I appreciate your sincerity; I too am always interested in better faster ways. First as stated in the original post I bought the Nikon for a hunt that did not work out. Second I paid 572.00 and was not aware that the prices had come down or of any 100.00 rebates when I listed it. One thing I did not like was the thick reticle lines. I found they block out the target at longer distances. Another was the 1 inch tube is just not as good as 30mm's. As to better for the money, I have found the Hawke sidewinder series scopes for one, to be some pretty good stuff. I recently bought a 3-12-50 it has a 30mm body with very impressive edge to edge coated glass. I found it sharper, brighter clearer than the Nikon and even my Leupold glass as well. It comes with a illuminated reticle that you can turn on in low light conditions with brightness adjustment that is positioned on the side focus turret. It allows 5 red and 5 green settings; it works really well for dawn and dusk shooting. They also come with a large 100mm side wheel you can put on that works pretty well as built in range finder. They have the multiple line reticle like the Nikon, but the most impressive thing that I like was they come with a free ballistics program that you can input your caliber, load data, and chosen zero setting and it will spit out a print out on a circle that will fit your flip up scope cap it will tell you the zero yardage hold for each line. Regular price was 429.00 but I caught mine on sale for 299.00. Now that one is 3-12-50 but they also come in 4-16-50 @449.00 and 6-24-56 @ 479.00 and the 8-32-56 is only 499.00. a bit different than the big price jumps some take between bigger magnification. I found them to be a better deal. Catch them on sell and it's even better yet.
