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PRS shooters, what scope?


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Well everyone is different and different people like different ways of doing things so to say whats right for me isn't probably going  to work for others - so that said I would basically work through the following points and see what is left that meets the criteria.. I'm sure you'll know a lot of this but if you're already well into PRS (maybe just skip to the last paragraph) but for anyone that needs to buy a scope that doesn't know I would prioritise or at least filter in roughly this sequence....

1) Decide if you specifically want a new scope or if you would be happy with used (or maybe a demo or SOG or something nearly new)

   For my money its hard to argue a used scope as you'll obviously get more for your money but I'd check if it comes with a lifetime warranty and if its transferable as that's a big bonus - for example Leupold. also buying used you may get a few options to try before you buy but unlikely (less likely) with new.

2) Decide if you want FFP or SFP and if you want Mil or MoA (I have both and I wish I would have kept all in MoA like my iron sights) and if you want illuminated reticle, what kind of reticle mil dot, christmas tree for holdovers - basically what kind of sight picture do you want to see

    Which options are non-negotiable and which are nice to have

3) Heres the one I got caught out on - what range of distances do you need ?

    Will you be shooting 50 Yards to 1K Yards or always at 100 or what. If you want to zero your scope/rifle at the closest distance what it the total MoA/MRAD drop to the longest distance? If you need 45MoA adjustment most scopes could struggle or at least you may get into trouble with knowing if you are one turn up from zero or two turns up, conversely you dont want to be paying for features that give you huge amounts of adjustment you'll never use. If you always shoot at 100 yards or maybe 1-200yards you may be happy with a fixed magnification (I rarely change the magnification on my .22 for target shooting (But you need to know what you are happy with)

4) How does the scope perform - Thats a big question and you need to pick a scope then find some unbiased reviews - I have a Wulf scope - its not top of the range but it's okay. That said I also have a Vortex Razor that at 600-1K is somewhat sharper than the Wulf but at 100-300 I cant really say I could pick between them much and one of the most annoying things about the Wulf is that at high magnifications the "eye box" you need to get your eye in the right place to get a good field of view is quite tight. So if you dont need to use a 4-22x scope on 16-22x - probably 600 yards up then that might never bother you for example if you only shoot to 300. But given the Vortex is about 4-5x the cost of the Wulf thats a lot of wasted money if you can't make use of the extra clarity at higher magnification or youre not bothered about using the higher magnifications 

5) Other stuff - Do you need turrets for elevation and windage (depends if you'll be shooting in very variable wind conditions) or do you need paralax adjustment or do you need night vision - obviously the list goes on but...

 

I would also be tempted to use the optics warehouse data and filters to filter out a lot of the options you dont want then see whats left and go have a closer review of those scopes - there really is just too much personal preference and one guy at my club swears by a sight he loves but everyone else would hate using it, nevertheless he would still say to people that he'd recommend that sight because he liked it. 

I hope that doesn't sound like a lecture but I spent a lot of time looking at different sights when I really didnt know which ones would work for me and I had people saying things like "you can't beat a Schmidt & Bender" or "I bought a cheap Hawke and its as good as XYZ" and I was very tempted to blow my budget on an S&B and get killed by the Mrs - so my honest recommendation would be to try someone else's scope or a used scope for sale in a similar set up if you possibly can before splashing out (and whilst I do advocate buying used, optics warehouse do offer an exchange scheme if you do get something you dont get on with it)

Sorry one last thing - if you do decide to buy a good quality scope from a decent brand thats in demand and you benchmark the prices and have all the features covered (e.g. don't buy something that's about as useful as a fish in a circus) if you don't like it you can probably resell it for near what you paid for it so that's always an option too - but it might take a week it might take six months you never know.

D

 

 

 

Edited by Downforce
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1 hour ago, Downforce said:

Well everyone is different and different people like different ways of doing things so to say whats right for me isn't probably going  to work for others - so that said I would basically work through the following points and see what is left that meets the criteria.. I'm sure you'll know a lot of this but if you're already well into PRS (maybe just skip to the last paragraph) but for anyone that needs to buy a scope that doesn't know I would prioritise or at least filter in roughly this sequence....

