I know it’s the Indian, not the arrow, and practice, and all that.

What should I spend on a scope to learn precision shooting out to half a mile? What should I spend on rings/mount?

A lot.

Gee thanks. Sooper Dooper helpful.

1/2 a G  is a start

Any particular recommendations? MOA vs Mil dot? What kind of reticle? What magnification range? And rings, or one piece base? This is for an AR in 6.5 Grendel.

https://swfa.com/swfa-ss-20x42-tactical-30mm-riflescope-6.html

That is about as cheap as I would go for what you requested.  Ranging reticle does not matter for shooting groups.  You will want 20x to maybe a bit more for this.

Thank you, that looks exactly like what I want.

Any rings/mounts recommendations?

Indian not the arrow.

Which arrow should the Indian use to be most productive with his limited practice time?

After all, this Indian’s got shit to do. He’s got corn to farm, wives to impregnate, and sons to raise.

Well, if you put it THAT way...

Tbh, you didn’t give much to work with.

I have this and like it bigly.

https://www.amazon.com/Nikon-MONARCH-Riflescope-Black-4-16x50/dp/B00BAHMGGI

Well shit with all that just sling dick and you'd be a God in GD. But for the Grendel a Mark AR 6-18 would be another good start in a 20 moa mount.

A: How far can you shoot near MOA with standard irons or a 1X dot?

B: How far do you want to shoot with scope?

Everyone’s eyes are different. B divided by A should give you a rough estimate of “X” magnification needed to carry small groups out to distance. Example: you can hold 1” pretty well at 50 yards with a red dot and you want to shoot 800 yards... you’d need about 16X to have a similar scale of target view at 800yd.

Of course, there’s things like mirage, aberration, light attenuation and other factors when using higher mags, but it’s probably a pretty good baseline for what’s needed to shoot “groups” long distance.

As far as merely shooting for serviceable accuracy (only hitting a gong or silhouette) the rule of thumb is 1X per 100yds.

I’ve never shot for groups beyond 200.

What do you giys think of the Leupold Mark AR 6-18? That would be on the upper end of my price range, but it would work. What do you guys like for rings or a mount?

Can’t help you with the first question.

As far as rings, Burris Signature Zees are my go-to. Absolutely love those things for a number of reasons. The inserts do a great job in securing the scope without marring the tube. They also allow for a full range of adjustment. Price is decent as well.

From the pictures, they look sorta weak and cheap. Are they good for precision work?

Leupold Mark AR 6-18 Review

SWFA - reasonable glass at a reasonable price!  If you are looking for a fixed power optic, choose 10x, 12x, or 16x.  If you want a variable, the 3x - 15x has been well received.  For bases, I am partial to steel and have had good experiences with Badger Ordnance 20 MOA bases.  For rings, I have had good experiences with Leupold Mark 4 rings (high).  Rings + base ~$250 total.

LRSU video - 1 mile milk jug with a 308 and an SWFA 12x fixed optic!  It's the indian!!!

I just bought a nikon x1000 6-24. I think thats the min I would want, and I bought it for exactly that. Its hard to beat nikon for budget optics IMO. next in line would be a vortex viper hst whatever-25 and then north of that is nightforce territory with a 8-32x56 $1700+

I got mine for 517 shipped off ebay with the 15% off coupon they just had.

I don't know why people think you need a good expensive scope to shoot tight groups.

That isn't how it works. If your $30 Bushnell Sportview holds zero, has no parallax, it can shoot just as tight groups as any other scope.

A $300 fixed SWFA 10x would be fine to 1k+ yards.

What is a tight group?

1 MOA?

The more magnification, the more money it costs to get the clarity.

I've shot "tight" groups at 600 with a $200 3-9 VXII Leupold.

There is that!

btw, even though all I have are variable scopes, I would think a high powered fixed scope would be better for long distance. Brighter and sharper due to simpler optics and such.
Less expensive and more durable to boot.
I may be wrong, but it seems to make sense to my age addled brain.

Possibly so but my point is scopes don't make groups.

The scope needs to be see through and have a fixed point of aim the rest is up to the rifle, bullet and shooter.

If you only have a 9x that doesn't mean you can't make good groups at 1k, it just means you need a bigger point of aim to properly and repeatabley center your reticle.

