Do You Really Need a Scope that Costs as Much as Your Rifle?

“Make sure you spend as much on your scope as your rifle.”

“Your scope should cost at least double what your rifle does!”

“Put that scope on credit. Second mortgage rates are great these days. Also, your kid isn’t getting into college anyway.”

It may be true that your kid isn’t getting into college, but do you really need to spend his would-be tuition money on an optic for your rifle?

I’m here to tell you that the answer is, “No.” At least, not exactly.

If there’s one thing I preach to rifle hunters, it’s that you should match your gear to your needs in the field–not the needs of a gun writer or forum warrior. The same is true of your optic.

To do that, it’s helpful to know what you’re getting when you put down cash on a rifle scope. I remember when I was a new hunter, I was baffled by the range of prices on the market. You can pay $50 for a 6-24x scope on Amazon, or you can pay $3,100 for a 5-25x Nightforce. Both have similar magnification range, and the Amazon scope even comes with rings and an illuminated reticle! Why is the Nightforce 62 times more expensive?

The first reason expensive scopes are expensive is that they’re durable. Just like a car can be made with cheap or expensive internal components, scopes can be made with plastic or metal parts that significantly impact their durability.

As MeatEater’s Garrett Long puts it in his article, “Best Hunting Scopes,” “To say the Nightforce is durable is like saying Steven Rinella likes mule deer.” Nightforce has earned a special reputation for durability, but the same could be said for any of the high-end scopes from Sig Sauer, Vortex, or Leupold. You might put down more money for a scope because you want to have peace of mind that, if you take a tumble in the woods, the scope will still be zeroed.

Those internal components affect more than just durability. Scope “tracking” is an optic’s ability to move the reticle exactly as much as the turret indicates. If a scope has poor tracking, you might dial 2 MOA “up” but the reticle only moves 1.75 MOA “up.” As distances increase, that can turn a vital shot into a clean miss or, worse, a wounded animal.

The final reason expensive scopes are expensive is because they offer better light transmission and clarity. This is especially obvious when peering at small objects at long distances or during lowlight conditions. The clearer an optic is and the more light it transmits, the easier it will be to count the points on a mule deer in the minutes before shooting light is over.

If you’re skeptical of this, check out Adam Moore’s rundown of the best scopes under $500. Adam is MeatEater’s Gear Editor, and he’s tested and reviewed dozens of scopes both for us and for other outdoor publications you would recognize.

For his review of budget-friendly scopes, Adam used each optic to look at the same object in the minutes after the sun went down. While the views through those scopes appeared similar in the daylight, some of them performed obviously better at dusk. That’s why you might spend more than $60 for a scope, even if you can’t lay down for a Nightforce.

“If you look through a $200 scope and a $2000 scope in the middle of the day, you might not be able to tell the difference,” Adam said. “But during that last 15 minutes of legal shooting, your resolution will be noticeably different, which will allow you to pick up details and identify target animals. Those higher-end scopes will also have edge to edge clarity, even near their max magnification ranges.”

As you go up in price from the bargain-bin Amazon scope, durability, tracking, and clarity will improve. But the question remains: if your average hunting rifle is $800, do you really need to spend that much or more on a scope to be successful?

The answer, of course, is no. Hunters of yesteryear took animals with iron sights. And if you’ve ever looked through a scope from the 1930s or 40s, you know that those optics were far worse than even today’s bargain-bin options.

“Most hunters will be fine with a $500 scope,” Adam said. “For most people, even 3-9×50 is overkill. Whitetail hunters can even get away with a fixed power. You don’t really get a jump in quality until you get to the $1000 range–a first focal plane scope with good glass made in Japan or Europe.”

You don’t need a high-end scope to be a good hunter, but there’s a gray area between need and want that nice optics occupy. Almost all big-game hunters chase game during lowlight conditions. You never know exactly how far away a buck will emerge from the treeline, and if it’s 300 or 400 yards away, it’ll be clearer if you splurged on that $1,000+ scope.

However, if you’re unlikely to see a deer at that distance, or you don’t feel comfortable taking that kind of shot, that expensive scope becomes harder to justify. Even approaching last light, a $500 or even $300 scope from a reputable company is more than able to make a shot at 100 or 125 yards. It could also make a longer shot–it just won’t be as clear.

The same applies if you’re thinking about an optic for practice or competition at the range. If you want to get serious about competitive shooting, you need a scope with turrets that track true every time and return to zero without fail. You probably won’t be shooting in low-light conditions, but that scope needs to be tough. You can find that durability with scopes in the $500 or $800 range, but you’ll have more luck with a higher-end model.

If, however, you’re a weekend range goer who just enjoys plinking for a few hours on a Sunday, you don’t need to spend an arm and a leg on an optic. Less expensive scopes will let you see targets just fine at 1,000+ yards, and the turrets will track well enough that misses are more likely due to user error than scope failure.

Bottom line? If you need excellent lowlight performance or extreme durability, those forum warriors might have a point. Spending as much or more on your optic as you did on your gun can have advantages.

But you don’t need a nice scope on every gun. You can only shoot one gun at a time, and in most cases, you don’t need that lowlight performance or extreme durability. That’s why I recommend investing in one high-end scope. It doesn’t have to be a Nighforce, but something like this Sig Sauer WHISKEY6 3-18×44 will serve you well in any application. You can mount the scope on whatever rifle you plan to hunt with, and it will give you an edge you might find useful when time is running out in the field.

For your other guns, a lower-end scope from a reputable company will do everything you need it to do, and you’ll have money to spend on more important things like ammunition…or your kid’s college tuition.