The Best Hunting Scopes

Gear We Use
The Best Hunting Scopes
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For the past several years, I’ve had the opportunity to try out a fair number of different scopes through competition, hunting, and helping the MeatEater crew dial in their kits. For those few scopes I haven’t used personally, I also have data points from folks who spend a lot of time behind a rifle.

Someone (cough, Jordan Sillars, cough) could publish an entire series of articles on what type of scopes are best for different hunting situations. But this article will focus on five of the best overall options from four different brands and cover factors like magnification, focal planes, and general configuration.

I'm also including 2 budget scope options. While I wouldn't consider these the "best," they're great options if you're looking to get into hunting. They are the Leupold VX-Freedom 3-9X40 and the Vortex Viper HS 4-16X44.

There are tons of other quality rifle scopes on the market, but after reading this article you should have a good sense of what you want, even if it’s not on the list.

Now, I know what you're thinking: there’s an outlier on this list in terms of price (the Nightforce). But I look for a certain magnification range and weight in a hunting scope, and from there I simply choose the best offerings I can get my hands on.

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