What are some good scopes with thick reticles on the market without having to send the scopes in for a reticle change? Preferably in a 3-9x40mm to 50mm range.

Leupold
Midsouth shooters supply has a Leupold VX 2 3x9 50mm in heavy duplex. with free shipping

Leupold VX-1 3-9X40 Shotgun scope. But, you might want to have the parallax reset from 75 yards.

Bushnell firefly...

I didn't know they still made the firefly. I will look into that.

I hadn't thought about the shotgun scope. If I'm not shooting over 150 yards the parallax issue wouldn't be that big of a deal would it?

Zeiss Conquest 3-9x40

I currently have 7 Leupold Shotgun scope with 75 yard parallax in service and I've never found the parallax setting to present a challenge.

Leupold offers the "regular" VX-1 2-7x33 with a heavy duplex reticle as their part #113866.

I also have 5 VX-2 2-7x33s that I've sent back to Leupold to have the heavy duplex reticles installed.

Hadn't thought about sending some in for re-reticleization. May look into that. I like the couple heavy duplex that I have, and my favorite is a FXII 6x with the German NP4 reticle.

I had a heavy duplex installed in a VX2. They are putting a German #4 reticle in a VX3 for me. I was just wondering what was on the market without paying to have another reticle installed.

The wholesale price for the Leupold scopes that come with HD reticles (that I could find) are these:

VX-1 2-7x33 shotgun - $170
VX-1 3-9x40 shotgun - $185

Leica's #1 reticle is the best dark timber reticle I've ever used (that is not illuminated of course).

Camera Land has the MeoPro 3.5-10x44 with German #4 for $400.00.

My 6x42 Leupolds came with heavy duplex, and I get a 2.5-8 VX3i through the custom shop at a good price with the same.

Order a VX-2 3x9x40mm with a heavy duplex or post & duplex reticle direct from the custom shop.

Sig Sauer Whiskey 3 ---Tombstone Tactical ----$128.67---3/9/40

Thanks for everyone's advice. I will look into these choices.

Don't know what your intended use is, and it's outside your preferred power range, but I have a couple Leupold 1-4 Shotgun/Muzzleloader scopes on my 50 cal inline ML and on my Marlin .45-70 Guide Gun. Heavy crosswires, 75 yard parallax setting. They work well on those guns, especially in the woods but out to about 200 yards too.

I have a Leupold 2-7 shotgun scope on a Marlin 444. The 75 yard parallax setting doesn't keep me from hitting what I'm aiming at out to 200 yards.

Mike

Why do you want a heavy one

Can't speak for the OP, but for me, I find heavy crosswires much faster to pick up and easier to keep track of in the woods where you've got a lot of vertical and horizontal lines (tree trunks and branches) that are all kinds of shades of grey and black...especially when the light is not the best.

Always amusing to come across someone in the NE hardwoods (where you won't get an unobstructed shot beyond 75 yards or so) with a rifle top version of the Hubble telescope on top and a Harris bipod below

My eyes are getting older, along with my body. It's getting very hard to pick up thin cross hairs in the woods early in the morning and late in the evening. I don't know about your sporting goods stores, but the ones around here don't have any scopes worth looking through. All they have is the latest bdc and all that sort of junk. I don't understand why people want to buy those scopes for not shooting over 200 yards. But that is what is being pushed on us.

I sold a friend of mine a Leupold VX-III 1.75-6x32 heavy duplex to put on a Rem Mod 7 308 for deer hunting on our lease. In this particular scope the thin parts of the reticle are a full MOA thick. He loves how easy it is to put it right on even when the light is low.

A lot of the reticles I see mentioned in these type conversations (several versions of #4 come to mind) have thick outer bars, but the center parts aren't very thick. Nor do the heavy outer parts come in very close to the center. IMO that misses the mark, the center is the business part of the reticle.

Even in my oldest Leupold shotgun scope, an "E" suffix Vari-X IIc 2-7x33 from 1997, the HD reticle gives enough contrast and a passes enough light to be full functional well before or after legal shooting light everywhere that I've hunted in North America. The current VX-2 lens coatings are better than the 20 year old Vari-X IIc and pass more light, but I can't be certain all that improvement in technology would make a quantifiable difference in the woods.

I do have a couple of Redfield scopes that I sent to Ironsight, Inc., to be rebuilt and had the reticles changed to their "#1" European style and that reticle is so heavy/coarse that they are too heavy for any fine work.