One of the most effective ways to increase your hunting odds is by having the right equipment. The hardest part of the process of getting and mounting a scope is choosing the correct one.

Researching rifle optics can lead you down a rabbit hole that never ends. This is why we have put together this one stop buyers guide with the top rifle scope reviews.

The most important thing to remember is to to equip yourself with the best rifle scope for your specific needs and intended use. Trijicon TA31F 4x32 ACOG. Scopes do number of things for a shooter or hunter. They can extend the shooting hours by gathering light and allowing you to be able to make an ethical shot at game. They allow you to shoot further by magnifying the target and helping you see better and most of all they simplify the aiming process so you can focus on the rest of your shooting fundamentals instead of worrying about a pair of sights.

There is a big difference between using the open sights on a rifle and using a scope. If you are ready to get serious with your shooting then it's time to get yourself some optics.

Here's a run down on how each work. Shooting with iron sights takes a fair amount of skill and concentration while you shoot. You have essentially three or more objects you must align and control while you shoot. Iron sight on an AR Image by Bill Bradford. You have the rear sight, the front sight and the target. That means shooting on the move is nearly impossible. Iron sights are also very hard to shoot in low light.

Tritium can be added to alleviate this problem but it is much better when you switch to an optic. An optic means a device that uses optical glass to allow you to see. In shooting this means a night vision optic, a scope or any number of different kinds of red dots. Optics simplify the aiming process by removing the front and rear sight and just leaving an indicator of where the bullet will land after the shot is fired. This is called the reticle or the "dot" and is extremely easy to use.

All you do is paint the target with the dot and let the round fly. The other benefit of an optic is the ability to gather light and to magnify the target. Gathering light means that the scope uses a multi coating on the glass to amplify ambient light and extend shooting time.

There are so many types of scopes, each designed for so many different specific purposes. There will be more detail on this later as we review each scope and what it is best for. To keep things simple most scopes can be broken down into one of these 3 main categories. These are the clear majority of scopes on the market. These scopes are the lion share of inexpensive scopes on the market.

The hallmarks of these scopes are limited features that make them dead nail simple. These are the cool scopes that everyone loves to read about but very few people actually know how to use.

For starters, these scopes are expensive.

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They have tons of features that make for scopes that can do just about anything you could want. Parallax adjustment that is easy to use and understand is important on these scopes. Specialty scopes can be made for a single purpose, such as a. Custom scopes are common, so are large turrets and illumination. These scopes really push the limits of technology and really are the pinnacle of scope design. Now it's time to get into the reviews of the top scopes in each specific category.

Although there are many other great scopes out there, these are our favorite. Leupold is arguably the best sporting optics manufacturer in the world and their flagship model is the VX-6 line of scopes. They push the limits of what a sporting optic can be and push the budget of whoever needs the best of the best. The scope starts with an incredible x zoom ratio that allows for a true 1x power setting all the way out to 6x power for eastern whitetail deer hunting across a field plot , a x power scope for all around cross continent game for either western or eastern hunting, or even power scope for long range target shooting or extreme range hunting.

These scopes can be had with Leupold Custom Dial System CDS that tailors the turret of the scope for your load and cartridge so you can find the range to the target, dial in the reticle, and hit the target with extreme confidence and accuracy.

The new Fire Dot reticles are also available, combining the best of a red dot and a scope to make shooting a real treat and struggling to see your reticle against a dark backdrop a thing of the past. For sportsmen, this is a great choice for everyone wanting an heirloom quality scope. The weight is decent, but not great.

However, the ability to have double the zoom ratio, more light than just about every other scope, and a huge array of options from an illuminated reticle, to parallax adjustment, to a teeny x24mm size scope, makes this line of scope the best all-around scope for hunting, shooting and going outdoors. If you have a big. This is a great representation of how beefy, featured and ready for action these scopes are.

This is a Nightforce ATACR, one of their bestselling scopes, that has a huge -2x power magnification range, coupled with a gigantic 6mm objective bell and 34mm tube.

