Scope for 22LR

Hi Guys
I have a CZ 452 with a cheap Kilwell Huntsman 4x scope on it. I like it in daylight and it has a couple of holdovers on the reticle which are really handy. From a rest the setup will reliably ping a rabbit head sized gong at 100 with subs. It’s not so flash as the light fails though. I’ve been doing some rabbit culling and I’m wondering about an upgrade. Any thoughts for a good rimfire parallaxed scope with a useful uncluttered holdover reticle? Could be fixed or variable. Also good with a rifle mounted torch. Cheers!

Leupold VX5 HD

I use a Burris Droptine scope in 3 x 9, it's a 22 lr dedicated scope with a simple recticle with a couple of marks for different ranges.
It's not to expensive , optics are good for my use ( ranges 10 mtrs to 130 mtrs plus )
It has proven reliable after 1000 s of rounds.
Low light performance is fine but there's probably better.
Over all it's doing a good job.

Cheers that’s the sort of thing. They look to be easy to find too, which is another plus.

I find AO or side focus very handy for a 22 for close ranges.

What's your budget?

Just a few suggestions:

Sightron S2 4-16x42 AO
https://www.trademe.co.nz/sports/hun...befb00af92-005

Weaver V16 4-16x42 AO
https://www.trademe.co.nz/sports/hun...befb00af92-005

Nikon Monarch 4-16x50 SF
https://www.trademe.co.nz/sports/hun...befb00af92-005

Bushnell Elite 2.5-10x50 SF
https://www.trademe.co.nz/sports/hun...befb00af92-005

I was hitting pine cones at 100m the other day and made me think my CZ452 really deserves a better scope. My criteria would be 16x or greater magnification, BDC reticle and SF/AO. Ideally, 1 inch tube, but could live with 30mm and new mounts.

@Synthetic thank you heaps for that, that is really useful. I like the look of the Monarch. Those suggestions are in the price range I have in mind. Somewhere round that 500 dollar mark.

I know this is completely different from what I said, but does anyone have an opinion of the Leupold FX-1 4x ? It would just look so good on the CZ! And would be very light and handy. I have actually found that fixed 4x seems to fine for what I'm doing. I can easily see a rabbit at 80 metres which is about as far as I'd want to shoot one. But the Monarch would probably be more versatile.

Just be aware that the Monarch 3 whilst a nice scope will not focus below 50 yds so if shooting at 25 yds your image will be fuzzy and there will be some paralax.
You can get a better picture by winding back to 4x but what's the point.

I also steer clear of 50 mm scopes on my 22s. 42 mm is good, you can mount the scope nice and low.

My favourite 22 scope is Weaver 4-16x44 Grand Slam Varmint. It is a very short scope with excellent glass and reticle. Unfortunately Weaver has now ceased to exist. I wish I had bought a couple of them.

Some will argue that you don't need high mag on a 22. This is true to a point but depending upon what you are doing. I shoot every week concentrating on 100 yd groups and would lIke even more magnifiction on that particular rifle. I do however have other 22s scoped with 1-4, 2-7 power and 3-9 powe scopes. All are more than adequate for the type of use that they get. In fact 4x is more than adequate for general hunting.

One further point. I have 3 Sightron Japanese manufactured scopes already and needed a 4-16 (this was before I bought the Grand Slam). My current Sightrons are excellent so on the basis of that I bought an SII 4-16 Philippines origin. It was rubbish. I couldn't clearly see 22 holes at 50 yds. I returned it for a refund. I may have caught a dud but wasn't willing to try another one. I would want to have a good squiz though one before buying.

The Weaver V series has always been good with underrated optics. In fact the better Weaver scopes have always been underrated. I am not sure what the 4-16 focuses down too though.

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Originally Posted by zimmer

Just be aware that the Monarch 3 whilst a nice scope will not fus below 50 yds so if shooting at 25 yds your image will be fuzzy and there will be some paralax.
You can get a better picture by winding back to 4x but what's the point.
I also steer clear of 50 mm scopes on my 22s. 42 mm is good, you can mount the scope nice and low.

My favourite 22 scope is weaver 4-16x44 Grand Slam Varmint. It is a very short scope with excellent glass and reticle. Unfortunately Weaver has now ceased to exist. I wish I had bought a couple of them.

Some will argue that you don't need high mag on a 22. This is true to a point but depending upon what you are doing. I shoot every week concentrating on 100 yd groups and would lIke even more magnifiction on that particular rifle. I do however have other 22s scoped with 1-4, 2-7 power and 3-9 powe scopes. All are more than adequate for the type of use that they get. In fact 4x is more than adequate for general hunting.

One further point. I have 3 Sightron Japanese manufactured scopes already and needed a 4-16 (this was before I bought the Grand Slam). My current Sightrons are excellent so on the basis of that I bought an SII 4-16 Philippines origin. It was rubbish. I couldn't clearly see 22 holes at 50 yds. I returned it for a refund. I may have caught a dud but wasn't willing to try another one. I would want to have a good squiz though one before buying.

