Driving myself crazy. I can't decide!

[FightingIrish]

I've been looking for a good scope for 200-600yd shooting, and the max I'm willing to pay right now is $550. I know they're not really comparable scopes, but the two I've been looking seriously at are the Nikon Monarch 3 4-16x50 and the Vortex Viper 6.5-20x50. Now, I fully realize this is sort of apples to oranges, given the different magnification levels and tube size, but I keep bouncing back and forth and all my searching on the net hasn't helped me all that much.

I can get the Monarch for $488 and the Viper for $549. Both are good in my opinion. Please help me!!

Irish.

 

[blauber]

I had the Viper you speak of, not a bad all round scope. The problem I had for long range hunting/target shooting was the reticle - its too thick on the standard Viper and target coverage out beyond 300 yds. is significant. If you want to do Vortex long range, I would get an HS version. I have no experience with Monarch's so can't comment there.

 

[yodave]

A thick duplex reticle is going to be your downside, a fine cross hair or target dot is going to be your friend, especially from 300 out to 600 yards. On top of that your magnification is going to be another limiting factor depending on target size, a sightron fixed 36 powder scope with a 1/8 inch target dot fits into your budget and will suit your better in the long run, A weaver T36 is going to cost a couple bucks more, You may find a 6-24 variable or 8-32 with a target dot and AO but I don't know if they will fit into your budget.

I know guys shoot out to 1000 with fixed 10 power scopes, but aiming on a B27 target is a lot easier then seeing and shooting a 1/4 MOA center score ring............

 

[FightingIrish]

I had the Viper you speak of, not a bad all round scope. The problem I had for long range hunting/target shooting was the reticle - its too thick on the standard Viper and target coverage out beyond 300 yds. is significant. If you want to do Vortex long range, I would get an HS version. I have no experience with Monarch's so can't comment there.

A thick duplex reticle is going to be your downside, a fine cross hair or target dot is going to be your friend, especially from 300 out to 600 yards. On top of that your magnification is going to be another limiting factor depending on target size, a sightron fixed 36 powder scope with a 1/8 inch target dot fits into your budget and will suit your better in the long run, A weaver T36 is going to cost a couple bucks more, You may find a 6-24 variable or 8-32 with a target dot and AO but I don't know if they will fit into your budget.

I know guys shoot out to 1000 with fixed 10 power scopes, but aiming on a B27 target is a lot easier then seeing and shooting a 1/4 MOA center score ring............

I wonder if I was looking at a different scope than I thought then... the Vortex I was looking at today had fairly fine crosshairs, I believe it was the BDC. I found it quite tolerable. Now, that was after I had looked through the Nikon BDC, which in my opinion was garbage. Way too cluttered and I did NOT like the size of the circles. If I go with Nikon, it'll be the Nikoplex, just as my other scopes are. I would go berserk if I had the Nikon BDC.

I'm gonna head into P&D tomorrow and take another look. I was close to Cabela's today so that's where I went to browse. They didn't have anything for Nikoplex and only had the display model Vortex so I'm sort of wondering if maybe it was an older model.

 

[blauber]

The Viper BDC has wire crosshairs, the higher end Vipers have etched crosshairs - so not all are the same. There will be reticle specifications - the smaller the number at maximum magnification the less target coverage and better for long range accuracy.

 

[FightingIrish]

I finally decided and I think I'll be happy with it. I went with the Vortex Viper 6.5-20x50 with some nice bulky rings. I looked at both the BDC and V-Plex reticles and actually prefer Vortex's BDC.

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