If you can get over the extreme weight of the optic and use the armored protection the scope offers and gigantically thick crystal clear glass, then the world class optics in this scope has a multi coating that is diamond tough, and never scratches. The entire scope screams quality and you can tell it was designed by people who shoot because of how well laid out it is.

The distances between each turret, the tactile feel of each turn and the textured surfaces of each knob make for a fast adjusting scope.

The turrets have an adjustable zero stop so you can have a rifle ready to go for work or for competition. The scope offers a huge well marked parallax adjustment. The scope is available in several different custom BDC reticle that can do a variety of functions depending on what you want your rifle to do. If you stomach the extreme cost of this scope, then you can have the absolute best the world has to offer in the way of sniper rifle scopes.

This your answer, the newly redesigned Leupold VX3i. If you have an old standby from the VX3 line up, by all means you can keep with it. But the updated set of features found on the Vx3i make it worth it to get the new model.

The newest update is the redesigned lens coating process that filters out the light spectrum to make the colors most important to deer hunters "POP". This makes it easier to see deer pre-dawn and post dusk in those last few minutes of shooting light where it can be a chore to spot deer and make a solid hit.

The other redesigns include a larger adjustment fin for dialing in and out of the magnification age, which has been broadened. You can easily go from, 2. Of course the scope inherited all the good things from the previous generation; things like the 1 inch tube constructed from solid aluminum. A second focal plane reticle and the ability to use the awesome Custom Dial System available from the Leupold custom shop to dial in your loads for accuracy.

The whole package of this scope is great, and priced great, for deer hunters, elk hunters or even hogs in a traditional treestand or ground blind setting.

If you want quality, then you need to see the experts at Zeiss. They make camera lenses, glasses and some of the finest glass in the world. Including their Conquest line of Scopes that are phenomenal for long range shooting. The HD5 model with x power magnification, and Rapid-Z Ballistic Reticle makes for a potent scope for hitting targets at range.

The reticle design offers marked graduations calibrated for most of the magnum cartridges used for shooting at range. The reticle is easy to use and effective. The scope has been redesigned in recent years and now comes in shorter and lighter than its competitors and has superior optical quality.

The downside to this scope is the trim design is somewhat wasted with the huge 50mm objective lens. Everything about this scope is quality. It's made in Germany and imported, comes with a year no fault warranty that covers everything, and a limited lifetime warranty for defects in materials and workmanship.

Designed to be slim and trim to ride atop an ar1 flattop the Nikon P is a great example of a great scope for hunting, specifically predator hunting where guns are carried far more than they are shot. You must be ready to nail a dog from 20 yards all the way out to as far as you can, or shoot.

Get a scope like the Nikon P and have hash marks for yards all mathematically set for a gr. This scope is rugged, the correct size, and most importantly, a great price. Nikon is the king of making good quality cheap glass and this is a perfect example. The Nikon P offers a bright, crisp and clear image completely through its magnification range from 3x power all the way out to 9x power. Nikon has also done the work for you by manufacturing a scope mount made specifically for the P to mount on a standard picatinny rail and the correct height for an Ar and at a good height for most modern rifle stocks.

If you hunt any type of predator with a 5. The unique features it was designed for lends itself well to an ar25 and virtually any hunting rifle that uses this ubiquitous cartridge.

As previously stated, they make the best inexpensive glass and all their scopes are good quality, especially when compared to their price. The hard thing to nail down about these scopes is which one is the greatest. The Nikon Monarch series is their flagship model and the Monarch 3 is one of the most value packed options. The Monarch 3 is the middle of the road monarch. Designed around a 4x ratio zoom power and easy to use spring loaded turrets.

Dialing this scope in is an absolute breeze, and can be done quickly for hunting and competition matches. The fast focus eye piece aids in the speed of focusing the reticle for making a fast shot and the BDC reticle is the final "speed" feature that lets you make follow up shots with a hold over.

