Gentlemen and ladies,
I've been off of the radar for a while, but am getting back into the game here. I have been racking my brain over the past few weeks over which optic I should choose, and I figured the expertise here would be my best bet. I have Bruce Lee search fu'ed the internet high and low, and still come up with 6 one way, half dozen the other answers that can not definitively help my decision. I have ZERO experience with any of the optics I am going to list, so if any of you do PLEASE chime in. I appreciate any and all help here.
Background: I've owned good (for me) optics by US Optics, Leupy Mark 4's, Sightron SIII's, Burris XTR, and have broken a bunch of the cheap Bushnells, Simmons, and BSAs. I doubt I'll ever eat enough Ramen for a S&B/Nightforce/Premier/Zeiss etc... I would also venture to say that I have enough knowledge to stay away from cheap optics again.
Rifle: DPMS LR308B
Intended use: My girl's father is a rancher in OK, I expect that when I retire the first time we will probably settle down there so she can help with the ranch. The terrain is mostly wooded, but has a couple large pastures/meadows around 100 acres in size each. The rifle will be mostly a truck gun for any hog or coyote, occasionally seeing deer hunting duty during the season. I would expect that I will be doing some hunting in the dawn/dusk time frames, so I am looking at reticles with illumination. I also have some desires to shoot the rifle on the range for fun. I have some Service Rifle match experience up to the interservice level, and I appreciate accurate guns far more than I do guns that just make noise and spray all over the place. I purchased the rifle because it was the cheapest semi-auto .308 that I could find that has a reasonable expectation for accuracy. If I could squeeze consistent sub 1.5MOA out of the rifle that would be great, and for me more magnification does help a little. I would also like rock-solid durability, but within my price range I understand that you can't have everything and get what you pay for generally.
Budget: Would like to stay under $600, but can go as high as $1K. I do get the military discount from the manufacturers that give it. I wish I could put a $3K optic on a $3k rifle and beat the crap out of it, but I just do not have that kind of disposable income. So I will cry far less when i accidently drop a $1600 rig off of a tractor or bang it around in a gun rack vice a $6K rig.
Optics: I have been looking at these models pretty hard:
1) VX-R Patrol 1.5-4x20mm and 3-9x40mm.
2) Vortex Viper PST 1-4x24mm and 2.5-10x44mm. I read the "VX-R Vs. PST" thread on here already and got good arguments for both sides.....didn't help me much. I know that the VX-R's reticle would be far better suited for game hunting and rapid aquisition instead of target shooting, but that is about it as far as my knowledge goes.
3) Leupold Mark4 MR/T 1.5-5x20mm
4) Leupold VX-6 1-6x24 with the Fire Dot Circle
5) Burris XTR 1.5-6x40 (had great luck with my last and only XTR)
6) Weaver 1-5x24mm
7) Sightron SIII 1-7x24mm with the new ILMOA4 (wish there was more out there about this one)
8) SS 1-6x24mm (more than I really want to spend)
9) Bushnell Elite 3-12x44mm (again, more than I really want to spend)
So what would you get and why? Thanks in advance for any help.
I've been off of the radar for a while, but am getting back into the game here. I have been racking my brain over the past few weeks over which optic I should choose, and I figured the expertise here would be my best bet. I have Bruce Lee search fu'ed the internet high and low, and still come up with 6 one way, half dozen the other answers that can not definitively help my decision. I have ZERO experience with any of the optics I am going to list, so if any of you do PLEASE chime in. I appreciate any and all help here.
Background: I've owned good (for me) optics by US Optics, Leupy Mark 4's, Sightron SIII's, Burris XTR, and have broken a bunch of the cheap Bushnells, Simmons, and BSAs. I doubt I'll ever eat enough Ramen for a S&B/Nightforce/Premier/Zeiss etc... I would also venture to say that I have enough knowledge to stay away from cheap optics again.
Rifle: DPMS LR308B
Intended use: My girl's father is a rancher in OK, I expect that when I retire the first time we will probably settle down there so she can help with the ranch. The terrain is mostly wooded, but has a couple large pastures/meadows around 100 acres in size each. The rifle will be mostly a truck gun for any hog or coyote, occasionally seeing deer hunting duty during the season. I would expect that I will be doing some hunting in the dawn/dusk time frames, so I am looking at reticles with illumination. I also have some desires to shoot the rifle on the range for fun. I have some Service Rifle match experience up to the interservice level, and I appreciate accurate guns far more than I do guns that just make noise and spray all over the place. I purchased the rifle because it was the cheapest semi-auto .308 that I could find that has a reasonable expectation for accuracy. If I could squeeze consistent sub 1.5MOA out of the rifle that would be great, and for me more magnification does help a little. I would also like rock-solid durability, but within my price range I understand that you can't have everything and get what you pay for generally.
Budget: Would like to stay under $600, but can go as high as $1K. I do get the military discount from the manufacturers that give it. I wish I could put a $3K optic on a $3k rifle and beat the crap out of it, but I just do not have that kind of disposable income. So I will cry far less when i accidently drop a $1600 rig off of a tractor or bang it around in a gun rack vice a $6K rig.
Optics: I have been looking at these models pretty hard:
1) VX-R Patrol 1.5-4x20mm and 3-9x40mm.
2) Vortex Viper PST 1-4x24mm and 2.5-10x44mm. I read the "VX-R Vs. PST" thread on here already and got good arguments for both sides.....didn't help me much. I know that the VX-R's reticle would be far better suited for game hunting and rapid aquisition instead of target shooting, but that is about it as far as my knowledge goes.
3) Leupold Mark4 MR/T 1.5-5x20mm
4) Leupold VX-6 1-6x24 with the Fire Dot Circle
5) Burris XTR 1.5-6x40 (had great luck with my last and only XTR)
6) Weaver 1-5x24mm
7) Sightron SIII 1-7x24mm with the new ILMOA4 (wish there was more out there about this one)
8) SS 1-6x24mm (more than I really want to spend)
9) Bushnell Elite 3-12x44mm (again, more than I really want to spend)
So what would you get and why? Thanks in advance for any help.
Last time I was there, I think I drove 3-4 hours and saw nothing but barren, flat land.
