Thread: How to choose a rifle scope

Originally Posted by Ryan_Songhurst

I think something important is to look for a scope that suits your action/rifle, I see a heap of setups with VX5/6 and NX8 (as an example only as these two stand out to me on a lot of setups) and when mounted on for example a Sako, the user has had to make a sacrifice as to how the scope sits on the rifle due to the relationship between the tube and location of the turrets and to a degree the objective bell, not being suitable, you then often see these setups running a rail as a "fix" where in my opinion a rail is just another part that isn't needed on a dedicated hunting rifle, adding extra weight, lifting the scope higher than necessary and having a detrimental affect on rifle balance, an extra junction to come loose, affecting the rifles ability to top load (and sometimes its ability to eject fired cases effectively) etc etc. In my opinion it's a well overlooked factor that should be right up at the top of the list.

The rail is unnecessary on Sakos, both 25 and 30 mm Optilocks have multiple height options, and here you can see both Optilock types in use

Top one is 85 rem mag finnlight with NX8 4-32 x 50

Bottom one is 75 rem mag hunter with NXS 5.5-22 x 50

I use both with 200yrd zero and they’re good to 1200yrds on Sika





VX5 fit well on the short actions with standard height Optilocks.