I know this scope is way under your price range but perhaps you should take a look at the Meopta Optika 6 line. I purchased two of them last year. the 4.5-27 for me and the 3-18 for my son. I have to tell you that I have been extremely impressed with the quality of the scopes. So far they've tracked perfectly out to 1000 yards and back dozens of times and I would say the glass is 80% of my S&B PMII. The 4.5-27 does get dark past 25x but still usable, the 3-18 is crystal clear throughout it's entire range. The only thing I'm not too thrilled with is the horseshoe reticle but since I have them on hunting rifles, it's actually very convenient at low magnification.