As a huge value option for someone who wants a scope they can use from dawn to dusk to shoot from one side of the bean field to the other, this scope is the best of the best. Look no further for a huge, high magnification, ultra-bright riflescope. This is a legendary scope made for the military and proven on every continent on the planet.

This is the realization of a scope that could be the ultimate simple solution for a maintenance free battle optic. All the ACOG line up has two things, a ballistically calibrated reticle and fixed magnification.

The glass in the scope is double thickness and every seam is O-ring sealed and dry nitrogen purged. The illuminated chevron, or horse shoe, can either be red or green in several different sizes and is always on thanks to the nitrogen lamp that is warrantied for 1 years after manufacture.

If you need a rugged riflescope for tactical or just hard field use this is a great option. Instead look for a lightweight, tiny, fixed power scope that is rugged and usable like the Leupold FX-II 4x33 scope. This is as simple as optics get. A fixed power, full size scope that just works. No, it is a standard 1 inch tube, and 33mm objective bell. The scope is just 9oz and comes in several different finishes and reticles. Probably the most useful version of this scope is the matte finish and duplex reticle.

This was the choice for the folks at Ruger when they decided to deliver a high-quality pairing of rifle and scope with the Ruger American rifle. The x power is clear and crisp at both ends of the adjustment range and is easy to dial in and out thanks to the bezel and tactile selector.

The 1-inch tube and 40mm objective lens gathers light well and the fully multi coated lens projects the light and makes for a great scope for the price. The reticle is their proprietary dead hold that offers graduations to make holdover shots. The scope, while very durable and holding one of the best warranties in the industry, should be guarded. Bushnell makes the most inexpensive riflescopes one can buy.

The x power magnification range is overkill for most hunters, especially hunters who are in this price range. The nice thing to know is that the glass quality is decent and reasonably crisp throughout the magnification range. You can rest assured Bushnell stands by their work and no matter what you buy from them you can expect them to fix it or replace it if you follow the warranty information.

Their customer service is their greatest feature and they do it extremely well. It makes little sense to put a 4x power scope on a. Buying gear is all purpose driven and optics get confusing and get expensive super quickly so make sure you know the purpose. Of course, the thing that makes a scope, a scope, is the glass inside. The "glass" refers to the lenses that make the magnification and light gathering inside work, along with a prism on a moving track.

The theoretical limits, and operations involved in a scope are irrelevant to the end user, but rest assured, every year it gets better and better. The length of your scope is very important. Things like anti-glare hoods, flash hiders on the objective lens, and scope caps on either end lead to a longer scope.

This is the biggest constraint to the build of a riflescope. Define what the rifle is going to do and let the purpose drive what you buy. The hardest thing to nail down is how much weight is acceptable. Obviously less is always better, but can be confusing to nail down how much is acceptable.

The tube of the scope is the long thin part that connect the eye piece and the objective bell. This is the part of the scope that houses the prism, adjustment dials, and any illumination equipment the scope features. Some tactical scopes that need extreme clarity and light transmission upgrade from a 1-inch tube diameter to a 30mm scope tube.

The drawback to this increased light transmission is a 50 percent increase in weight and sometimes a percent increase in cost. These scopes are also mounted higher off the bore axis and make rifles overly unwieldy.

The performance is akin from going from a V6 to a V8 engine. The magnification on the sight is a measure how much bigger the target will appear when you look through the scope.

Most scopes have adjustable magnification which is the first number on a scope label. Therefore, a x40 scope has a magnification of 3x power adjustable up to 9x power. Magnification is a valuable tool as targets get smaller and distances get greater. More is not better here. The hardest part of the equation is to have enough without going overboard. The reticle on a scope is the crosshairs that let you align the scope with the target.

There are many, many reticle designs and there are many designed for specialized purposes. The fancy reticle designs are hard to get used to under stress and for hunting are usually overkill and can even be a liability. On the contrary simple reticle designs, have proven to be life savers for serious use combat rifles. ACOG rifle scopes were among the first scopes to have BDC reticles and they work great. Light transmission is the amount of light the scope pushes through the lens and to your eye.

