Thread: Scope for 22LR

Look at the Leupold rim fire and the 3-9x 36 or 40? EFR scope. This one has AO and focuses up close. No elevation marks on the reticle on mine it’s a fine duplex but they maybe offered?

Originally Posted by viper

Some great feed back and probably shows it's horses for courses. I personally think a rimfire scope should focus well below 50mtrs and be parallex free at 25.

I shoot around 600 rabbits a month and the scope 95% of the time is left at 4 x power. I don't have time for side focus bullshit , adjustable AO etc. In my humble opinion and it is only my opinion , nothing over 9 -10 x power, half decent glass will out perform a fuzzy 16 - 24 power piece of shit scope every time.
Learn your rifle, learn your scope and learn your ammo....be consistent and you will get great results.

Well put. As you say, it's horses for courses and it's also whatever suits the individual, but for me I think one of the things I really like about this rabbit shooting is that you can keep it simple and concentrate on the shooting.

@WillB , I guess we all enjoy the different aspects of shooting and if some guys enjoy playing around with AO and side focus then that's totally cool and great fun.
For me living in central it's about effective high volume shooting where I love to walk over a farm or station and with the target rich environment I just need to get bullets into bunnies.
The great thing about rimfire rabbit shooting for me is.
cheap ammo
no reloading
effective and fun.
Sounds as if you enjoy a similar hassle free form of rabbit shooting like me where you can walk , sit or go prone ..line them up and shoot.

Originally Posted by viper

I shoot around 600 rabbits a month and the scope 95% of the time is left at 4 x power.

Brings back memories of my teenage years when I shot a few thousand rabbits on Lands and Survey farms around Taupo. There were just so many rabbits that niceties didn't need to come into it and of course AO scopes etc didn't exist. Most of those were shot early on with open sights and later with a 4x20 (like looking thru a length of waterpipe) Nikko Stirling scope. Later on I seriously upgraded to a 4x28 Nikko Stirling Tiara.
A good centrefire scope was 4x. In fact for a long while I used a 3x Leupold. Shot many Tahr with a 4x scope. Now I giggle when I see posts where shooters are concerned about being underscoped with a say 4-12 varipower....And I guess that is fair enough when you come upon your once in a lifetime trophy. You need all the advantage you can get.

I would go with viper here.

At present we're only shooting 50-70 bunnies a night, but few years ago we were popping over 1000 an evening at times. You figure out very quickly what setups are efficient. I would occasionally have 4-12 scopes - esp if also using the rifle for 100m bench shooting - but more often used 3-9x. For popping bunnies at 0-110m my 22LR shooting scopes were left on 5 power - and I did not bother with AO. If you're shooting plenty, shooting quickly, you don't have the time and a good fixed focus does the job very well. Certainly had some for range work but they did not enhance performance for bunnies.

The other thought I'd share relates to cost for your 22 scope. Its a nice idea to spend $500+ on good optics - fun to use. But.... you don't need them for effective 0-110m bunny shooting. I tried lots of makes before settling on 2-3 good entry level models at half the 500-600 price. Nikko Stirling always reliable, Tasco World class usually good, and entry level Bushnell Banners perform very well on the 22. tim@talon might have some Nikkos still. These aren't dial scopes but are reasonable clear and hold zero well. I found them ideal for accurate 0-110m shooting. There is nothing wrong at all in spending more on bunny scopes, but these entry level models will do your job very effectively alot cheaper. Have never had a problem due to low light. Once evening sets in simply turn on your scope light.

Originally Posted by 7mmsaum

Leupold VX5 HD

This ^
With the FireDot

@mudgripz... The old KISS principle is a good one!

Originally Posted by anothermous

This ^
With the FireDot

Funnily enough I do have one of these but it’s on a 3006!

I'm also looking for a 22lr scope. Will use on bunnies and possums. Is a 2-7x33 enough magnification or will I regret not getting a 3-9x40? Thinking of getting a leupold vx freedom rimfire.

I'd go 3 - 9 , little more versatile and if you move it later onto a centre fire then you have a little more magnification for the extended ranges....My 5 cents worth.

