Does anybody have suggestions on a good optic between $300.00 to $500.00? shooting .308 at ranges out to 900yds. like the bushnell elite series.
Its the 900 yards part that makes your choice difficult for that much money.
If you are going to dial up and down at all ranges between 100 yards and 900 yards then I think sooner or later you are going to have trouble with any scope in that price range.
You will definately need to check your scope turret settings from what they read to what is true.
I would sugest that you get a scope with some sort of ballistic type reticle and use it in combination with some standardised scope dial settings.
I would pick scope settings of 10MOA, 20 MOA and 30MOA. Go to the 100 yard range and fire four groups on a large sheet of paper. One group on your zero setting then three more at the settings listed above.
This exercise will calibrate these settings for field use. You can then use your ballistic reticle for ranges in between without using any other dial settings.
There are two other advantages of using this method. One is that it can be easily repeated any time you are at the range, to confirm that your scope is still in calibration and the second is that it will check your rifle to see if any cant is present in your set up.
When shooting the four groups, you may like to fire one shot at each setting, then go back to your zero setting and start again. You can repeat this three or five times depending on if you want three or five shot groups. Doing it this way will also check the repeatability of your scope.