My answer to the often asked question “I want a good scope for $100.00, what should I get?”

I babbled on and on again. If you want to skip my rant and read a very informative article on scope basics click here:
How to Choose a Rifle Scope - Riflescope Experts Guide to Firearm Optics - Rifle Scope Selection Tips

At first I thought, an article on a vendors site, yea right. This guy covers all basics and does it well. He answers many of the questions new guys ask here all the time. The post below is just my opinion on scopes. Thanks to all of the guys that helped educate me in the last two years.

This forum was very informing to me over the last two years as I customized my 15-22 to my liking. I have read hundreds of posts here on rifle scopes. I also made a mistake in my process. Scopes remain a hot topic because of their importance, cost, variables, and wide selection. Because there are so many threads on the subject I thought I would try to summarize what I have learned from those hundreds of conversations and share my experience in the process.

First there is the cost vs. quality issue. I am not trying to fire up the whole “ChinaMart debate” but this topic is about quality. A cheap grip will not affect your accuracy, a bad scope will. I am not going to insult anyone’s choice or budget. Believe me, I know money matters. So, for this conversation I will refer to any scope $100.00 or less as a budget scope.

Budget Scopes: What I learned. There are many members of this forum that are incredibly happy with their budget scope. All of them are not bad scopes. What I gleaned from the forum is that there are often inconsistencies in the quality of the scopes, even within the same make and model. If you go this route I would immediately inspect it, zero it, and shoot with it. Keeping the vendors return policy and manufacturers warranty in mind!

With that said, two weeks after buying my 15-22 I made THE mistake. I bought a no name Chinese scope at a gun show. No return policy, no warranty, no manufacturer. My bad, if I only knew then what I know now I could have saved a hundred bucks. So I will say it before someone else does, “buy cheap, pay twice”. It was not a really bad scope, it was not a good one either. It was cool, illuminated, 3x9, tactical, etc. I had paid good money for a quality rifle; I knew I could not live with this cheap scope on my S&W masterpiece. I fell into the same thing you see here on the forum all the time, I wanted the goods, but I did not want to pay for them. I did later.

There is no way to manufacture quality glass lenses and cut corners. It is glass, and it is coated (I do know a little bit about this). Cutting cost while manufacturing glass lenses will always result in an inferior product. There is no way around that. Good glass lenses are expensive to make. A good scope is also a precision instrument. This really is a case of “you get what you pay for”.

Sorry for the long story. I thought it was important so a newbe does not make the same mistake I did. If you buy a budget scope you may be thrilled with it. Just know the RETURN POLOCY and MANUFACTURERS WARRENTY. You are asking for a lot from something that, at the least will come from cut corners and a lack of quality control.

Here is the good news. For me the answer was Nikon to the recue. The new P-22 rifle scope released this year is everything I could hope for in a scope for my 15-22, and they did it as part of their economy line. You get a very high quality optic for $150.00!

My case for the Nikon P22:
1. It is a Nikon. They stand behind their products. Lifetime warranty.
2. Even though it is an economy line it is still Nikon quality.
3. It is designed specifically for .22 rim fire tactical rifles.
4. Parallax corrected for 50 yards.
5. BDC reticle for longer ranges
6. 2x7 by 32, perfect for me
7. Focus ring for reticle. A feature often left off budget scopes but a very important feature
8. Supported by a very cool website that you customize right down to the actual ammo you’re using and your shooting conditions.
9. I now have an optic that is equal in quality to the rifle it is mounted on.
10. Most importantly, it is very bright and sharp.
11. Feature rich, I could go on but you can check it out here:

Nikon Hunting

So…In my opinion the answer to that often asked question here “I want a good scope for $100.00 what should I get?” Save up the extra $50.00 bucks and get a GREAT scope. The Nikon is worth every penny of it.

The pictures are my finished set up. With help from many guys here

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I shoot at only 25 and 100 yards, and was concerned about the error when the scope is adjusted only for 50 yards, so felt I had to spend the extra for parallax adjustment. And that meant no Nikon would work, as none of theirs are adjustable below 25 yards.

I may have been wrong, but that was my feeling. No question about the quality of Nikons, though.

Good discussion and links! I also wound up with the Nikon P-22 2 X 7 after buying a gun show piece of junk, and am very pleased with the performance. To these old eyes, the Nikon is just as bright and sharp as my Leupolds. Plus, I got lucky--found the P-22 on sale for $139, with the P-Series rings for free.