More is always better with light transmission. Remember though quality is just as important as quantity. New models of scopes offer differing amount of light transmission but with filters to make colors pop that are important. Eye relief is the measurement of the distance needed from your pupil to the eye piece.

Critical eye relief scopes are appropriate for precision bolt action rifles not used for defense or in a tactical environment. Any rifle used for stalking, snap shooting or defense you must have a non-critical eye relief scope. Parallax error is the apparent shift in target position or shape when viewed through magnification.

This is one of the hardest things for a scope to overcome. The second way this is done is by setting a minimum and maximum adjustment range and adding a turret to dial it up and down. Keep it simple and get a scope you can live with and get it mounted properly on your rifle.

The field of view is how much you can see through the scope at a certain distance. Usually represented by yards this is a critical measurement. Specialized long range scopes have smaller exit pupils that allow you to see more detail at longer ranges. Situational awareness is never, ever a bad thing.

The more field of view, often written FOV, is never, ever a bad thing. The adjustments need to match all your other optics, either MOA or MILs, and you need to learn how they work.

They get caught on slings , sticks and vines and rifle cases and they can be a pain to grip and turn when having the gun mounted. The exception is competition shooters who will only use the gun on the range, F-class competition example.

Zero stop turrets are nice, and so are very tactical adjustments you can easily tell apart and count. Make sure you can test these out beforehand. The objective lens of the scope is important because this is the part of the scope that gathers the light and brings in the picture. The hardest part of nailing this is finding balance for the job at hand. Huge objective bells work great to gather light and filter it so you get a crystal-clear picture. The problem with a giant lens is that it gets heavy quick, and makes for a bulky un wieldy rifle.

The key to balance is nailing down the job at hand and getting highest quality scope that fits your size and weight requirements.

The coating on the lens is what filters out light and makes it possible for a clear magnification of the target. New designs are coming out every day and every manufacturer does it a tad differently. What you essentially want to look for is "Fully Multi-Coated". This means the lens is treated for every color of light and will work in all lighting conditions. Manufacturers have variations and newer technologies that greatly surpass this industry standard but for a quality piece of glass at any level, fully multi-coating is a process that cannot be substituted or forgotten.

Buy based off what the scope does and not what the label says. Knowing where to compromise is just as important as knowing what kind of scope to buy. Rings and bases can be bought off brand, scope caps are largely useless, and some brands are just absurdly expensive.

Finally, if you lack the tools or competence to correctly mount a scope then make room in the budget to have a competent gunsmith mount your scope and bore sight it.

There is a process that is important to follow or your scope may not hold zero or may have a catastrophic failure. It is just downright foolish to buy a product that not even the manufacturer will stand by.

There are countless stories of people being taken care of by several major brands popular with both hunters and tactical shooters. Evaluate the terms of the warranty because many follow the product even if it is bought on the used market and the company will always honor it. Short answer is maybe. Recoil can break a scope if you use the wrong type of scope, you damage the optic and then use it or you mount it improperly.

Putting a rifle scope on a pistol is sure to break it because the recoil impulse is much, much sharper. A rimfire scope on an air rifle will break it, as will a rimfire scope on anything but a rimfire rifle, including a rimfire pistol. The problem is how fast the weapon decelerates. Air rifles have a very fast deceleration, so do pistols, and these scopes take more abuse than many of the bigger magnums hunters use.

The real thing to watch out for is a mount coming loose and hitting you in the face. Make sure a competent gunsmith mounts your scope, or you can do it if you have the correct tools to mount it properly. Even if the manufacturers recommend against it, use non-permanent thread locker on your mount screw holes.

These are far too strong and are going to damage the threads when you try and remove the screw from the holes and you can ruin the action of a rifle doing this. Only buy a scope with a warranty and from a company with a track record of standing by their customers and honoring their commitment. Stray from the companies with proven track records in favor of cheap Chinese imports.