I have mine in a reaper all steel 15 moa mount. I bought it because it was lighter than some other brands but still decent glass. I primarily use the rifle it's on for calling coyotes. The downside for me is the parallax objective it's easily bumped and moved.  The turrets are nice but don't have a lot of travel. As Popnfresh states you don't have to have a super expensive optic to get started. I have Millet that I like but it weighs almost twice as much as the Leupold and cost half as much. And the turrets are mushy. The part that pisses me off with the MKAR is the it doesn't come with a regular vertical turret. That calibrated 55gr 5.56 BS.

https://www.ar15.com/forums/Precision-Rifles/Before-asking-which-Scope-Rings-Base-Look-here-Spotting-scopes-and-Range-finders-added-3-15-15/5-314/

Thanks for the reply.

My life will not depend on this optic. At most, it will be used for hunting, but the primary use of this gun will be target shooting.

6.5 Grendel.

A friend of mine is offering to sell me his Vortex 6-18 (unsure of specific model) for 200 dollars. I may take him up on that, what do you guys think of the lower end Vortex scopes?

Hit or miss. I have not had good luck with the lower or even some of the mid grade stuff from Vortex.

I've got to disagree with the advice that you NEED to buy an FFP and/or a MIL based optic. Plenty of LR shooters shoot SFP and MOA; it really depends on your shooting discipline. Either system will serve you well; just depends on what's easier for you to learn, and what "language" (MOA or MIL) your shooting friends speak.

As far as how much you need to spend, on a new scope, I'd say ~$500 at a minimum. You're going to want a 30mm tube for the increase in elevation adjustment, and you're going to want relatively clear, higher magnification glass.

A $200 Vortex is not the scope you want to be starting with; it may technically work, but it *probably* won't track all that repeatably, and the glass most certainly won't be all that high quality.

As far as new scopes to look into:
- Viper PST Gen 2
- Leupold VX3i LR
- Sightron SIII

You can probably find some deals on EE or other places for used scopes. I'd feel pretty comfortable recommending a PST Gen1, a Leupold VX3/MK4, or even a target model of Vari-X III. Regardless of what scope model you choose, you will be wanting exposed turrets; this is a must, as you'll be making adjustments to the scope for each change in elevation. I personally would steer clear of a Bushnell, Burris, or Nikon scope in this price range for LR work, but that's just my personal preference.

The Mark AR you mentioned will work, however it's not an ideal setup as it's a 1" tube IIRC; naturally it'll be a mil reticle/turret scope if that matters to you. The downside to 1" tubes is that you will run out of adjustment much faster than a scope with a larger diameter body. I'm going to speak in minutes here because that's what I shoot, but let's say that Mark AR has ~65 MOA of up/down adjustment; you basically half that to determine how much upward elevation you have when zeroed (~32.5 MOA). I don't shoot a grendel, but I know my .260 Remington (a few hundered FPS faster than a Grendel) requires just about 30MOA to reach 1,000 yards depending on the load. If you have aspirations of shooting to 1k (or perhaps 800 yards in a Grendel) that scope may not work.

It's also important to note, that it's not an exact science. Some scopes will have more or less adjustment than what the manufacture claims; you really don't know until you take it out and run it through it's adjustments. This variation in adjustment is much more prevalent on cheaper scopes.

The next big thing is repeatability; as mentioned earlier, you'll be dialing all these shots so you need your adjustments to be on-point every time. Higher end scopes will have beefier/more positive adjustments, and in general will be more reliable/repeatable. Again, with lower cost optics you can run into internals that don't actually adjust 1MOA for every 4 clicks. You'll see people run a "box test" or they'll shoot it up a pre measured vertical line to confirm the scope is tracking where it should be.

Regarding magnification, it all depends on the distance you want to shoot. It's easier to shoot tight groups at longer range with a 60x scope than it is with a 12x scope. It can be done with either, but I personally prefer my LR scopes to have a mimium of 20x. Also keep in mind image quality in most scopes that are lower on the magnification range will appear sharper/cripser than those higher in the magnification range. For instance, to my eyes the glass in a Vortex PST 2-10x power scope set on 10 power looks much better than a 6-24x50 set to 24 power. They're in the same model family/class, but the optical quality will usually be better on the lower powers.

Glass is the one aspect of a LR rifle you really can't cheap out on. You can cut a lot of other corners on a LR rifle, but bad glass on a great rifle takes all the fun out of it.

I hope this helps.

Thank you, yes that's very helpful. What's your opinion on the previously mentioned SWFA fixed power scopes? They are definitely inside my budget, and I would be able to splurge on a mount. Or should I get a quality variable power?