The Weaver V series has always been good with underrated optics. In fact the better Weaver scopes have always been underrated. I am not sure what the 4-16 focuses down too though.

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Was going to say the same thing about the Monarch that it only focuses down to 50 yards. I have the same model, the ocular housing is on the large side, and with a high bolt throw like the CZ452, the bolt handle may just be clear using medium height rings.

Not sure about the previous generation Weaver Grand Slams, I just bought a new generation one in 3-12x42 that side focuses down to 25 yards. The entire ocular housing turns as you change magnification. They can be expensive and rare to find in NZ. I imported mine from Brownells USA for about $550 NZD landed.

Brightness and resolution will be very similar between the Monarch and Grand Slam. But the tunnel vision effect is definitely worse with the Monarch, just like all Nikon scopes I've tried.

The Weaver Classics and Grand Slams are perhaps the best value for money scopes out there in my opinion.

This is gold, thanks very much gentlemen. I'm learning a lot. There's a 4x Weaver Classic K4 on Trademe which caught my eye.

Hmmmm - Good topic and great suggestions.

I recently squaded with "Jake" who won the 22 Jungle Lane shoot down here (and he's won it previously and always seems close to the top of the leaderboard at the Sparrowhawk shoots) . His gear was very basic, a Norinco 22 and a Ranger 3-9 scope with mil-dots.

We had a detailed chat about parallax and he was of the opinion that it wasn't required on a 22 with up to 9x. I took from our discussion that as good technique is critical to shooting a 22 well and if you have that then parallax was less important, as consistent cheek placement etc means its not going to punish you much. His scope was set to 50M (most scopes can be user adjusted, its not complicated, but you can't do it on the fly).

Previously I'd been an AO advocate on everything for target shooting but now I'd be happy to go without (up to 9x anyway)!

Well that is very interesting. So that means that as long as you aren't going overboard with the magnification you can look at centrefire scopes or rimfire specific, doesn't matter. Although I think a scope with parallax set at 100m is noticeably out of focus at 20m. Maybe more an aesthetic than a practical issue though - you can still hit a rabbit at 25 m, whether it's slightly fuzzy or not!

Parallax isn't about focus, it about the relative movement of the reticle to the target due to position of the eye. When parallax is set at the same distance as the target, there will be no movement of the reticle against the target, even while moving your eye/head around. The opposite is also true, when parallax is significantly different the reticle will roam all over the show (if your head/eye moves) and could cause a miss.
A good cheek weld negates the worst of the effect.

I have a weaver K4 on my 22, I have adjusted parallax to about 60m, easy to do and no tools needed.

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.

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?

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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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by viper

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

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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.

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Originally Posted by 7mmsaum

Leupold VX5 HD

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This ^
With the FireDot

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

Quote:

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Originally Posted by anothermous

This ^
With the FireDot

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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)

Quote:

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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.

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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"

No mystery - team of 6 shooting from 6pm until about 1am. Numbers not unusual for Central Otago or North Canterbury in heyday. Gadgetman on this site part of unit. 1030 in one shoot, then 1004 two weeks later. If we had chosen to shoot all night it would have been nearer 2000. Rabbit heaven..

What does it take? Well prepared, accurate rifles and good gear. Also well setup trucks/lighting after the evening walk/shoot completed.

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Originally Posted by johnd

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"

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Ah, those were the days. Rabbits a bit of a problem at the time. Lots of sore thumbs and fingers from reloading mags. At one point I was shooting a small area, a triangle about 30m each side, and knocked over 109 in 45 minutes as I sat eating my sandwiches. Turn my lights off and have a feed while refilling mags. I'm eating and hear this "rip, rip, rip" around me as they were having a snack all around me as well. Take a note of where the sounds was coming from, flick on the lights and "pop, pop, pop" till the mags were empty. Rinse, repeat. Alas we have to work a lot harder for a lot less nowadays.

I was using a 4-16x40 mildot scope in the $300 range. Flash optics are not that necessary. With the torches and headlamps we can turn night into day well beyond any rimfire range. I liked the higher magnification for the range and would dial back to 4x for rabbit shooting out to 110m. Hit rate was above 95% to that range because we were so familiar with the terrain and targets and the rifles with their preferred ammo.

Unbelievable shooting for many years on that site. Legend. Competitions for the fastest 100. I think my best was 108 in 95 minutes :) but there were several better..

At that point I used a little 15" polished JW15 with I think a Bushnell Banner 3-9x on it. Precision shooter grouping sub 0.5" at 50m and deadly out to 100. It did not miss much... My 16 year old son got his licence on the day of one of the 1000 bunny evenings. Dropped him off in his zone alone with rifle and bag of ammo, chocolate and other necessities. Picked him up hours later - I'm sure I could see his smile half way across the station at night - he shot 172 on his first shoot alone!!! Epic...

Thanks for that.

I have a Nikon P300 aka PR31 aka Super Sub, 2-7x32 with a BDC reticle on my .22 . At 7x zoom it is not fuzzy @ 20m.