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The answer to this is to find the best scope rings and bases for the job at hand. Specialized leveling rings that have built in levels are useful to a point but also expensive. Leupold is the best American optics manufacturer. Leupold supplies more militaries around the world than any other optics company and sells more civilian models for hunting and target shooting than any other brand.

They are also some of the highest quality scopes you can buy. The key to finding the right Leupold is taking advantage of their awesome website and custom shop to make sure you get exactly what you want. Trijicon, known for supplying the military, was put on the map with their ACOG.

The premise was make a hardened fix powered optic that will survive a small nuclear blast, at least in theory anyway. In later years, they make dozens, literally dozens, of models of ACOG scopes and have added the VCOG, variable powered version, to their lineup.

They also make bow sights, pistol sights, and heavy weapon aiming system for the military. Trijicon rounds out their catalog with a full lineup of recreational and precision rifle scopes. These scopes are made for hard use, and they cost a ton. Nikon makes the widest range of optical equipment and some of the highest quality low pried scopes.

They make dozens of models but really shine in their lower end optics and their BDC reticle scopes. This makes them just as clear and bright as their more expensive models but much cheaper, lighter and easier to use.

For high end applications look elsewhere. Vortex Optics is a company known for innovative new products and a bombproof warranty. They make more than just scopes and have gained notoriety for their spotting scope, binoculars and especially their rangefinders.

Their rifle scopes are now used by Ruger for their American packages because their value proposition is incredible. You can expect great things from this company to come. Their biggest aspect for buying from them is their customer service and warranty.

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Calling them for product recommendations on their line is always a good idea and their warranty covers literally anything, forever. Nightforce is one of the specialty brands that makes scopes for serious shooters. Nightforce is a great company because they manufacture scopes with features that the competition doesn't have.

Proprietary reticles, hardened optics and ultra-high end glass is their niche. The downside to these scopes is their price and their weight. Nightforce scopes, because of their 30mm tubes, hardened armor, and tons of features weigh a lot. They use the highest quality materials but have no qualms about making a boat anchor of an optic.

Zeiss, Carl Zeiss, is an optic manufacturer that, like many others, makes shooting scopes only part time. They make some of the finest glass in the world including camera lenses, medical equipment and eye glasses. The hardest thing to do with these scopes is afford them! They make military grade scopes but without the over built armor package that makes many military or law enforcement grade scopes cost too much and be too bulky and heavy. However, when you use one of these scopes you can instantly see, and justify, the cost.

The glass in these scopes is almost beyond compare. Much of the other aspects of the scope are standard, even out of place with regards to the glass quality, but most of the manufacturing effort goes to the optics-with great effects! Bushnell holds the largest swath of the market in terms of price point options.

They make scopes that are sold at Walmart and they make scopes that fulfil government contracts. Bushnell makes big claims about their products and make them for just about anything you would need a scope for.

Their best products are, sadly, their most expensive while their mid-range optics leave a little to be desired. Bushnell is one of the great American manufacturers that you can call up for help and get an American on the phone to help you. I would never hesitate to recommend them to anyone. Narrowing down the job you have at hand and then making a smart decision based on the specification you need is a great start for someone who is in the market for a new scope.

Hopefully this guide and the reviews have been helpful. Pick a brand, and a model that suits your style of hunting or shooting and then get out in the field and use it! Mckinley's life revolves around the hunting seasons. He lives in Tampa Florida and hunts the toughest deer and meanest turkeys in the union. He only hunts public ground around 70 days a year using various styles; archery, rifle, handgun and compound bow. McKinley learned everything he knows from his days earning his Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts of America and hunting some of the hardest hit public lands south of the Ohio valley.

He is currently in school to be a gun smith and has extensive knowledge in everything firearms and southern style hunting. Besides hunting he loves adventure packing and inshore flats fishing. HOME LIFESTYLE HUNTING TIPS RECIPES GEAR NEWS. GEAR Best Rifle Scope: Reviews of the Top 10 Optics for How to Decide on An Optic. The 5 Best Long Range Scopes.

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