If you could eyeball every shot you took we’re sure you would. There’s pride in being a sharpshoot. Something deep within us finds joy in executing precise tasks without assistance, but we all have our limits. Scopes are designed to augment our experience, allowing us to see further and more clearly than we were ever meant to naturally.
They focus light into our eyes allowing us to see well past the time our eyes are used to. They’re a joy to wield, and they make the hobby of owning and hunting with a firearm that much more enjoyable. The only real downside is how many there are to choose from.
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The Burris Fullfield E1 is the posterchild of Burris scopes. It’s one of their more straightforward designs, but that doesn’t mean that it’s anything to sneeze at.
The Ballistic Plex Reticle on the Burris Fullfield has been fine-tuned for accuracy. The bullet drop reticle here is easy to calibrate for your individual rifles. If you want to take the time to fine-tune your shot. If you’re not the type to deal with bullet drop reticles, the design of the Ballistic Plex Reticle is unobtrusive, so it’s easy to ignore and line up your shots yourself. It shines in its simplicity.
The large precision-ground lenses on this scope are a decent bit larger than lenses on their competitors in the range, allowing for a more effective gathering of light, providing a better zoom for you, and easing the strain on your eye. Larger lenses and more light will also help you see better in low-light conditions than you could with your naked eye, increasing the amount of time you can hang out in your hunting blind, to catch some late evening stragglers.
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This rifle scope is a good step up from the Fullfield E1. The Burris Fullfield IV is a solidly mid-tier rifle scope. It’s not terribly expensive, and what you’re getting for the price absolutely justifies the purchase.
From a strictly aesthetic perspective, we’re looking at a good looking scope. The large spiral knurling on the turret knobs is a nice unique touch that serves the secondary purpose of making your adjustments easy to make without having to take your face away from your shot and totally repositioning yourself every time you want to find a knob or feel how far you’ve twisted it. They also add a little bit of space, giving your turrets some room to breathe. The knobs are great for on the fly hunting adjustments or more methodical decision making in the shooting range.
The lenses here are multicoated to cut down on glare, and your field of view towards the edge won’t be distorted by light bending at odd angles thanks to the coating and the high-grade optical glass. The barrel has been purged with nitrogen for an excellent fog-proof and waterproof seal.
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This scope is chock full of features like the 5x Zoom System, and their Zero Click Stop Adjustment Knobs. The zoom and clarity of this scope set it apart from many others, especially when paired with Burris’s penchant for clear multi-coated lenses. You’ll have a clear shot and an unobstructed field of view even on the extremes of your scope, so you’ll never miss out on any peripheral movement.
The front focal plane reticle design scales the reticle size at the same time magnification is increased or decreased. This scope is calibrated to account for tight trajectory compensation is that’s always proportional to your selected power setting.
The adjusting turrets are precise and make it easy to identify targets and adjust for windage and elevation. The Zero Click Stop adjustment knobs allow you to quickly and easily snap your scope to the original yardage setting without fussing with the clicks on the knobs. The side focus is designed to be easy to use without having to look up from your scope, and the easy-to-reach parallax adjustment makes target acquisition from 50 yards and beyond a breeze.
The body of the scope is waterproof and nitrogen purged like any good scope at this price range. You can rely on it to prevent internal fogging in the cold, the mise, or the rain. The precision-gauged and hand-fitted internal assemblies make this a consistent shockproof scope lasting you for years and holding your settings in between shots.
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If you’re looking for something with much longer eye relief, then this scout style rifle scope might be the one you’ve been holding out for on this list.
The Burris Ballistic Plex Hunting Riflescope is great for matching up with your scout rifle. The low profile of this scope creates a sleek silhouette on your firearms and keeps the scope from becoming a burden when you need to save on all the weight and space you can get. The sope sits pretty far forward on the rifle so you can keep both of your eyes on the prize. The incredibly long eye relief on this scope makes acquiring your target as simple as raising your rifle to your eye level. You don’t have to struggle with focusing on a lens that’s too close to you and strain your eyes over the course of a long hunting trip
The lenses on this scout scope are pristine. They’re Burris’s signature precision-ground large lenses. These lenses, much like the lenses on their sister scopes are excellent for directing light towards your eye, and on a scout scope, that means even easier target acquisition as soon as you lift your barrel and bring your scope into your line of sight. You’ll never have to worry about the inside of your scope fogging up in the middle of a muddy trek because this scope is purged with nitrogen and sealed to the high standards that Burris is known for. Rest easy knowing this shockproof low-profile scope is guiding your bullets.
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If you’re looking for bells and whistles, then you’ve definitely found them. This scope from Burris is stuffed to the gills with everything you need to acquire a target from here to practically the other side of the planet with startling precision and deadly accuracy. It manages all of this is a sleek package that will hardly raise any eyebrows.
This little scope is the improved version of its predecessor boasting extended rangefinding abilities out to about 2,000 yards. They’ve added a wireless remote activation method for the laser to aid in rangefinding, so if you’re used to whipping out a range finder or your trusty smartphone, those days will soon be long behind you. This scope takes nearly all of the mental heavy lifting off of your shoulders. You can input your gun’s ballistic information, and it’ll spit back out perfect information on your holdover, the estimated wind drift, and hands you a handy red dot for your aiming solution all with a simple button press.
