtually impossible to get a sight picture. I now have a Delta 4.5-30 and at x30 I get a better quality image and much better eye relief at x30 than I did with the Vortex at x18.

This is where reading real user reviews (Richard Utting does very comprehensive ones) is better than just basing decisions on the stats the company provide. No point choosing a scope that has an extra 10moa of adjustment if you can't effectively use it as the image is affected or the accuracy of the adjustment is compromised at the extremes of the range.

Also to add I had a 3-12×50 Zeiss and a 2.5-15×56 Delta at the same time on the range doing load development on different rifles. Although the Delta had an extra 3x mag the crosshair on the Zeiss was thinner so I actually found aiming at a smaller target point easier with the Zeiss than the Delta. The quality of the image was no different between the scopes but it was the crosshair that dictated how accurate my aiming point was not the difference in max mag. Again an example of how the "stats" don't add up in real life so either try before you buy or spend as much time as possible reading and watching reviews.
 
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As nun_hunter says, you cannot just go by the ingredients on the box; you have to taste it.

It seems you are trying to make one scope do too many jobs, which means compromises (plural).

Are you really going to use an illuminated reticle at long range? If not buy a second scope with the perfect illuminated reticle for dim light close in, or running boar, etc.

You might look at something like the Redfield TAC MOA, which has Illuminator glass and Mil dot or G2 type reticle with low MOA turrets. Scope is built in Oregon, by Leupold. It's actual adjustment is 72 MOA, more than what is listed on the specification.
 
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