Giving this a try to see if it helps people hang around and engage with the community a little bit more. Spicy memes and gun bunnies are great but we all know the one thing that keeps us together is our love of the firearms that guarantee our freedom.
If you have questions about guns, training, ammo, etc. etc. and don't feel like getting joke answers in a standalone post of a site dedicated to shitposting, ask it here.
For the people who would like to answer questions, please keep it somewhat serious. Lighthearted humor is fine but I'd like to keep the actual autism out of this particular post.
If this seems effective, I'll try to get one stickied every week
Currently assembling an 'SPR' build around an 18" Criterion CORE barrel. For targets within 600yds, would yall take a 2-10x scope @ 19oz, or a 3-15x @ 28oz? Planning on an offset RDS either way. I wish 3-15x FFP scopes were lighter...
The "standard" rule of thumb most people use is usually 1x per 100m for a combat rifle. That's a good starting point.
If you have the offset red dot, do you REALLY need to get down all the way to 3x? Increasing the ratio between the top and bottom number is where a lot of that extra weight and cost is coming from. There may be some magnification/weight tradeoffs available to you that you haven't considered if you go from a 5x to a 4x or 3x magnification ratio.
The human eye is typically good to about one MOA if you have 20-20 vision. This is a decent approximation of what the rifle is capable of as well. You might get a quarter to half that with a good AR, and less with bench rest, but 1 MOA is kind of the standard for a "good" rifle
Technically, even with a 1x scope you should be able to hit anything big enough to see... but just barely see. The main benefit of a scope is to place your target and reticle in the same focal plane.
The real benefit of the higher magnification is more in target identification than actual effective accuracy. Also, higher magnification can make a paper target easier to see and just plain more pleasant to shoot, so preference plays a role.
Personally, for a practical rifle, where my goal is to "hit" rather than "miss" as fast as possible from field positions, I'd want a 1-4 or 1-6 scope on there, skip the red dot, throw some offset BUIS on. From the choices you listed, I'd go 2-10.
For a bench gun that I wanted to really wring maximum accuracy from, though, I'd get the 3-15x, or even more.
That's some really helpful advice and very logical. Been looking for ideas for glass for my open spaces rifle.