Best rifle scopes in the $200-$300 range?

Iron sights that come with the rifle ��

All joking aside. I agree with the older Bushnell models as the above have mentioned. For new it’s hard to say, without getting a use from you ? Long, mid or short range optic ? What’s it being mounted on and used for ? Hunting ? Target shooting, plinking, etc?

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The older Bushnells are fine but I think they look too old style for me. Can't beat the look and performance of the Vortex diamondback tactical 3-9 with nice 4 inch eye relief when they are on sale for $250.
 
An older Bushnell 3200 or 4200 is a far superior scope to a new Vortex diamondback, no contest.

That's why Vortex is literally overrunning Bushnell in sales.

I am talking about the Vortex diamondback tactical in 3-9x40. I have both a Bushnell 3200 older scope and a new Vortex. There is literally no comparison.

One thing to consider is also warranty:

Bushnell asked until recently for a receipt and only provided warranty to the original buyer for 2 years. They changed it now to lifetime but you still pay shipping and I believe $50 and sometimes they won't honour their commitment because it was originally sold with only the 2 year warranty as mentioned above.

Vortex pays shipping both ways and even replaces the scope if somebody buys it in 10 years down the road and damages it while tightening the scope mount.
 
I don't know why so many give Vortex a thumbs down, I've had 5 or six Vortex scopes both crossfires and Diamondbacks and never had a problem with any of them.

In fact I like them and think they are a great scope for the money.
 
I don't know why so many give Vortex a thumbs down, I've had 5 or six Vortex scopes both crossfires and Diamondbacks and never had a problem with any of them.

In fact I like them and think they are a great scope for the money.

Good on you, I tried some of them (mainly because they were cheap), all were junk. Glass was useless at anything over 12x, parallax was terrible and none of them ever tracked properly. You get what you pay for with scopes. There really are no "Good" $200-$300 scopes.
 
Good on you, I tried some of them (mainly because they were cheap), all were junk. Glass was useless at anything over 12x, parallax was terrible and none of them ever tracked properly. You get what you pay for with scopes. There really are no "Good" $200-$300 scopes.

100% agree
The company (CHINESE) came in super cheap once people drank the Koolaide (lifetime warranty) to take market share from others - they bailed nothing but junk - vendors pushed them because they stood to make more money per unit. I never had or never will buy anything Vortex
 
There is no contest between a bushnell elite product and a vortex diamondback. I don’t care if Vortex outsold bushnell 1,000,000:1. Just because people bought more doesn’t necessarily mean it’s better. Vortex sold a lot of scopes based on their lifetime warranty and you’ll probably need it with the lower end products. I’ve mounted dozens of rifle scopes and shot almost as many of them. I would always recommend a used bushnell elite for this price range!

FWIW I’m not totally against Vortex. I have their Diamondback HP 8x42 binos and IMO they’re great in that price range. My rifles wear Leupolds.
 
Good on you, I tried some of them (mainly because they were cheap), all were junk. Glass was useless at anything over 12x, parallax was terrible and none of them ever tracked properly. You get what you pay for with scopes. There really are no "Good" $200-$300 scopes.

I've gotta disagree on that one. I bought a couple of Redfields off the EE and I have a Vortex Diamondback on one of my rifles. I don't know what kind of shooting you do, but for standard hunting purposes they're all excellent glass and I've not had a problem with any of them. None of them cost me $300.
 
I've gotta disagree on that one. I bought a couple of Redfields off the EE and I have a Vortex Diamondback on one of my rifles. I don't know what kind of shooting you do, but for standard hunting purposes they're all excellent glass and I've not had a problem with any of them. None of them cost me $300.

When I read some of these comments, I also wonder what kind of shooting they do.

Unless someone is doing super high grade long distance target shooting, at some point don't the tiny, incremental differences between one scope and another just become meaningless?

It's like with computers - when they first came out, they were slow enough that I could set something to load and go make a nice ham sandwich while I waited. Then they started to speed up, and you could easily see the difference. But after a while the computers got so fast, they started to be faster than a human brain can even think. And once you're beyond that point, further increases in speed become meaningless, because we literally cannot see the difference. It makes no difference to our brain that, technically, one computer was a millionth of a second faster than another!

In the same way, I have a feeling that once you pass a certain quality threshold - which I suspect almost all mainlstream commercially available scopes today would pass - I suspect that any of the tiny incremental improvements beyond that would be unobservable to most human eyes, and take up only the smallest portion of the pie-chart of excuses for why we just missed that shot!

In other words, I think the average shooter would be hard pressed to really see the differences between your average scopes.

That's why it seems like such a credibility-killing exageration to me when someone will say something totally dismissive, like "it's total junk" . Really? Total junk? Both those scopes are probably - in the grand scheme of things - better than anything our ancestors could have hoped for. They're both more than good enough for the average shooter's needs. Sure, one might actually be a little bit better than the other, but that hardly makes the other "total junk" ! The guy who finishes fourth at the olympics may not get a medal, but he's still better than almost every other person in the world!
 
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