1) Decide if you specifically want a new scope or if you would be happy with used (or maybe a demo or SOG or something nearly new)

   For my money its hard to argue a used scope as you'll obviously get more for your money but I'd check if it comes with a lifetime warranty and if its transferable as that's a big bonus - for example Leupold. also buying used you may get a few options to try before you buy but unlikely (less likely) with new.

2) Decide if you want FFP or SFP and if you want Mil or MoA (I have both and I wish I would have kept all in MoA like my iron sights) and if you want illuminated reticle, what kind of reticle mil dot, christmas tree for holdovers - basically what kind of sight picture do you want to see

    Which options are non-negotiable and which are nice to have

3) Heres the one I got caught out on - what range of distances do you need ?

    Will you be shooting 50 Yards to 1K Yards or always at 100 or what. If you want to zero your scope/rifle at the closest distance what it the total MoA/MRAD drop to the longest distance? If you need 45MoA adjustment most scopes could struggle or at least you may get into trouble with knowing if you are one turn up from zero or two turns up, conversely you dont want to be paying for features that give you huge amounts of adjustment you'll never use. If you always shoot at 100 yards or maybe 1-200yards you may be happy with a fixed magnification (I rarely change the magnification on my .22 for target shooting (But you need to know what you are happy with)

4) How does the scope perform - Thats a big question and you need to pick a scope then find some unbiased reviews - I have a Wulf scope - its not top of the range but it's okay. That said I also have a Vortex Razor that at 600-1K is somewhat sharper than the Wulf but at 100-300 I cant really say I could pick between them much and one of the most annoying things about the Wulf is that at high magnifications the "eye box" you need to get your eye in the right place to get a good field of view is quite tight. So if you dont need to use a 4-22x scope on 16-22x - probably 600 yards up then that might never bother you for example if you only shoot to 300. But given the Vortex is about 4-5x the cost of the Wulf thats a lot of wasted money if you can't make use of the extra clarity at higher magnification or youre not bothered about using the higher magnifications 

5) Other stuff - Do you need turrets for elevation and windage (depends if you'll be shooting in very variable wind conditions) or do you need paralax adjustment or do you need night vision - obviously the list goes on but...

 

I would also be tempted to use the optics warehouse data and filters to filter out a lot of the options you dont want then see whats left and go have a closer review of those scopes - there really is just too much personal preference and one guy at my club swears by a sight he loves but everyone else would hate using it, nevertheless he would still say to people that he'd recommend that sight because he liked it. 

I hope that doesn't sound like a lecture but I spent a lot of time looking at different sights when I really didnt know which ones would work for me and I had people saying things like "you can't beat a Schmidt & Bender" or "I bought a cheap Hawke and its as good as XYZ" and I was very tempted to blow my budget on an S&B and get killed by the Mrs - so my honest recommendation would be to try someone else's scope or a used scope for sale in a similar set up if you possibly can before splashing out (and whilst I do advocate buying used, optics warehouse do offer an exchange scheme if you do get something you dont get on with it)

Sorry one last thing - if you do decide to buy a good quality scope from a decent brand thats in demand and you benchmark the prices and have all the features covered (e.g. don't buy something that's about as useful as a fish in a circus) if you don't like it you can probably resell it for near what you paid for it so that's always an option too - but it might take a week it might take six months you never know.

D

 

 

 

Thankyou for taking the time to write such an informative post. Really really helpful 👍🏻

 

I'm pretty new to prs and have an old rifle with a Nikko mount master on top so not at all set up for shooting out past 100... Its great for bunnies though

Looking at complete change of setup with a new rifle and scope package 

 

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18 hours ago, ShootingEgg said:

Looking at complete change of setup

I’d suggest you don’t rush to get a new scope and buy the wrong thing 

There’s tons of cheap used scopes out there (I just have a cheap Hawke on my .22LR for 50/100 yards) it came with the gun it’s probably worth £100 used if that and I can put 10 in the middle using that scope at that distance most of the time 

I tried an ATN 4K electronic scope thinking it would simplify the distance adjustments for bullet drop at longer distances and to be fair it really did - to an extent - but what I hadn’t considered was how it handles wind and you basically need to “program “ the wind value in terms of strength and direction and to be honest it would have been much easier to be able to just adjust a MoA left or right manually rather then trying to figure out actuals 

At 900 yards the quality of the picture wasn’t good enough to be honest even though it was a 4K scope I couldn’t clearly see the dayglo marking spot but I could see I was mostly getting 4s and 5s just didn’t know where on the target without a spotting scope 

I also bought a really nice Leupold VariX (forerunner to VX) that was really bright and sharp but didn’t meet my needs for range adjustments and didn’t have turrets so much more suited to 300yards and less than out to 1k

I should have walked along the firing points at 900 and asked the guys what they are using and asked to have a look through other peoples scopes (most shooters are friendly and will let you play with their kit to a point particularly if you’re validating their kit choices).