I've never bought a scope this expensive before; usually I buy around the 2-250 dollar mark. More than sufficient for hunting and plinking, but this is my first foray into precision shooting.

I am personally quite skeptical of the SWFA SS scopes, simply because of the price point, and it mostly being mostly new LR shooters "reviewing" them. This is crude and elitist, but I liken it to having a virgin reviewing discount condoms; how do they know what they're talking about? That said, I can't recall seeing a bad review of them, but I've never looked down one myself. Optics in general are very tough to get a feel for online; lots of folks out there will tell you a Simmons looks 90% of a S&B, and that's just flat not true. You may want to see what they're going for used to determine if you can dump it if you're not happy. I don't believe they come in a MOA variant, so you'll be shooting MIL if that matters to you.

Regarding it being a fixed 12 power, that's usually not an issue for longer range work. I would guess most of my LR rifles spend ~95% of their time cranked up to full power (20x up to 32x depending on the scope), but then again I'm shooting what amounts to an F-class type discipline, with known distance targets (closest being 100 yards) either proned out or from a bench. For PRS shooting, trying to hit a close in target at ~50 yards while using an upturned pallet for a rest would be much more difficult at 12 power than it would with a variable you can crank down to 3x. As I said with the MOA vs Mil & SFP vs FFP discussion, it really comes down to what you're going to do with the rifle; there is no one size fits all answer.

Fixed power will in a way lock your rifle into a certain use case (at least with higher powered ones). For instance, with a variable 4-12x40 (as an example), you could technically use that for LR shooting, but it would also work for your average 20-200 yard deer hunting. That same rifle with a fixed power scope would be much more difficult to hunt with. Just something else to think about.

On a positive note, fixed power scopes tend to (or at least used to 15-20 years ago) have more reliable adjustments. Not that it speaks to the repeatablity of the adjustments, but lots of BR guys are running higher end fixed power scopes.

Regarding the rings, you'd probably be better served in putting more money into the optic and cheaping out on rings (to an extent). The Burris/Blackhawk style picatinny rings (the ones with 6 screws per ring) will likely work just fine for you. If you were planning on buying NF or Seekins rings, you could probably save money there, and dump that cash into a potentially better scope. Cheaper rings will work, but they aren't as rugged.

Thank you. I think I will look into the Leupold 6-18. Does anyone make a 25-30 MOA mount, to compensate for the 1 inch tube? It seems a waste to have 30 MOA upward adjustment that doesn't get used... Or am I off base here?

Regarding mounts, I own a Burris PEPR mount, and it always struck me as somewhat cheap feeling. Are their non QD mounts better?

Well it depends to what distance you'll be shooting... I ran some very rudimentary numbers off some factory Hornady 123 grendel loads.



Per the above chart you would be unable to dial a shot beyond 900 yards with a Grendel and a scope that has ~65MOA of elevation adjustment on a zero MOA base. If you purchased a 20MOA base, you could extend the range out to 1200 (in theory). It doesn't add adjustment so much as it moves the adjustment range to suit your dicipline. Think of it like regearing an axle on a truck with big tires; it doesn't add any HP, it just makes it much more usable to compensate for the large tires.

In real life, it's not near as simple as just adding 20 MOA and banging steel at 1200 yards, but it does move your theoretical max range to that point.

Regarding QD mounts, they're really not required and it should lower the cost to go with fixed mounts. I use QD mounts on my LR ARs, but that's just because I'm wrenching on them frequently (i.e. changing handguards or barrels). QD mounts *can* be a bit liability if not setup properly, and no matter how good the mount, you'll want to recheck zero every time you pull that mount off the rifle. If you don't have good reason to pull the scope off constantly, I would go with a fixed picatinny mount and dump the cost savings into an upgraded scope.

The very last thing you want to do is go spend ~$300-$400 on a scope, and another $200 on QD mounts. Much better idea to spend $500-$600 on a scope, and toss some $50 rings on there. Although you can have ring related problems, they're typically much less common than scope related issues.

I'm not familiar with that Burris mount personally, but in general I'm not a fan of anything Burris. Some of their mounts are ok though (Zee rings for hunting rifles, or the Xtreme rings for a budget LR rig)

https://shop.opticsplanet.com/burris-xtreme-tactical-30mm-rings.html?_iv_code=BR-RR-XTR30mm-420160&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=plusbox-beta&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI7d2OsdKJ3AIVi8DACh3_ogcAEAQYAyABEgJ2DfD_BwE

Edit: Yes, speaking in very generic terms,  the overwhelming majority of scoped rifles in the world are limited to ~1/2 of their adjustment range (i.e. not using a canted base). The scope erector tube must be concentric with, and paralell to the scope tube; hence why this is a mechanical certainty.

