"Choose The Best Rifle Scopes"

Choosing the best rifle scope is not always easy. It can be as difficult as sighting your prey. In this day of high technological advancement, there are many options and choices for you to pick from. This article will help inform you on some of the choices and options you have, and give you a foundation for finding the best rifle scope for your needs.

Fundamentally the purpose of any rifle scope is to aid with your aim, provide an idea of distance to the target, and make it much easier and faster to acquire. The best rifle scopes in the world are high-quality, precise, light, and durable as well and have phenomenal optics. To provide that there are several things a rifle scope must possess. Scopes must be secure!  If your scope is not mounted and secure with NO chance of movement, then you are NOT going to hit where you think. You have a much better chance if you make sure you have a solid, well aligned mount to secure your scope. (See our link to aligning and lapping scope rings)

Additional key factors to consider would be image and quality. There are a few things to mull over here. It is paramount that the optics provide 90% of the available light to your eyepiece. The more light you have available, the crisper the resolution will be, leading to a precise shot placement. This is the key reason larger objective lens scopes (50mm, 56mm) have grown in popularity lately, because more light transmission  means better visibility at long distances. The Lens quality is also a key and vital piece to the equation as this is detected by any visible distortion around the edges. The solution to this; Lens coatings are applied to high quality optics to reduce reflections that cause glare as well as transmit light for the crisp, bright image you desire. Stay away from non-multicoated lenses.

Ability to make adjustment is also important. High quality rifle scopes show little if any movement of the reticle. Do you want your aim reference point to change from shot to shot? A high quality rifle scope will be parallax error-free to 100 yards. Parallax error is when slight changes in eye position change the aim of the scope. Ability to magnify the target image is another item to consider.

Here’s a formula for exit pupil size: Divide the  size of the objective lens in millimeters by the magnification. For example: if your 3-9X scope is set at 3X, 40 divided by 3 equals 13.3 millimeters, which is large enough for almost all low light applications. If your scope is set at 9X, 40 divided by 9 equals 4.44millimeters. The difference in available light from the larger exit pupil is quite significant.

The following photo shows the parts and adjustments available on most scopes, with the exception of the Parallax and Illumination knobs.

Just remember you are looking for a fogproof scope with multi-coated lenses that is also water-tight and then pick the magnification suited to the game you’re going to hunt, and you are headed in the right direction.

Cosmeaux.com Carries Aimpoint, ATN, BSA, Bushnell, Burris, Leupold, Nikon, Simmons, Tasco, Trijicon, Weaver and Zeiss rifle scopes, as well as Trijicon
ACOG and Docter sights.