Your basic list of requirements is sound.

The things that matter most to me are difficult to quantify, measure and explain.

Everything I say below assumes basic reliability and perfect tracking. In the price range you stated, those should be givens.

Over the years now, I've come to value the reticle above almost everything else. A great reticle can make getting an accurate wind hold much easier to figure out under time pressure. Which one to choose is a huge topic and subject to lots of personal preference. For someone new to shooting in the wind, I quite like anything that looks like the SCR that's found in the Burris and Steiner lines. There are lots of other good ones, and quite a few bad ones.


Eyebox is a term you might not have heard yet. It's used to describe how much flexibility you have positioning your eye behind the scope. A scope with a tight eyebox will require you to be perfectly positioned behind the scope to get a good image. This can be very problematic in PRS type shooting where the goal of the stage designer is frequently to make the position awkward. A scope with a forgiving eyebox will be easier to deal with. Sadly, I've never seen anything but subjective measurements. It's difficult to compare scopes on paper.

Forgivingness of parallax adjustments is another big one for me. Mis-adjusted parallax is one of the largest sources of error for new shooters. Some scope seem to need constant fiddling with the parallax knob when changing ranges. Others are more forgiving. Having to twiddle one knob half as much as another is a big deal when you're on the clock.

Of course, everyone like good glass. The view through my high end scopes is noticeably better than the view through my mid range scopes. Mostly is just nice to have. Sometimes though, excellent glass allows you to observe environmentals like weeds moving or dust in the wind which will give you information about the wind.


Safe advice is to spend as much as you can, then add $500. Once you've determined your budget, come back here and we will barrage you with options.