Help a Noobie out

$300 tax and shipped for a hunting center fire gun. Rimfire I tend to cheap out. Long Range shooting requires different needs in a scope and those requirements cost money. You could get by with lower leupolds vx2 but $500+ gives you a lot more options
 
Spend as much as you can afford, or at least the equivalent to the cost of your rifle. Most entry level rifles these days are darn close to MOA rifles out of the box. Factory ammo has also improved exponentially from a generation ago. So, if money is tight, the smartest investment you can make is in superior glass. Buying cheap optics is false economy, especially if they cost you that trophy of a lifetime.
 
X-man said:
Spend as much as you can afford, or at least the equivalent to the cost of your rifle. Most entry level rifles these days are darn close to MOA rifles out of the box. Factory ammo has also improved exponentially from a generation ago. So, if money is tight, the smartest investment you can make is in superior glass. Buying cheap optics is false economy, especially if they cost you that trophy of a lifetime.
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True words.
 
X-man said:
Spend as much as you can afford, or at least the equivalent to the cost of your rifle.
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I used to subscribe to that same logic but it's complete BS. Does a $350 scope decrease in quality when you take it off a Savage Axis and put it onto a Cooper? Of course it doesn't. It's just as good a scope. Now, you might argue that if you can afford a $2500 rifle then you should put a higher quality scope on it but, absent an application where the scope is subjected to extremely heavy recoil, a scope that works on a budget rifle will do every bit as good a job on a top shelf rifle. The opposite holds true as well.

So, to answer the OP's question, but a good scope and you will never go wrong. The rifle may eventually go down the road, but often the scope will come off and go onto the next rifle. Any self respecting rifle looney will have scopes sitting in their safe waiting for the next vacancy. As the C.C. Filson motto says..."Might as well have the best".
 
Hunting with a 22lr or 300WM will yield different answers. At 100m on 22lr anything will do. A $100 China scope is not going to last long on a 300WM.

Many consider 300m+ long range for hunting whereas others say LR starts at 1000m+.
Wiseguym70 said:
What is the lowest you would spend on a hunting scope? And whats the lowest you would spend on a long range scope?
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the problem is with the question not the answers here.

the value of scopes do not reflect the cost of scopes. This nonsense of you get what you pay for is propaganda. Youll pay whatever a salesman can get you to pay. So the question that should have been asked is what is the most youd spend on a specific model. IE i wouldn't spend more then 3400 on a pmii.
 
Where the scope is made should be the max you are willing to pay for it despite what the manufacturer lists it for.
Made in China---under $75
South Korea---$75 to $150
Philippines---$150 to $400
Japan/USA---$400 and up
 
Prices vary year to year with exchange rates and dealer to dealer so it's hard to pin down a dollar figure. The least expensive scopes I have on hunting rifles are VX 11 and VX 2s. Even then it's sort of grudgingly, and that's on rifles that aren't getting tons of use with scopes that I ready have. I'm not running out and buying more even though I view them as the best value around for what you get for the dollar. Only thing is, I'm happier spending a few more bucks and getting a bit more. That leaves just about every hunting rifle on the rack wearing a VX3. Most of them do cost the price as a pretty decent remchester, but when I look at my Coopers that ran 2500 and 4000 plus I notice that they have the same scopes on them. I don't feel like I'm cutting corners with a VX3.

Just for the sake of clarity I use target shooting definitions for range. 0-300 is close range, 300-600 is midrange, 600-1000 long range and over 1000 extreme long range. Minimum features are adjustable parallax and repeatable turrets. The be-grudging lower limit is a VX 3 and my "happy place" is a Mark 4.
 
well, you may find a deal on a $300 scope for about $200 on the EE...but $300 gets you into the decent scope territory with the likes of Bushnell Elite 3500 series, Leupold VX-1 or Vortex Diamondback HP.

they're okay, but nothing to write home about, but for $200 - $250ish, you can get into the Redfield scopes if you don't have the capital for anything like the 3500 or VX-1 or Diamondback HP.
 
I won't own any Chinese made optics. The bottom end scope that I would hunt with would be a Bushnell 3200, that I have purchased for as low as $200. For target work, the Monarch is about my bottom end scope.
 
Mr. Friendly said:
well, you may find a deal on a $300 scope for about $200 on the EE...but $300 gets you into the decent scope territory with the likes of Bushnell Elite 3500 series, Leupold VX-1 or Vortex Diamondback HP.

they're okay, but nothing to write home about, but for $200 - $250ish, you can get into the Redfield scopes if you don't have the capital for anything like the 3500 or VX-1 or Diamondback HP.
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My redfeild was 300
 
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