Thread: Scope Brand Recommendations For Upgrade

Before you start looking at brands you need to get a very clear picture (no pun intended) on what you actually want in a scope.
The first would be zoom range. This comes down to where you intend to hunt and since you've said you want an all rounder then you should probably go for a bottom magnification of 2.5 to 3. Personally I'm happy with 4x in the bush but that's a personal choice, not what I'd recommend.
Next is top end magnification, for longer range shooting at realistic ranges with a .308 that would be anywhere between 12 and 18 power for up to 500m shots. So with that in mind the middle ground of about 15 to 16 power makes sense, bear in mind that the greater the magnification range in the scope, the higher the price with no other real gains in performance. so a 5X mag rnag is a good compromise, as in 3-15. the next choice would be turrets, exposed dialing turrets or capped. For an all round scope you need to have something which will dial for distance reliably. There was a thread here recently which asked that question, hold over vs dial and the feedback was overwhelmingly dial. I agree. exposed turrets for hunting need a zerostop to avoid accidental adjustment. Or you could go for a capped turret which can be dialed, such as the GPO, they are excellent in this regard. next would be Objective lens diameter. A good quality scope a with 44mm objective is fine, it can be mounted lower over the bore if your rifle has a low comb, like the standard Tikka stocks. 50mm objective lenses will give a slight advantage in low light but it is marginal. Then there's 1st focal plane vs 2nd focal plane. Personally I don't understand why anyone would use 1st focal plane as a hunting scope, its advantage is the fact that the reticle hash marks remain constant through the zoom range, its major disadvantage is that the reticle is way too fine at lower magnifications and therefore very poor in a low light situation, plus I've already said that for longer range shooting dialing for the range is far better than using hash marks for holdover. then there's weight. unfortunately a lot of the mid price $1200 t0 $2200 which qualify under the previuous criterior tend to fail when it comes to weight. For a rifle to be an allrounder which will get carried a fair bit a scope needs to be under about the 675 to 650 gram weight range. Then there's 30mm tube vs 25mm tube. The one advatage a 30mm tube has is a greater range of elevation adjustment and for a .308 shooting out to around 500m its no advantage, so you could save some weight by going to the 25mm tube. Finally warranty, most good brands have good warranty, anything from 10 years to lifetime, I don't get to hung up on this one which is why its last.
So I suggest you make a check list of your criteria and then look at the scopes which fit this criteria in around the $1500 to $3000 price range and you will find whay your looking for.