Is the side focus feature important to you?

Yes, especially for a rimfire. Otherwise on a centerfire I have not had any issues with a fixed scope set at 100 yards. Then again my hunting is not very often beyond 100 yards.

If I want to use flip-up lens caps I would prefer side focus.

Yes, any parallax adjustable scope I buy from here on will be side focus.

Read that again.

I prefer the side focus over the AO any day, the problem with some of Leupolds latter VX-3i offerings is that they had neither. the 30mm had a side focus but some of the 1" models just had parallax at higher power with no AO or side focus

Better?

it depends on the use for the scope. if you want to shoot tiny groups at 100 yards and less, rimfire or otherwise. you will need parallax. if you don't care if your groups are tiny, you may not need it. in practical field use you probably don't need it. you will need it with higher powered scopes.

I find personally side focus scopes are more likely to have the parallax removed AND the view be in focus. with Adjustable objective scopes I find its common, that when all the parallax is removed the view is sometimes slightly out of focus. side focus is way better if you need that feature.

#freecandy

I like it. I have it on a few scopes