But in your position I’d genuinely consider something like a used Leupold VX Gold Ring Illuminated scope or a Schmidt & Bender Klassic (German) to see what you like and you’re probably talking about £200-400 they are very good scopes for the money 

You probably don’t need high magnification like 18-24x range and you might find that you set your scope at (say) 12x as that gives you a good sight picture so you don’t change it

Someone else might want it up at 16x or 20x and at that magnification you might only be able to see the target which I don’t like as I always mentally check I’m on the right target number before each shot - it just depends on the shooter

It might be obvious but it might not - the size of the lens and tube on an optical telescopic sight also affects how much light gets through so generally shooting in lower light or overcast conditions would be better with a larger higher quality lens

BUT if you buy a 1” 25mm 30mm 34mm tube affects the mounting solution you use depending on how big your lens is (and if you use a sunshade and if your rifle has a 0moa rail) depends on how high you need to mount the scope so the scope front clears the body of the rifle the actual physical dimension - so as a new one piece mount can run £3-500 you don’t want to spend loads of money on a expensive mount if you might need to replace if you buy a different scope so again consider carefully if you’re looking at a 50+mm scope with a 34mm tube eventually but temporarily use a 40mm cheap scope you might want to buy a temporary scope with the same size 34mm tube so you can reuse the same mount provided it gives enough clearance for the bigger lens 

I am also a big fan of Quick Detatch/Quick Release mounts so I can remove sight before locking up the rifle and you need something that returns to the exact same zero point. You can buy a Spuhr for £500 but I use UTG mounts at about £80 that come back to zero well as long as I put it on exactly the same each time 

Talking of mounts one issue is alignment of the scope and rifle to get it absolutely square to the rifle and the right distance front to back for the perfect sight picture but there’s lots of good YouTube how to align a scope tutorial 

Hope that adds to your thoughts 

D

 

 

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Posted (edited)
53 minutes ago, old man said:

Not knowing anything about that discipline, a bit more info will help us understand your need?

Basically precision shooting from multiple positions and resting on obstacles etc. currently I've done targets from 15-100m in range .. it's very new to me. So realistically looking for a scope that is MOA and would have Christmas tree style reticle

 

Precision Rifle Shooting (PRS) is a popular and growing shooting style which involves hitting a sequence of metal targets at varying distances, shooting from multiple supported and unsupported positions

 PRS Competitions can feature targets typically 10-30cm in diameter, (yet the ones I was shooting at were as small as 5cm)

In addition to the variety of targets, there will be different ‘prop’ layouts on the firing point, which aim to offer diversity and challenge to each shooter

Edited by ShootingEgg
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1 hour ago, ShootingEgg said:

Basically precision shooting from multiple positions and resting on obstacles etc. currently I've done targets from 15-100m in range .. it's very new to me. So realistically looking for a scope that is MOA and would have Christmas tree style reticle

 

Precision Rifle Shooting (PRS) is a popular and growing shooting style which involves hitting a sequence of metal targets at varying distances, shooting from multiple supported and unsupported positions

 PRS Competitions can feature targets typically 10-30cm in diameter, (yet the ones I was shooting at were as small as 5cm)

In addition to the variety of targets, there will be different ‘prop’ layouts on the firing point, which aim to offer diversity and challenge to each shooter

Thanks, what do you see as the maximum distance fired at ?

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Scope should be FFP as courses of fire can be shot with hold over/under

Christmas tree style reticle 

Dialable turrets are a must

MiL turrets and reticle are the standard

Zero stop

Parallax done to 25 yards

20 - 25 power magnification , mostly use 12 -18.

I agree lifetime warranty is useful

Check out scopes from Element, Athlon, vortex,Arken etc

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