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Going ground squirrel shooting this year and my 10/22 needed a good scope. I have several rifles and only a couple pieces of glass over 5x so I keep moving them around and re-zeroing. This year it was time to stop playing around.
I researched and read reviews and came to a couple conclusions.
My fears were clarity on a cheaper scope and would they take any knocking about at all.
I ended up with the Nikon after looking at all of them. It won on clarity and the reticle. The BDC 150 reticle is really quite nice. You sight in at 50 yards on the thinish (pretty thin...) cross hairs and then each circle below it is 75 yards, 100 yards, 125 yards, and 150 yards.
Each circle is easy to find your target in because there are no lines obscuring it. I like that.
On the range I found that the scope, not having paralax adjustment was a little wonky at 50 yards but not bad and excellent at all the other ranges. What amazed me and frustrated me was that it was so bright even though it was only a 40mm objective. My target was in direct sun light and light colored so I got almost a bloom of light through the scope. I bet that is a winner at dawn and dusk, but at 10am on an otherwise cloudy day it was like shooting at a light bulb.
Sighting it in was straight forward except I couldn't bore site so it took a few more shots to find the bullet strike than it should have, but that is not the scope's fault.
The turret caps are plastic and I don't like that but that isn't really a problem. The turrets themselves are very clearly marked and have nice positive clicks. Exactly right, not too hard, not too soft.
What surprised me was the BDC reticle. That was amazing. Once sighted in at 50 tried it at 100 and it was dead nuts on target. I splurged and got some of the Ground Squirrel Shoot-n-See targets and there wasn't a single shot off the target. Not one. Just hold to the second circle and bang. Perfect shot.
I was concerned because the scope says it is calibrated for 1600 fps .22lr, but my 1260 fps 36gr hollow points were perfect. I suppose I need to try some hotter loads as well, but things being as they are there isn't a large selection and I wanted to sight in with my hunting load since I have a thousand or so of these Federal HPs.
The scope retails for $140 at Cabelas and Sportsman's locally but you can get them from Bass Pro for $109 and from Optics Planet for $99. I was going to try and bargain them down or try to get them to match at Cabelas, but it was on sale for $99 anyway so I didn't have to do anything to get a match to the best internet price with no tax and no shipping. (Yay Oregon!)
I recommend this scope very highly and I anticipate I will have a lot of fun with it. At $99, I think it is a real bargain so if you are looking for a good hunting/plinking scope for a rimfire, I would say go for it.
https://www.nikonsportoptics.com/en...opes/prostaff-rimfire-ii-4-12x40-bdc-150.html
I researched and read reviews and came to a couple conclusions.
- I have bad eyes so I need more magnification, FOV is less of a need for me than zoom. Most scopes at this time seem to be 3-9 power and only a few are 4-12.
- Cheap scopes have reticles with cross hairs that look like East German Swimmer's legs (If you remember East Germans...) I need good crosshairs. Not as fine as a target scope but fine.
- Rimfire scopes are pretty much the same as centerfire scopes but are less robust so a cheap centerfire scope would work just fine.
- Most rimfire scopes don't have paralax adjustment at all and I sort of want that.
My fears were clarity on a cheaper scope and would they take any knocking about at all.
I ended up with the Nikon after looking at all of them. It won on clarity and the reticle. The BDC 150 reticle is really quite nice. You sight in at 50 yards on the thinish (pretty thin...) cross hairs and then each circle below it is 75 yards, 100 yards, 125 yards, and 150 yards.
Each circle is easy to find your target in because there are no lines obscuring it. I like that.
On the range I found that the scope, not having paralax adjustment was a little wonky at 50 yards but not bad and excellent at all the other ranges. What amazed me and frustrated me was that it was so bright even though it was only a 40mm objective. My target was in direct sun light and light colored so I got almost a bloom of light through the scope. I bet that is a winner at dawn and dusk, but at 10am on an otherwise cloudy day it was like shooting at a light bulb.
Sighting it in was straight forward except I couldn't bore site so it took a few more shots to find the bullet strike than it should have, but that is not the scope's fault.
The turret caps are plastic and I don't like that but that isn't really a problem. The turrets themselves are very clearly marked and have nice positive clicks. Exactly right, not too hard, not too soft.
What surprised me was the BDC reticle. That was amazing. Once sighted in at 50 tried it at 100 and it was dead nuts on target. I splurged and got some of the Ground Squirrel Shoot-n-See targets and there wasn't a single shot off the target. Not one. Just hold to the second circle and bang. Perfect shot.
I was concerned because the scope says it is calibrated for 1600 fps .22lr, but my 1260 fps 36gr hollow points were perfect. I suppose I need to try some hotter loads as well, but things being as they are there isn't a large selection and I wanted to sight in with my hunting load since I have a thousand or so of these Federal HPs.
The scope retails for $140 at Cabelas and Sportsman's locally but you can get them from Bass Pro for $109 and from Optics Planet for $99. I was going to try and bargain them down or try to get them to match at Cabelas, but it was on sale for $99 anyway so I didn't have to do anything to get a match to the best internet price with no tax and no shipping. (Yay Oregon!)
I recommend this scope very highly and I anticipate I will have a lot of fun with it. At $99, I think it is a real bargain so if you are looking for a good hunting/plinking scope for a rimfire, I would say go for it.
https://www.nikonsportoptics.com/en...opes/prostaff-rimfire-ii-4-12x40-bdc-150.html
