Thread: is a 3-9x40 scope an overkill for a .22?

3-9x40 ideal for a hunting 22LR.

We shoot bunnies by tens of thousands down here in Cantab and in this high volume situation our gear - rifles and scopes etc - is tested to the maximum. With scopes 4x32 is ok, 3-9 or 4-12 is ideal. Our average bunny kill distance for many years was 70m per shot, and accurate well tuned 22s nail this easily. All boys expect to drop everything to 100m with 22LR. Commonly with 22s we will shoot with scopes on 5-6x which covers shorter ranges plus 100m shooting. No problem at all. We very seldom have time to adjust magnification. 4-12x and 4-16x better for shooting precision groups at 100m.

If you are shooting very low numbers like 3-4 bunnies 3 times a year etc, and have lots of time, plus calm, still, windfree conditions to take long range headshots, then a higher magnification may be fine.

For routine bunny bowling 3-9x40 ideal. The wee Bushnell spot on for this job. Go for it!

I use a trs25 red dot on my 10/22 and find zero advantage of anything bigger. Every now and then I put a 4x or 3-9X scope on it but it usually only lasts for one night, then it comes off in disgust. 22LR zeroed at 50m wlll be dropping anywhere from 10-15cm at 100m, what's the point of a huge scope with such a short range cartridge?

Originally Posted by Ben Waimata

22LR zeroed at 50m wlll be dropping anywhere from 10-15cm at 100m, what's the point of a huge scope with such a short range cartridge?

Zero at 75 and shoot to 125, ish.

With standard velo ammo. This has you 1" high at 50 and 4" low at 100. Obviously you need to verify this on paper for your rifle before taking shots on animals. Also worth noting that anything past 75 yards is pushing it on impact energy to do the damage needed on all but light game.
(none of the silly hypervelocity stuff) - even with supersonics, they will go trans-sonic at about that 125 yard mark and tumble after that.

Agree with mudgripz above, 6x (even fixed power) is about right-on.

http://www.shooterscalculator.com/ba...php?t=9437754f

Only issue you might have is the parallax setting on a centrefire scope is usually set at 100 metres. Since most of your shooting will be inside that ,a rimfire specific scope might have the edge.

But having said that - I have more than a few 3-9 scopes on rimfires. I dont , however , have any X 50 scopes on rimfires - they are too big and bulky for carrying around.

The scope you own is better than the scope you have to go out and buy.

Hey something ive noticed with this scope is it has another dial marked - to + right on the eyepiece itself.
I thought it was for focus, but it appears to be an extra level of zoom, it magnifys the image substantially more than if i just dial the main focus to 9x for example.
Is this common? The eyepiece will extend out about another 10mm if i screw it out all the way.

Greetings,
Two bolt action .22 rifles in the cupboard. One has a Leupold 4 to 12 x 40 AO with a fine duplex and the other an 8 power Lyman with fine cross hairs. Both have adjustable objectives.
GPM.

Originally Posted by Old_School

Hey something ive noticed with this scope is it has another dial marked - to + right on the eyepiece itself.
I thought it was for focus, but it appears to be an extra level of zoom, it magnifys the image substantially more than if i just dial the main focus to 9x for example.
Is this common? The eyepiece will extend out about another 10mm if i screw it out all the way.

That is to dial it in to your preferred/needed level of "blindness"
(There is probably a more optometrically correct term for this)

Pointing at the sky or some far-off uniform colour thing, adjust it until the crosshairs are sharp for you. There should be a lock-ring inbehind the bell to lock in your setting.

Not really a fair comparision as I use my competition 22 for hunting but have used my 3-15 Vortex PST a lot as well as the Delta Stryker 4.5-30.

The Delta actually came in very useful for a awile as I was shooting magpies in a tree outside my back door, which involved shooting through the branches of another tree (which there were a lot of).
The high magnification and FFP reticle was great for all the little "loop holes" created by the branches.

My favorite scope for my 22 is my 2.5-10x32 Vortex PST, I've tended towrds FFP scopes for everything these days and this scope is one of the better lower mag FFP options.

Anything under 24x, the bigger the magnification the better when you shoot freehand. head of a possum at 50 is about the same as rimfire silhouette targets, about 4 MOA. the most sought after scope for that competition is the (discontinued) Leupold fixed 24x, the most popular is Leupold 6.5-20 and people normally use it at 20x. the larger the magnification the better you can aim at the center of the target.

3-9 is probably ok if you always shoot with rifle rested, far too weak to shot standing freehand at 50-100m.

My hunting 22 rifles sport 3-15 LHT, 4-24 Titanium, 6-18 Leupold VX2.

I got a 4-20 sightron on mine, works great

Shooting a really high power scope - like a 20X - offhand is hard due to the wobble factor. For me at least .

For .22 rf ranges a 3-9 or 4-12 is perfectly adequate without being overly technical.

Originally Posted by winchesterM69A

Shooting a really high power scope - like a 20X - offhand is hard due to the wobble factor. For me at least .

For .22 rf ranges a 3-9 or 4-12 is perfectly adequate without being overly technical.

agree with that I like 3-12 or 4-12 just a bit more confidence on tricky head shot at 10 or 11 power - the adjustable eye piece is a must for me - allows me to really focus the scope

3-9x is pretty good.

You really want 2-3x for close up finishing undead animals and sometimes for possums intree.

12x is arguable better for 50m shots but it costs more and hard to come by,

Normal 3-9x scopes dont come with close focus (parallax) but if your eyes are young you can focus in close OK and using 6x its not such an annoyance. Close focus/parallax costs significantly more.

😟 the +/- adjustment is to focus the reticle. It shouldnt change the magnification, so its an optical design error in a budget scope. However, if you can see well through it then its a bonus , like turning the volume knob up to 11 !

athlon 5-25 on my tikka and pst2 5-25 on the 10/22. both with 40moa rails.