I now have the scope in NC Star MARCQ Quick Release rings so I can swap out to a red dot without removing the rear sight. (The Nikon rings are now for sale in the forum "Classifieds") POA/POI holds pretty well when I swap back to the P-22.

So this scope would be worthless under 50 yards? Whats the furthest you could use it for?

Why do you think it might be worthless under 50 yards? I shoot the P-22 a lot at 25 yards with fine results. Tiny groups if I have a good day.....

I have never shot further than 200 yards, and the Nikon's performance at that distance is much better than mine!

Nikon does make a prostaff rimfire w/ adj parallax 10yd to infinity:
Nikon ProStaff Target EFR 3-9x40 Rifle Scope FREE S&H 6734. Nikon ProStaff Mens and Womens Apparel, Nikon ProStaff Range Finders, Nikon Rifle Scopes.

A bit pricey is all..

That said, I have the 3-9x40 rimfire prostaff w/ the BDC150 reticle, zero'd for 50yd, and have no problem hitting anything from 20-120yd (the BDC reticle really is nice for the long shots). If I need to hit anything closer than 20 yd, I'll use irons or a rock heh heh.

Here's a code for $15 off $150 from optics planet (I'm not shilling, just passing it along): 8C9765D

Dave

Good to know, thanks. I had searched (I thought) every scope on Nikon's site, and never found one that was adjustable below 50 yards. Guess I was looking at the wrong series (/most/ of the Prostaff is fixed, and the Buckmasters series don't adjust below 50). Anyhow, I'll keep that in mind when looking for a second scope.

I have four M-223 Nikons as well. I like them a lot and at $240 each, they are hard to beat.. Ron

I will attempt to explain parallax. Again please correct me if I’m wrong. I am self studied in this stuff and no authority.

All scopes are parallax corrected at some given distance, except the ones with user adjustable correction on them. The majority of average power scopes are set for 100 yards because the manufacturer is assuming this is the average distance they will commonly be used at. The Nikon P-22 is specifically designed for rim fire use so it is set at 50 yards. That does not mean they don’t work at shorter or longer distances. I think of it as OPTIMAZATION. That is the distance they are set to work best at.

In a perfect line of sight this optimization would not be necessary. But on a rifle scope the position of your eyeball is the variable. No matter how hard you try you will never have it in exactly the same place every shot you take. Just because you see the cross hairs on the bulls eye does not mean you are looking at the target, through the scope, in a perfectly straight line of sight. If your eye is off line to one side or the other your shot will miss. Parallax correction does its best to compensate for this at a given distance. It is the distance where the scope designers have made it the easiest for you to see everything in a perfect line of sight. They have corrected an optical phenomena that can make it look like the bulls eye is dead in the cross hairs when in fact it’s not. Therefore, every shot closer or farther than that point will rely more heavily on your skill and experience. It does not mean the scope is useless at every other distance. Zero it, practice, and be consistent with your cheek weld and technique. Try to keep your eye in the perfect line of sight.

This is the way I understand it. I hope I’m correct. Corrections welcome, please.

Another example.. From Wiki

A simple everyday example of parallax can be seen in the dashboard of motor vehicles that use a needle-style speedometer gauge. When viewed from directly in front, the speed may show exactly 60; but when viewed from the passenger seat the needle may appear to show a slightly different speed, due to the angle of viewing.

Very well said. Thank you!

PHXSHOOTER gave a very complete explanation. The only thing I would add is that you can test a bit, and see what kind of error you might have. If you are able to position your scope on the target AND hold the rifle from moving (shooting stand or vise, something like that), then move your eye side to side and up and down. If the reticule stays put in the same place, then you have little or no parallax error. OTOH, if the crosshairs appear to move one way or the other, /that/ is the error you can have.

The error, in MOA, is larger at shorter distances than long. A scope sighted for 100 yards might have a 1.8 MOA error at 25 yards (less than 1/2"), but only a 0.3 MOA error at 200 yards (a little over 1/2"). Neither is huge, really.

