Okay, now you've assembled the rifle that fits your needs. Now, you need to choose your optics. For the average hunter, open sights, except for the vernier sights popular with black powder cartridge silhouette shooters, are not feasible for accurate shot placement at long range. Vernier sights allow excellent accuracy at almost unbelievable ranges, but require time to range the shot, look up the settings, set the vernier, then fire--not practical in many fast-action shooting scenarios. So, we're left with determining the ideal telescopic sight, or scope, for your needs. There are five basic considerations to ponder when choosing a scope: magnification, crosshairs/reticle, light-gathering, focus, and elevation/windage adjustment. There are numerous manufacturers of scopes, with a plethora of different combinations of magnification, light-gathering, etc. It can be VERY confusing!

1) MAGNIFICATION: To put it simply, you need some SERIOUS magnification to shoot well at long range. For example, many varmint hunters use 36 power, nonvariable, scopes. Wow! Now, THAT'S getting up close and personal! The problem with high-power scopes is target acquisition--the field of view is tiny at long distance. We recommend a variable-power scope, to allow fast target acquisition at any range; at longer distances, once the target is acquired at low power, it is easy to zoom in on the target. We chose 6.5 by 20 power as our personal ideal combination for magnification. One caveat--cheaper variable-power scopes have a bad tendency for a different point of impact at lower powers versus higher powers. In other words, by cranking up the power, the scope doesn't hold the same zero. This is an area where you definitely will get what you pay for, at least with domestically-produced scopes.

· GOOD: 6.5 by 20 power, variable
· BETTER: 6.5 by 20 power, variable
· BEST: 6.5 by 20 power, variable

2) CROSSHAIRS/RETICLE: The appearance, thickness, and arrangement of the crosshairs and reticle are also very important. For example, we avoid imported scopes, because of their tendency to have crosshairs as much as 2 minutes of angle thick. At 600 yards, 2 minutes of angle represents 12 inches vertically and horizontally; it's hard enough to shoot well at that distance, without the crosshairs blotting out half the game animal and contributing to the problem! Make sure the scope you choose has crosshairs that are thin enough to not obscure the view of your game animal at long range. Additionally, choose a scope whose crosshairs work well with YOUR eyes, and isn't too confusing or "busy". What we chose for ourselves was a scope with a duplex reticle, where the middle portion of the crosshairs is very fine, and the outer portion of the crosshairs is slightly thicker. Duplex reticle scopes can be used as a quickie range-finder, if the shooter takes the time to measure the distance covered by the reticle at full-power and various ranges. For example, our scopes' duplex reticle covers 15 inches at 20 power at 500 yards; if a bull elk, whose average body depth top-to-bottom, is 32 inches, has about half his body depth covered by the reticle, then I know that bull is around 500 yards away.

· GOOD: uniformly thin crosshairs
· BETTER: uniformly thin crosshairs with small central dot
· BEST: duplex reticle

3) LIGHT GATHERING: Light-gathering abilities for scopes is dependent upon many factors. These include lens coatings, lens quality, and size of the objective. These items are way too technical to discuss here at length. What we recommend is to try out different scopes until you find the one which suits your eyes and your pocketbook the best. Note of warning: higher light-gathering ability commonly means larger objectives, and more weight. Make sure you don't fall into the no-man's-land of diminishing return. What we chose for our rifles is a 50 mm objective mounted into a 30 mm scope tube; we have found the light-gathering capabilities of these scopes comparable with our Svarovski binoculars.

· GOOD: 40 mm objective, 1 inch tube
· BETTER: 50 mm objective, 1 inch tube
· BEST: 50 mm objective, 30 mm tube

4) FOCUS: A scope's focus is a simple matter: how big a pain is it to focus that scope at various distances? Most scopes have their focus on the muzzle-end; if you can reach it while looking through the scope, you can eventually focus that scope on whatever you are looking at. It is a problem, though--very time-consuming, and tempting the shooter to just not bother with focussing the scope for the shot. This is a big contributor to inaccuracy at long range. A new development is the side-focus scope, which is what we chose for our rifles. The focus knob is on the left side of the scope, in easy reach for the shooter. I can acquire a target at extreme range, and fine-tune the focus with my left hand in a few seconds, without ever losing the target in my scope. Side-focus scopes are higher-end scopes, and cost more, but we feel the extra money is very well worth it.

· GOOD/BETTER:scope with front focus
· BEST: scope with side focus

5) WINDAGE/ELEVATION ADJUSTMENT: Your scope's setup for adjusting windage and elevation is also very important. First of all, make sure your scope is calibrated at 4 clicks per minute of angle. Why is this important? Well, 4 clicks per minute of angle means you can sight you rifle in at 1/4" increments at 100 yards (which translates into 1" increments at 400 yards, 1 1/2" increments at 600 yards, etc.). Anything less is impossible to work with--the adjustments are just too coarse. Some imported scopes are set up at 3 clicks/minute of angle/100 meters. Sorry, but that's too difficult for most American brains to translate! Secondly, how is your scope's windage and elevation adjusted? All scopes have screw-on caps to protect their adjustments, but do you need a tool (Allen wrench), a coin (dime or penny) or just your fingers to adjust the windage and elevation? If you need anything other than your fingers, you need to plan on doing hold-overs at long distance, rather than dialing in the elevation and windage, and aiming dead-on. Obviously, hold-overs are less accurate than dead-on aiming. The scopes we chose have "target turrets;" these are dials set for 4 clicks/minute of angle. Once we have the rifle zeroed at 300 yards, we set the elevation and windage turrets to zero. We can then manipulate the elevation and windage at will, knowing we can reliably and safely go back to zero/zero at any time.

· GOOD/BETTER: scope with coin-driven elevation/windage adjustments
· BEST: scope with tool-free zero-adjustable target turrets