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Need scope advice.

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RandomHero

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So I am pretty experienced with scopes for the .308 and 5.56. As well as the purpose and applications of different reticles and power magnifications.
However.... I am humbly asking for assistance from you all. My son has a Smith and Wesson AR-22. Can you all please tell me which scope would be good to put on this rifle? Will a 5.56 scope work appropriately? What magnification and reticle would be best for the .22?
Now he isn't a huge hunter, the farthest he will shoot it will be mostly 25 yards, and occasionally 100 yards. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance to all of you that help me with advice for the .22 and in making a selection.
 
Depends on what you want. Plain jane, illuminated reticles? You can put just about anything you really want on it. On my 10/22, I used to run a Leupold Rifleman 3-9x40. Lol. It was awesome having that magnification for that tiny round. Lol. I got mine for around 300 bucks and it was a solid optic for what I wanted.
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Had the guy at Academy recommend the TruGlow 1-6 any thoughts?
It doesn’t appear to be a bad choice. Its nitrogen filled, 1/2 moa turrets and comes with a mount. Its also not going on something thats going to beat the snot out of it under recoil. 👍 The good thing about optics in this price range is that if it fails or doesn’t suit you, you can replace it and not be heavily invested in it.
Its a SFP, so when you zoom in, the reticle wont change. I like my FFP, but that’s subjective. I have a SFP as well and like it equally, but it has a different purpose.
It’ll be fine if thats what you want, an lpvo.
 
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What's his need in terms of the target template: how accurate does the optic need to be?

How is his eyesight?

The reason I ask is because what driven considerably by what Classified and Ginge wrote above: about weight and intended use.

As you may have seen in other threads, my daughter loves her 15-22:

1581280051151.png


And this was a few years back:

1581279999852.png


She's grown from having to bench the gun to really tackle those head-shots (that's a Tac-Strike quarter-scale: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/72/e5/94/72e594afb8674815056075b350ebb797.jpg) to being able to hot-dog head-shots cold and on-demand).

The distance limitation on that range is ~60 yards. In the picture of her in her winter coat, she was mag-dumping on the head at the 25. It's easy when the gun has no recoil. :D

If he's not going to really need magnification, you can save him quite a bit of hefting of the gun, particularly if he's young, by going with a smaller/lighter unmagnified RDS paired with a flyweight mount. I wish I had saved some of her paper/cardboard targets for show-and-tell, but particularly with young eyes uncorrupted by disease (my daughter is nearsighted, those are actually prescription shooting glasses: I'm more talking about astigmatism, which may cause non-itched reticles to bloom as a visual aberration, and make for harder precision shooting until the shooter has mastered proper target-focus and other sighting fundamentals specific to the RDS) and with proper execution of the fundamentals, from contact distance to the 100 yard line, an unmagnified RDS really doesn't give up too much to a LPVO in terms of precision/accuracy, unless the target is really demanding.

A reasonably affordable, reasonably good scope and mount is unlikely to drop below the 1-lb. mark. And while the 15-22 is light and while that extra pound is closer to the fulcrum, it's still going to add considerably to the weight.

FWIW, I have a a Vortex Crossfire II 2-7x32 on my 10/22. For a more dynamic shooter, I'd go for the 1-4x24 variant instead.

Both the Crossfire 1-4x and Ginge's Leupold VX 1-5x have a bit more forgiving eyeboxes versus the TruGlo, it seems. The Leupold is significantly lighter than the Crossfire, and given that their prices are comparable (what's your budget, BTW? and does it include the mount? if not, what's your mount budget? that Noren Classified suggested, for-instance, exists in a totally different playing field versus the three others discussed here), I'd favor the Leupold - I can't find the weight for the TruGlo, though?

I'm honestly not worried about either the reticle or magnifications at this point: with the variability of .22LR loads, he'll want to true the scope no matter what. Even with something as simple as the Crossfire II's V-Brite setup, he could still use the simple subtensions to great effect, at-range.
 
So he is 12, and perhaps a red dot would be better? 25 yards is the usual distance he will be shooting at the local gun range. He can occasionally shoot 100 yards at the outdoor range, but that's seasonal with weather permitting. And would he need a rim fire specific scope if we went magnified?
 
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Red dot is perfect. If it were my kid I might think of this to teach ranging and allow for transitioning to 556. Start slow and easy then work at his pace.


No need for a caliber specific scope. Just get one without a BDC reticle.

* i would choose the etched reticle due to it not needing a battery, but dont forget the weight issue.
 
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I agree w/Classified - the red-dot is perhaps one of the best tools for teaching optics (since there's no eyebox to worry about, and also in that parallax is minimized) as well as where to focus one's eyes (pairing it with a set of cowitnessed BUIS will allow you teach target focus with the dot, the concept of cowitnessing with both, and then transition to front-sight-focus with the irons; or, alternatively, if he is already familiar with irons, to work the other way around).

So he is 12, and perhaps a red dot would be better? 25 yards is the usual distance he will be shooting at the local gun range. He can occasionally shoot 100 yards at the outdoor range, but that's seasonal with weather permitting. And would he need a rim fire specific scope if we went magnified?

No, a rimfire-specific scope is not necessary - airguns have different requirements because of their unique recoil impulse. Traditional firearms scopes will work on .22LRs just fine.

The same goes for red-dots, too.

I chose the Primary Arms MD-ADS for her because of the single dot reticle (other reasons listed here: https://www.thearmorylife.com/forum/threads/red-dot-sight-assistance.521/page-4#post-10280 and https://www.thearmorylife.com/forum/threads/lets-see-your-ar-setups.258/page-3#post-3799), which was to help set her up for the typical Aimpoint/Trijicon single-dot setup, so that she could learn mechanical offset estimation without the aid of additional subtensions. With hunting as your final goal, you may find that a reticle like what Classified pointed out - one that would aid in range-estimation - to be a more appropriate tool.

I wish I could upload videos - she really was having a fun time on that 25-yard head......... :)
 
I agree w/Classified - the red-dot is perhaps one of the best tools for teaching optics (since there's no eyebox to worry about, and also in that parallax is minimized) as well as where to focus one's eyes (pairing it with a set of cowitnessed BUIS will allow you teach target focus with the dot, the concept of cowitnessing with both, and then transition to front-sight-focus with the irons; or, alternatively, if he is already familiar with irons, to work the other way around).



No, a rimfire-specific scope is not necessary - airguns have different requirements because of their unique recoil impulse. Traditional firearms scopes will work on .22LRs just fine.

The same goes for red-dots, too.

I chose the Primary Arms MD-ADS for her because of the single dot reticle (other reasons listed here: https://www.thearmorylife.com/forum/threads/red-dot-sight-assistance.521/page-4#post-10280 and https://www.thearmorylife.com/forum/threads/lets-see-your-ar-setups.258/page-3#post-3799), which was to help set her up for the typical Aimpoint/Trijicon single-dot setup, so that she could learn mechanical offset estimation without the aid of additional subtensions. With hunting as your final goal, you may find that a reticle like what Classified pointed out - one that would aid in range-estimation - to be a more appropriate tool.

I wish I could upload videos - she really was having a fun time on that 25-yard head......... :)
Thanks for all the helps guys. It's greatly appreciated. I will let you know what I get for it. 😃
 
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