This has been asked and discussed here repeatedly. While you need the best scope you can afford, there is no magic threshold for "seeing ___cal. bullet holes at___". It is highly dependent on light and contrast.
The best suggestion so far is to use Shoot-N-C targets. Although a bit pricey, you can paste the heck out of them with repair dots and make them last a long time. You can buy a lot of Shoot-N-Cs for the additional cost of a better scope.
I make many of my own targets using white poster board from Walmart. You can stick pasters on it, or as I do get target stamps and an ink pad. I got mine from Sinclair years ago. On our range at 200 yards , I can see .223 bullet holes in the white board with my rifle scope
Most commercial targets are too cluttered, made for visual appeal to the customer, like fishing lures.
To add a perspective, I shoot competition with a .22 at 200 yards in two different events on two ranges, one facing north and the other south, red or black bulls. I can't [b]reliably spot bullet holes in the bull even with a 20-60 Zeiss. Depends on light conditions. Did I mention mirage?[/b]
Paul
This. Most of the targets I shot in competition were white body, black line. IBS score or group out to 200 yards, at the 300 the score targets were white body orange line to aid in spotting the holes. Depending on light( early morning sun) hitting on the target it was easy to see a 223 hole at the 2 with an 18x rifle scope as long as you didn’t pull a shot into the black then it was difficult to find it even with a 45x spotter. If you broke a line it helps. Afternoon sun glaring behind or to the side made it difficult even with a spotter.
I have seen mirage that was so bad that even the folks with 2000.00+ spotting scopes struggle to find bullet holes at the 2&3 if they weren’t in the white. So target/light and mirage all play a part.
Bottom line is you are not going to find a perfect rifle or spotter scope that is going to reliably and easily find a 22 bullet hole under all conditions.