Also get the 3-9 x 40 as if you are doing possums and low light shooting it will suck in a bit more light.

years back when shooting professionally my .22lr had a 2 3/4 power redfield on it.....worked great...Ive tried allsorts over the years ,currently its a short 4x m8 loopy....one of the best was a tasco 4 x 40 mm.

I do quite a bit of 22LR target shooting plus 22LR hunting, although not as much as some of the people in this thread (like, Viper's 600 kills per month [!!!]). I have a number of scopes on my various 22LR guns, going from 3-9 to 6-24, 1 inch vs 30mm, FFP v SFP, Mildot v duplex v xmas tree. I only shoot free hand, either standing or kneeling or sitting. Here is my 2 cents.

1. 3-9 is sufficient for small game hunting within 100 yard/90m. But it does not mean it is ideal. I would still prefer have more than 9 power when shooting possum/rabbit sized target freehand. the smaller the magnification the harder it is to keep the crosshair right at the centre of the target. if you always shoot stablised (bipod, shooting stick, etc) you could get away with low power.
2. Having said the above, 3-9 has distinct advantage of not needing to do AO adjustments, cheap, and light weight. my two 3-9 weigh about half as much as my other scopes. There are high quality light wight 4-12 scopes with AO that can go down to 25m, but they are not easy to find. Bushnell had the Japanese made Elite 3200 4-12 AO about 14 years ago, but had discontinued making them since around 2012. This scope was quite light and very good in all aspects, certainly more than competent as a 22LR scope.
3. quite often you do come up with an animal that is super close, like within 10 metres. 3 power at the bottom end is not mandatory but definitely helpful.
4. the only time you need large objective (say, more than 44mm) is when you shoot at low light without a torch. You may want to ask yourself if you do that at all. if you do not, then sticking with 40mm objective is good enough. You can buy really powerful torches for under 100 dollars. I think it is better to spend that money and weight on a torch than a 50mm objective scope.
5. using subsonic ammo (1050fps), a 50m zero gun will have over 10cm drop at 75m and 22cm drop at 100m. Therefore a simple duplex reticle is not ideal. A mil dot scope is better because at 9 power, each dot is 11cm apart.
6. Because of point 5, even 80m and 100m has significant drop difference, you will need to buy a rangefinder to accurately shoot rabbit sized animal.

thanks @Ultimitsu that is cool stuff. I have a rangefinder and am using it. I think the subs certainly seem to be plenty lethal out to 100. That's a very interesting point about the mil dot. Re the torch, I have a Led Lenser P5 and a mount for it. I'm planning to start using that. Not sure if it's a recommended setup by the experts. (ie all you amazingly knowledgeable guys on this thread)

Originally Posted by mudgripz

I would go with viper here.

At present we're only shooting 50-70 bunnies a night, but few years ago we were popping over 1000 an evening at times. You figure out very quickly what setups are efficient. I would occasionally have 4-12 scopes - esp if also using the rifle for 100m bench shooting - but more often used 3-9x. For popping bunnies at 0-110m my 22LR shooting scopes were left on 5 power - and I did not bother with AO. If you're shooting plenty, shooting quickly, you don't have the time and a good fixed focus does the job very well. Certainly had some for range work but they did not enhance performance for bunnies.

The other thought I'd share relates to cost for your 22 scope. Its a nice idea to spend $500+ on good optics - fun to use. But.... you don't need them for effective 0-110m bunny shooting. I tried lots of makes before settling on 2-3 good entry level models at half the 500-600 price. Nikko Stirling always reliable, Tasco World class usually good, and entry level Bushnell Banners perform very well on the 22. tim@talon might have some Nikkos still. These aren't dial scopes but are reasonable clear and hold zero well. I found them ideal for accurate 0-110m shooting. There is nothing wrong at all in spending more on bunny scopes, but these entry level models will do your job very effectively alot cheaper. Have never had a problem due to low light. Once evening sets in simply turn on your scope light.

i always find these quotes very interesting, can you elaborate? how many shooters and over what amount of hours?
Just curious what it takes to gun down 1000 bunnies in an "evening"