Anyhow, the best (and more technical) discussion, for engineers and/or geeks like myself, that I've seen on parallax is at:

Worth Reading

I have three or four Nikon scopes on center fire rifles, several Buckmasters and a couple of Prostaffs. I've been looking for a good scope for a couple of nice 22 rifles, and was ready to pull the trigger on one of the new models when they came out, until I saw they are adjustable at 1/4" at 50 yards - that is actually 1/2 moa at 100 yards, the standard range for moa determination. That is too course an adjustment to suit me, especially since I do a lot of shooting at longer ranges, and am an accuracy fiend. That was very disappointing, as I knew the scope would have excellent quality and optics. If Nikon ever refines the sight adjustment to a true 1/4 moa or better, I'll be ordering several immediately.

310pilot
What rifle and ranges were you considering the P-22 for? It is designed for rifles like our 15-22. A reasonably accurate .22 rim fire. It is not made to be a tack driving bench gun at 100 yards and beyond. ¼” MOA at 50 yards and ½’ at 100 yards is a perfect set up for the 15-22, IMHO.

100 yards is the standard MOA and fixed parallax distance for centerfire scopes. However, it is not the standard for rimfire, which is 50 yards. In your case you would be better served using a centerfire scope on your rimfires. You just won't be able to get anything with .22 BDC.
Me I prefer 1st focal plane scopes as I want to know that one click on the turret is the same adjustment on the reticle regardless of the power setting of the scope. Unfortunately there are few of these below $500. In fact only 2 that I know of, both of which I have. The BSA Mil-Mil 4-14x44 Tactical MRAD SF FFR ($400) sold exclusively by MidwayUSA and the Aim Sport Illuminated Mil-Dot 1-6x24 FFR Tactical ($230). Both can be bought cheaper. Is the glass as good as Nikon or some of the even better scopes? No, and as a person who services optical telescopes and such I did not expect them to be in that quality. But I was surprised how well they perform even in competition. Even on a .223 AR. I bought the BSA on recommendation of several military/law enforcement training officers who said it was the most capable tactical scope they knew of for an rimfire AR training rifle (assuming you didn't want to blow $1500+ for a Night Force). But when I finished building my 3-gun AR I had to press it into use for a precision/tactical field match (my first rifle match ever) at Peacemaker National Training Center. I could only sight it in at 50 yards and had to use the ballistic data on my ammo (Ultramax 68g HP) because they had steel targets out as far as 250-270 yds on a couple of stages. I ended up scoring 273 points against the overall winner who scored 333 using a Robar .308 bolt sniper rifle. I finished 14th out of 42 in a field of SWAT team members and current and former military shooters. A good amount of wind also. Some stages had a bunch of movement then flopping down and shooting prone off the bipod. Not easy for an out-of-shape 64 YO.
Anyway inspite of running and flopping the rifle down a lot it never lost zero. So I might use the scope again in another of these type matches. Oh and by the way the BSA has 1/10 mil resetable to zero turrets. The Aim Sport is my 3-gun scope right now and I have another I can swap on my 15-22 for practice. The AM's 1x is so close it functions very well as a zero power both eyes open aiming device. A tiny bit of distortion off axis but almost none on axis. I used it that way in an IDPA tactical rifle side match once so far.

Great information. Thank you for putting it in real world numbers. I tried to read your sugested article but it was so far over my head I could not find it with a scope

Phxshooter, very well said, so what if it was long, it was from the heart and I'm sure it will help others in making a better decision based on others mistake.. Good stuff..

One thing I've seen with the M&P 15/22, it looks, feels and almost shoots as it's bigger brother the AR15 5.56, but it's NOT. So guys need to know the 22LRs limits and that will also help in making the decision on what kind of scope/optics needed. This rifle is pretty much a combat type 22LR, so CQB for that caliber is more it's dressing. A good Red Dot or mild magnification (1X-4X) type optics are great. That should make any shooter happy in that range. I see guys installing scopes that belong to large caliber rifles that the little 22LR will never accomplish, but the cool factor plays here as well. Good stuff buddy good stuff..

Thank you for the props AceMan. And I agree. A 15-22 with a 24X scope on it is not TactiCool, it is WishfullCool.

The .5" "low rise riser" under my P22 allows me to remove it and use the irons for close ranges or just good ol iron sight training. The 2-7X of the P-22 gives me everything I need for .22 caliber magnification.

I have a 3-9X40 BDC Vortex viper on my 15-22 and my 6 and 7yrd kids shoot fine with it. It is zeroed at 50yrds. Move down one dot on the scoop to shoot 25yrd or 100yrds.


Zack
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Nikon makes a great product. Great value for your dollar. I love mine.