General information
Air Rifle Caliber Selection
Air Gun Scope Considerations or "Airgun Scopes can help you to shoot better"
Finding best pellet for your airgun: The right pellet makes a difference
Gun care
Safety
Air Gun Scope Considerations or "Airgun Scopes can help you to shoot better"
They let you see and aim more precisely for more accurate shooting. Scopes are an advantage for all shooters and become even more valuable at about age thirty when the eyes start losing the ability to focus simultaneously on the front sight, the rear sight and the target.
Airgun scopes are specially designed with higher standards to resist the unique bidirectional recoil of magnum airguns which can destroy most "normal" scopes in just a few shots. The uninitiated find it difficult to believe that a scope that works well on a .300 Magnum will not stand up to a magnum spring-piston airgun (the airgun scope will work quite well on the center fire rifle, however). Additionally, they will focus (or are prefocused) for precise target clarity at normal airgun ranges-most conventional scopes won't, a point to keep in mind even for non-recoiling airguns.
Many airgun scopes have quick-adjust elevation dials (silhouette style or speed-dial, etc.) which are handy if you frequently change pellets or distances. Some also have similar quick-adjust windage knobs.
Magnification (Power): All other factors being equal, increasing magnification power will increase the apparent size of the target (bring it closer). When target shooting, one can frequently see the pellet holes and watch the group develop and more precise aiming may be possible. At long range, targets may be more easily seen-remember that airgun targets are often smaller in scale than conventional targets. The downside to high magnification can be a decreased field-of-view and decreased brightness, increasing the time required to locate the target through the scope or making it difficult to see under low light conditions. For hunting and quick shooting, lower magnification will increase the field-of-view and work better in low light.
For many shooters, a variable power scope will offer low power for hunting and low light as well as higher power for long range and target.
