The cost of the rifle doesn’t factor in how much I’ll pay for a scope.
I buy scopes that have the feature set needed for the application.
I have $2500 scopes on $900 rifles, $1000 scopes on $3000 rifles, and a $500 scope on $1800 rifle.
The correct answer!
I don’t know if I could say it any better than this. I do know that my budget for scopes has doubled or tripled in the past 5 years, more so than my rifles (but that may change soon with one big rifle purchase possibly). I used to think spending $2,000 for a scope was absolutely insane, but then I started long range shooting and finding limitations of scopes quickly - poor resolution, poor tracking, haze in certain lighting conditions, etc. I now run a ~$2,000 Steiner T5xi on a $900 Tikka CTR. Worth every penny, and I would still spend more.
What I have really found though is that my “time value of money” has greatly changed. For years I could hunt 20 or 30 times in a season with a $200 S&W I-Bolt 30-06 with a Burris FF2 3.5-10x50mm with LRS (a killer deal on a closeout I snagged from Natchez I believe for $219 or something silly). I laid down a fair number of deer, coyotes, and armadillos with that setup, but found some limitations at first and last light. Did not score on what would probably have been the largest deer of my life at 1 minute into legal shooting light with scope ring zoomed too high, very stiff to turn due to extreme cold, glass fogged because of cold weather. All at 30 yards and less than 10 seconds. Now I only get to hunt 2 to 4 times a season so my gear has gotten more reliable (and expensive). Browning X-Bolt stainless fluted 30-06 with a Leupold VX6 3-18x44mm with Alumina caps. So a $1,500 scope on a $1000 rifle. And I would have no problems upgrading the scope, Excited to see what comes out in 2022. I am really hoping Leica listened to customers about their Amplus 6 3-18x and put a hunting reticle in it instead of a christmas tree. I want it to be light above all, bought a Nightforce NX8 2.5-20x but returned it as it totally messed up the balance and feel of the rifle I tried it on. Embarrassed to say what it was, but an elephant riding a tricycle would be a good description of the setup. Since then weight has become a critical factor in all future scope purchases.
