Whether you are a frequent shooter, survival expert, hunter, or weekend range visitor, choosing a rifle scope may be a complex task if you are not well educated about your options. First-time purchasers of a rifle sight will be astounded by the cost of a simple scope; strangely, the large percentage of A-grade scopes match or surpass the price of a weapon. If you want to avoid being mixed up between the greatest and worst scopes, you should first understand a bit of them. Do not be swayed by the inexpensive scope on the market since it is apparent that if it is marketed lower than average, the materials and labour utilised will also be lower than usual, resulting in a decline in quality and poor resilience. Naturally, placing inexpensive sights on your rifle will result in you hitting zero targets simply because the scope’s accuracy is uncertain.
Now that you’ve understood a few facts about rifle scopes, you may move on to the four items you must consider when purchasing one.
1. Extensification
The scope you wish to attach to your hunting rifle will be determined mostly by what you hunt and where you hunt. Back in the day, bespoke, riveted 5x or variable 4-8x scopes were commonly employed on hunting rifles. These low magnification scopes were the best for targets below 100 yards, ranging from feral pigs and deers to prairie coyotes.
2. Setting up
The scope’s construction, or ‘body,’ can have several radiuses of 11.5mm, 17mm, and 20mm, depending on the style and kind you are looking for. Choosing scopes with larger tubes allows for more inner material space, essential for long-range targeting. Furthermore, bigger mountings necessitate unique rings, which are expensive and give few options.
3. Modifications and turrets
Turrets are the devices used to perfect the reticle for accuracy. Turrets are often used to calibrate your weapon’s sight after being fitted.
- The elevating turret is located at the top of the scope. This knob may be used to adjust the perpendicular point of impact.
- The windage turret, generally located on the scope’s left, is another dial. This knob controls the lateral point of impact.
- It is impossible to overrate the value of high-quality turrets. Consider a sight that has acoustic turrets that click as you move them.
4. Lens
In layman’s terms, an objective lens is a lens at the far end of the scope responsible for distributing light. As in this situation, the argument is straightforward: the larger the lens, the more light passes through the scope, allowing for improved vision, especially in low-light conditions. The second figure to the left of ‘x’ denotes the lens strength of your rifle scope.
5. Optical Care
After firing a shot at its objective, no rifleman wants to have a damaged eye. Eye care while shooting becomes more critical in this context. So, what exactly is eye-relief? When a shooter lifts his rifle and brings it up to his eye to look through the sight, the gap between his eyeball and the glass lens is referred to as eye-relief.
Key points
- It requires expertise to recognise that not all scopes are suitable for a specific type of rifle. Instead of converting your particular rifle into a corner shop fantasy toy, you should learn how to establish your rifle to avoid it becoming an ungainly and unwieldy firearm. Avoid redoing what has already been done correctly.
- Finally, a golden rule: Invest at least 50% of your gun purchase price in optics.