Takiing everything into account, I think I want a high magnification, fixed power scope with target turrets. 30 mm tube if possible, yes?

Does this exist in the 4-500 dollar range?

I think the SWFA 12 or 16 power might be just the ticket. I can't decide which I'd prefer.

Bugger all that. I'm going with the Leupold Mark AR 6-18. What 1 inch rings/mounts would you buy for 150 or under?

What type of rifle are you mounting this to?

AR 15 in 6.5 Grendel

Burris Leupold Nikon Reaper and Vortex all make great one piece extended mounts around the hundred dollar range.

Thanks.

I really like the Warne one-piece mount on my 6.5CM AR.

This performs like scopes costing 3x it's price.

https://cameralandny.com/spec-sheet.html?catalog%5Bname%5D=Athlon-Optics-Midas-BTR-4.5-27x50---APLR1-SFP-IR-MIL-midas-btr-4.5-27x50&catalog%5Bproduct_guids%5D%5B0%5D=1622684

An AR in 6.5 grendel, 600-800 yards.

A 4x ACOG is your answer, don't over-complicate things. You don't need magnification for target shooting at the distances you describe, what you need is quality glass with solid internals. Stay away from cheap variable power optics, and stay away from fixed power scopes with more then 10x magnification. Both are a waste of money, and will leave you dissapointed.

Mil, or MOA scopes will work, but most folks are going to the Mil system.  If you can afford it, buy a scope with the reticle in the first focal plane, and a scope that has adjustments that match the reticle (either MOA/MOA, or Mil/MIL).  Some of Leupold's Mark 4 scopes had Mil reticles with MOA turret adjustments.  You can learn to work with them, but it simply takes more work to do so as it is more math to do.

Ji would take a look at the soon to be released primary arms 3-18. $500 and getting b very good preliminary reviews.

The SWFA fixed power scopes are probably your best bet on the cheap. Check out snipers hide lots of good feedback on them

Also I would call Doug at Camera land NY and talk to him. The Athlon scope listed above is great for the price and he always offers great pricing. If you don't want Athlon for whatever reason he is hey knowledgeable and will get you fixed up

I second the BS answer about "needing" to have mil to shoot long range... that makes no sense at all.  1/4 MOA is actually a slightly more precise measurement than 1/10mil.  But you're splitting hairs.  The important thing is that your reticle (if it's hashed) matches the measurements on the turrets... Go with whatever measurement method makes sense for you and is easy for you to think about. Here's a great article.  http://precisionrifleblog.com/2013/07/20/mil-vs-moa-an-objective-comparison/

On my AR Grendel I used the cheap vortex mount and a Bushnell Forge 3-18 (great little scope btw).  Using Hornady American Gunner and SST the gun shoots sub moa out to 600 (furthest I've shot it so far).  Here are some examples of groups at various ranges.



I shot this group standing using a triclawps and sticks under the stock

The clearest glass, least distortion, with enough elevation adjustment to dial holdovers.

With a 6-24 PST Gen1 and a 20MOA base, I can dial out to 1400+ meters.  The glass is ok.

Reticle choice is important IMO.  I really like the EBR2C reticle with the open center.  I've got an S&B PMII with the Gen2XR reticle that has a reticle fine enough not to obscure the bulls on a 1200M target.  


My only concern with the Leupold AR scope is the 1" tube and how much that will restrict your ability to dial elevation.  Once you start making repeatable hits at 800 yds, your very next move is set out to make hits at 900, 1000, 1100, etc. etc.  I'd go ahead and prepare for that by getting a 30mm or bigger scope tube with enough elevation.

I would look at sample list for some stuff around your price range. Like THIS

OP, Vortex has a nice new FFP tactical scope out in the 4-5bill range..might take a look at it...

Thank you, very helpful.

I should clarify my goals for this rifle. This won’t be a pure benchrest rifle. I want to set it up for hunting, as well as “tactical” applications. With that in mind, I want to keep weight low, and I don’t intend to shoot it to 1000 yards or more. Next summer I want to buy a pure accuracy platform on a bolt action, where weight will not be an issue. I will spend a lot on that one, and get a 30mm.

What is your maximum range?
Given what you are saying, it looks like an ACOG is what you need.