This is the ultimate scope for hardcore enthusiasts. You’ll be taking shots you never thought you’d make without a pen and some paper with this sight and a single tap of a button. If you like it classic, you won’t be left out in the cold, this scope still has manual turrets that are easy to access and keep in line with the sleek futuristic look of this scope.
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Our winner this time around is the Burris Xtreme Tactical XTR II. It’s the perfect balance between simplicity and complexity.
The 5x zoom and their Zero Click Stop Adjustment Knobs are the cherries on top of a delicious long-range package. The ease of use and the clarity of this scope put it just ahead of the other Burris scopes on this list. It’s just as dependable as Burris’s other scopes with large precision-polished lenses that are excellent at focusing light into the scope and directly to your eye, but the front focal plane reticle and its ability to scale the reticle size in conjunction with your zoom distance give it that extra edge. The zero stop adjustment knobs are great for quick resets when you want to recalibrate on the fly, and the parallax adjustment makes this scope viable at essentially any distance.
The body of this scope is sturdy and shockproof like Burris’s other offerings. It’s going to last you a long time. Its longevity, the sleek and flashy design, and the quality of life improvements this scope has over more simple Burris scopes make this scope an investment you can be proud of, and a scope any of your buddies will be impressed with.
A good scope can make or break a good hunting trip. It’s the difference between dinner and disaster. The problem, however, is how many different scopes there are out there. It can feel borderline impossible to pick out the one you like the most. It’s tempting to try and crown one scope supreme, but deep down we all know that some scopes are better than others when it comes down to the basics like locking out moisture and lens quality, but it’s impossible to say that what works best for you will be what works best for every other hunter.
You’ll have to look at several different parts of a scope before deciding what’s best for you. Things like the build of the scope, the parallax and magnification, how durable the scope is, and all of the features the scope comes equipped with like the sensitivity of the turrets or the crosshairs and how precise they are when you’re aiming further out in the distance when you have to account for bullet drop.
In the body of the scope, you want to make sure you’re getting something that can hold up to the routine abuse that comes with regularly using a scope. Is it shock resistant or shockproof? If it can’t take a ding or two, you’re going to be stuck with an expensive pair of mismatched lenses in a wet tube. Keep an eye out for O-ring seals. These will keep moisture out of your scope and cushion the scope against any roughhousing. Try to find something made out of a single piece. These tend to be sealed better, and fewer pieces mean fewer points of failure. Getting something that’s been purged with nitrogen or argon will ensure the scope body doesn’t have any water molecules floating around inside of itself waiting to fog up your lenses when temperatures dip or humidity rears its muggy head.
Past basic necessities like coated lenses and purged aluminum bodies, most of what you’ll find from scope to scope is dependent on your own preferences. Reticles can become a sticking point for a lot of folks. There are so many different reticles out there in the wild world of scopes. It feels like every brand has their own take on the reticles they attach to their scopes. It’s important to remember that you should look for what’s best for you.
Some reticles will try to predict bullet drop for you over a certain distance. For the most part, these are useful enough. That’s a difficult sort of calculation to do in your head without some kind of guide helping you out. What scope manufacturers won’t tell you upfront is how they arrived at those distances and guidelines. If you call up a customer service line and spend a while digging around you might find the specs of their test rifles and discover that they’re way off from your firearms, which can be frustrating if you were wanting to ride the coattails of your reticle. For that reason, a lot of experienced marksmen will try to take the guesswork out and opt for a reticle that measures distance and lengths instead.
These reticles can be seen as more reliable than bullet drop reticles, especially with a few years of marksmanship under your belt. If you know your rifle well, and you can accurately and reliably clock the distance you’re firing from, you can make mental adjustments on your own and land that shot every single time after some practice with your new scope. All of this is, of course after considering the thickness of your reticle and the crosshairs, maybe you want an illuminated reticle. There are just so many to choose from, and many brands offer several different options. You’ll learn what you like with time.
Once you’ve found a scope that’s sturdy and reliable, you want to start poking around at the accessories that you’ll find attached, and eventually, you’ll settle on something that works best for you. Burris makes scopes that any sharpshooter would be proud to have in their collection. When Burris started manufacturing scopes they shocked the world with their wider field-of-view than other scopes. The overwhelming set of features like steel-on-steel knob and bullet-drop compensating reticles made other scope manufacturers pick up the pace in the scopes arms race. Knowing that Burris makes good stuff isn’t enough, though. You’ve got to know what specifically sets each of their scope apart, and we understand, so we’ve got a little gift for you: here are five of the best Burris scopes money can buy.
Bonus tip: If the scout scope had piqued your interest, take some time to learn a little more about how the eye relief works with this video!
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Riley Draper is a writer and entrepreneur from Chattanooga, Tennessee. As a world traveler, he has been to more than fifty countries and hiked some of the most elusive trails in the world. He is the co-founder of WeCounsel Solutions and has published work in both national and global outlets, including the Times Free Press, Patch, and Healthcare Global. When he’s not writing, he’s probably on a hiking trip or climbing in the mountains.
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