I bought a Bushnell Trophy 3-9X40 last summer.Paid $100.00 for it. I have only been shooting for two years,which does NOT make me an expert on scopes, so take all of this with a grain of salt.
I had it mounted on the carry handle of my Bushmaster AR-15 for about three months and it did what I wanted it to do just fine. A little big,but I have a quick detach mount for the Bushy and I only used the scope for 100yd. or further.
Last fall I bought an Armalite AR-10 flat top carbine,so I put the scope on a different mount and put it on the AR-10. It has functioned just fine with about 300 rounds of 7.62X51(308) fired through the rifle.
Eventually I want to get a fixed power 10X44 for the AR-10,or something like that.I have found that I always have the magnification on the Bushnell cranked all the way up anyway. I'm not a hunter,so I don't know how high magification and field of view plays into that kind of use. For punching paper,the more magnification the better,for me.My understanding is that a fixed power is less expensive and less prone to give you problems.I am interested to see what other more experienced shooters have to say about all this.
I have read a lot of imput saying that you should spend at least half the value of the rifle when you buy a scope to put on it. I have bought five scopes for various weapons in the $30.00 to $200.00 range. I have found that "You get what you pay for" applies to scopes in a big way. I like my $100.00 Bushnell just fine at this point,but before I spend twice as much for a "better" scope,I am going to research the subject very carefully.
