Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Rimfire scope?

I’m looking for a petite rimfire scope with good glass, a friendly eye box, and a simple plex cross hair, and preferably a few more than 9x. AO would be nice but I’m good with parallax set at reasonable rimfire ranges. Does such a thing still exist?

Everything now seems to be a big honking scope with busy reticles.

I have the Trac 3-9x, on my Marlin Mod 60 squirrel, Made me a very happy camper. they also have the 4-12x.

The Burris Short Mags and Timberlines in 4.5-14x came with AO and many were plex reticles. The eye box was their shortcoming but I have used one on my lightweight 7 Mag and never been "bit.", at least yet! I had 2 "extras" and foolishly sold them a few years ago.

Fast forward to now; my eyes are giving me problems when shooting my .22's indoors at 50' and then taking them outside to 50, 100, 150 yards. Myopia and presbyopia are a PITA, especially with many of my old tried and true scopes. The scopes I mentioned would have been perfect!!! Recoil was a non-issue wrt the eye box. Now these scopes are pricier and harder to find in general... my mistake!

While a little larger and longer, I am going to try a not too old Nikon Buckmasters 4.5-14x (w/ side focus down to <50 yds) and see how that works out. That may be a little longer than you want.

Someone very recently had an older Burris 4-12x32mm "compact" w/ AO for sale for a reasonable price. That would be a good one as well!

I saw a cheaper Athlon 1" model ??? Talos IIRC that is 1", 4-12x, side focus, Plexiglas, 12" and 16oz at our local CAL Ranch for $159 that might be what you are looking for!!! I don't own one and they are Chinese scopes, BUT many have said decent things about them!!!

Good luck!

I have one of these on my Christensen Arms Ranger and I am very happy with it. I ordered two more.

SightronSIH Rimfire 3-9x32 RF - Crosshair #31019

Kinda like a 2.5X Weaver or Leupy, parallax adjusted to 50 yards.



Your mileage may vary.

I’ve got a 6x Leupold compact AO here that would be the “easy button” but I’d prefer a few more Xs for shooting squirrel eyes out ~50 yards

That’s my favorite .22/squirrel rifle scope - I wish that someone would make a similar scope (size/weight wise) with a little higher magnification too. Probably won’t ever happen as scope makers are too busy making 30mm tubes, 50mm objectives and 2.5 lbs for sniper wanna bees😜. If you find one like you’re looking for make sure you post here so I can try it out!!

PennDog

I'm using a Burris 6x Mini with AO on a Remington 582. It makes a nice match.

I have several of the Weaver rimfires from a few years ago. 2x7 and 3x9 AO. Prefer them to my Leupold rimfire.

I finally used some of my Cabela's points and ordered a Leupold VX Freedom 3-9x40 CDS scope for my Rem 541 T .22 LR. It came yesterday and I got it mounted. I'll take it out to the range tomorrow and see how it shoots.

I have Leupold VX CDS scopes on most of my hunting rifles and I really like them shooting at the steel gongs that we have at the berms we have from 100 to 430 yards.

Last summer I was given five 300 round bricks of CCI .22 LR Target ammo. My goal is to make a set of steel gongs from 50 to 200 yards that correspond in size to our regular gongs for some very inexpensive practice.

I really like my Leupold VX-Freedom 3-9x33 EFR with its adjustable objective. It doesn't give you more than the 9x you requested but for my use it's been a great scope for my 22LR. The other scope I considered for my Browning T-Bolt LH was the Meopta Optika5 2-10x42 PA with a simple Z Plex 1 reticle. The adjustment is on the side instead of the objective on this scope.

My only other AO scope is the one on my Browning T-Bolt LH Varmint in .17 HMR. It has a Hawke Vantage IR 4-12X40 AO mounted on it that I've gotten good usage out of. The reticle on this scope isn't a simple plex but I don't find it overly busy. They have scopes for both high velocity & subsonic rimfire calibers.

When looking for rimfire scopes I sometimes find there can be a bit of overlap with scopes that are also good options for powerful air rifles. Sometimes looking at the scopes carried by companies who cater to the pneumatic market might give you some ideas you hadn't considered before: https://www.pyramydair.com/optics/scopes

I was in the right place at the right time for once last year and snagged one of those here before the ink was dry on the post. Put it on a Browning Low Wall .22 Hornet.

Nice little scope

I second Odonata's recommendation of the Hawke scope above. I had a Leupold rimfire scope on one of my rifles and replaced it with the Hawke scope that he linked and I like it much better.

Burris mini 4-12x with AO. Not the easiest to bet behind but not a deal breaker. I have a couple USA made ones. Sold a 6x mini HBR scope that I wish I hadn’t now.

The last 2 ruger 10/22 I built I put bushnell a17 scopes on them. They are nice scopes for the money.i dont think they make them any more. They were 3.5-10×36ao .

On my hunting 10/22 I have a leupold vx1 3-9×40 on it. On my Winchester 340 I hunt with some times has a 2-7 leupold on it.

I have some of these as well. Very nice hunting rimfire scopes. For target shooting I like the Weaver V16.

Only in the minds of a few of us "old school" shooters. The nearest thing is likely one of Leupolds offerings, and honestly it is hard to call them petite but at least they are a bit more svelte since they don't tend to have the huge European style eyepiece.

I have a couple of rimfires with the 3-9x40 Freedom on them and another couple with VX-2 3-9x40 on them, I prefer the VX-2 since they don't have the blocky turret housing. The VX-2 can also be found in the 4-12x40, it may be slightly larger than the 3-9x40, I haven't measured the differences but they are very slight. I realize that these don't totally fulfill your stated criteria but they are about as close as you can come in the current market.

If you want a bargain 22 rimfire scope then consider the Burris Droptine 3-9x40, they can be had for $120. They have the BDC which is a fairly thick duplex with some dots underneath which work very well for shooting past 50 yards. The downside is that the eyebox can be a bit unforgiving and the optics have a bit of fuzziness at the outer edge.

drover

I have a MINOX on my Savage A 7 HMR and it’s perfect. There’s a few guys on the fire that will sell theirs. I recently placed A WTB here for my son’s buddy and had two responses. Likely i will touch base and pick one up.

I just purchased a Burris Droptine 3x9 rimfire and I'm very pleased with it.