4 Affordable Rifle Scopes We Trust

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A reliable hunting rifle scope doesn’t have to cost a truck load of cash. Here are four great hunting scopes we’ve tested and recommend.

There’s not much innovative or surprising here, just a basic duplex reticle inside a straight-ahead scope with decent turrets and a durable build. Backed by an excellent warranty.

If simplicity is the pathway to versatility, then the Vortex Crossfire II is at home on a small-game bolt rifle or a fast-shooting AR. It might not have the chops for precision work, but the duplex reticle is fast and reliable. The controls are a little mushy, but the eye relief and eye box are both forgiving and the fix

Vortex Venom 1-6×24

You could subtract points from this scope for its very narrow utility. Its AR-BDC3 reticle in the second plane is tuned to the ballistics of standard loads from a 5.56 with velocities from AR carbines. With that use-case in mind, and with a 100-yard zero, the reticle’s holdover references should drop a 55-grain bullet into your target out to 650 yards.

While the Viper was one of the best AR-specific LPVOs in our test, it would be a mistake to limit your consideration to AR-15s. The scope is a wonderful rimfire optic, and we found it to be fast and reliable for dangerous-game hunting. While we might not put it on a hard-bucking turkey shotgun, it’s suitable for straight-wall cartridge rifles.

The heart of the scope is an MOA-based segmented circle. The 16-MOA circle halfway surrounds a floating 1-MOA illuminated dot. Non-illuminated hashes provide holdovers at 200, 400, 500, and 600 yards with a 100-yard zero and windage dots represent holds for standard-value right-angle winds. Note that the subtensions work only at the scope’s highest power.

The scope’s controls received mixed reviews, as you might expect in a price-point optic. Most testers recorded indistinct turret clicks and noted the illumination is useful only at the highest and lowest intensities. We also noted significant distortion at 1X, with convex “fishbowling” curving the image when we panned across the landscape. Do it quickly, and you can feel almost seasick.

But the Vortex has so much value, and brings attributes to the game that many of its peers couldn’t bring at twice the price, that it is the consensus pick for our Great Buy award as the screaming deal of this year’s LPVOs.

This riflescope won our Great Buy award in 2024 and it’s still a great deal today. You can find variations of the R5 for about $220 to $280. OL editor-in-chief Alex Robinson went with the 4-12X40 on his budget deer rifle build because it’s a good, balanced magnification range for both deer hunting and shooting on the range. But don’t overlook the compact LPVO version in 1-6X24 for hunting in heavy timber. Many whitetails are killed inside 75 yards each fall, and for close-range shot opportunities on moving deer, in the woods, a LPVO is ideal.

But this 4-12X40 R5 has some excellent features, too. It has a second-focal-plane illuminated reticle and MOA-based holdovers out to 800 yards. It has capped, re-zeroable turrets with 60 MOA of windage and elevation adjustment.

Vortex Diamondback

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Pros

• At 14.6 ounces, very lightweight
• Liberal mounting dimensions
• Excellent warranty and customer service
• Excellent turret tracking

Cons

• No illumination or parallax control
• Some sticky turret movement

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Score Card

• 
  Optical Performance:

  
  Fair

• 
  Aiming System:

  
  Very Good

• 
  Design:

  
  Very Good

• 
  Price/Value:

  
  Excellent

Key Features

• 
  Second-plane “Dead-Hold BDC” reticle

• 
  1-inch tube

• 
  Fixed 100-yard parallax

• 
  Capped rezeroable turrets tuned to .25 MOA

A very good all-around scope that smart shoppers will be able to buy for about $250, the Diamondback underwhelmed on our optics evaluation, but charmed our test team on our “shootability” assessment. It’s a versatile workhorse that’s home on rimfires to centerfire deer rifles.

We can’t talk about the Diamondback without mentioning what I would call a fixable failure. Part of our test is assessing turret/reticle tracking. We shoot every submission at 25 yards at a Redfield Sight-In target, using the grids to measure precision as we dial up, right, down, and left, and then back to our original zero. It’s a test that assesses precision and mechanical reliability. At some point, after wowing testers with exceptional precision, the Diamondback’s elevation turret locked up. We took the turret apart, gave it a few sharp raps on the bench, and things straightened out. But it’s the sort of performance problem that most shooters would use to activate Vortex’s legendary warranty.

Outside of that hiccup, the Diamondback’s mechanics are adequate. We noted some stickiness of the turrets and magnification ring, but the turret/reticle agreement are right-on. The “Dead-Hold BDC” reticle is similarly useful. We’d like to see a little more definition of the reticle, which gives shooters more than a suggestion of holdover and holdoff hashes, and which could be more distinctive and provide faster aiming references.

The Vortex performed well on our resolution test, but disappointed in low-light performance. But where the Diamondback shined was in our price/value assessment. There’s a ton of value in this simple, honest, and versatile scope. And if it fails, it’s important to know that Vortex and its fully transferable lifetime warranty has your back. All that optical talent, and all that back-end support, allowed the Vortex to be a very close runner-up for our Great Buy award.