Brands
Riflescope brands
Every brand in this catalogue, including the five that have left the riflescope business. 5 of 43 no longer make riflescopes.
Every brand
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Schmidt & Bender
Supplies the US Marine Corps and numerous European militaries. The PM II is the reference point most tactical scopes are measured against.
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Swarovski Optik
Best known for hunting glass and the dS ballistic line, which overlays the corrected aiming point in the scope itself.
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Zeiss
The Conquest V4 is the volume seller; LRP S3 and S5 moved Zeiss properly into the precision-rifle market.
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Nightforce Optics
Built around mechanical repeatability rather than absolute optical brightness. The NX6 family, with the FieldSet turret system, joined the range most recently.
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Leupold & Stevens
The default American hunting scope. The whole VX line was renumbered around HD glass — VX-1, VX-2, VX-3 and VX-6 are gone, replaced by VX-Freedom, VX-3HD, VX-5HD Gen 2 and VX-6HD Gen 2.
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Trijicon
Built its name on tritium and fibre-optic illumination that needs no battery. The ACOG remains the reference fixed-power combat optic.
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Sig Sauer Electro-Optics
The BDX system pairs a rangefinder to the scope over Bluetooth and lights the holdover point in the reticle.
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Steiner Optics
The M-series and T-series are widely issued military scopes; the P4Xi is the value entry into the range.
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Burris Optics
The Eliminator put a rangefinder and ballistic solver inside the scope body. The Eliminator 6 took American Rifleman’s 2025 Optic of the Year and is the first in the line to mount in standard 34 mm rings.
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Vortex Optics
Spans the whole market from the Crossfire II to the Razor HD, which is why it turns up in almost every category. The AMG 1-10x FFP and a Strike Eagle 1-10x FFP are the 2026 additions.
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Bushnell
Also owns Simmons, and owns the Millett and Weaver names — Millett riflescopes and Weaver riflescopes are both discontinued, though Millett mounts and Weaver bases and rings continue.
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Athlon Optics
Reaches a long way up the optical scale for the money. Cronus and Ares are the serious lines; Argos, Talos and Neos are the entry tiers. The old site never covered Athlon at all.
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Primary Arms
The ACSS reticle family — which combines a ranging horseshoe, a BDC and wind holds in one etched pattern — is the reason to buy the brand, and it is licensed onto other makers’ optics too.
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Holosun
Pushed solar backup and multi-reticle switching down to a price the whole market had to respond to. Absent from the old site entirely, which is a substantial gap in red-dot coverage.
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Aimpoint
Invented the red dot sight in 1975. Battery life measured in years of continuous use is the brand’s defining claim.
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EOTech
The only mainstream maker of holographic weapon sights. The reticle is reconstructed by laser rather than reflected, which is why it works when the window is partly obscured.
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Leapers UTG
The Bug Buster is a genuine niche answer rather than a cheap copy of something else — short, parallax adjustable down to 3 yards, and popular on airguns and rimfires.
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Hawke Optics
The strongest airgun-specific range on the market — the Airmax and Sidewinder lines are built around springer recoil and close focus.
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Arken Optics
Direct-to-consumer pricing on FFP scopes with a working zero stop — the SH-4J and EP-5 are the usual answer to "cheapest serious FFP scope". Not covered on the old site at all.
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Maven Outdoor Equipment
Sells direct only, which is how ED glass and wire-etched reticles land at the price they do. Also one of the strongest spotting-scope ranges outside the alpha brands.
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Riton Optics
Veteran-owned. The 5 series is Japanese-made and is the line worth paying attention to; 1 and 3 series sit below it.
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Tract Optics
Founded by former Nikon Sport Optics executives after Nikon wound its riflescope business down, and sells direct for the same reason Maven does.
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Element Optics
Built a following in field target and airgun shooting first, where close parallax and repeatable tracking matter more than brand history.
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Simmons
Now a Bushnell budget label. The 8-Point with the Truplex reticle is still in production and is one of the cheapest usable hunting scopes sold new.
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Vector Optics
Wide catalogue at low prices; the Continental line is where the optical quality becomes genuinely competitive rather than merely cheap.
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Barska
Entry-level across a very wide catalogue, including scopes, red dots and spotting scopes.
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Pulsar
The reference thermal brand for hunting. Thermion mounts in standard rings like a riflescope; Trail and Talion are integrated-bridge designs.
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ATN Corp
Built the consumer digital night-vision and thermal category around onboard ballistics, video recording and Wi-Fi streaming.
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AGM Global Vision
Aggressive pricing in thermal, which is what pulled entry-level thermal below the cost of a mid-range riflescope.
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Sightmark
The Wraith put usable day/night digital shooting under the price of a mid-range riflescope, which is most of why the category grew.
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Bering Optics
Night vision and thermal only, with a range aimed squarely at hog and predator hunting rather than general sport optics.
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Swampfox Optics
Aggressive value, frequent sales and a broad prism and red-dot range. Tracking and durability sit where the price implies, so it suits a carbine before it suits a dialling rifle.
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Monstrum Tactical
Entry-level prisms and compact scopes sold mostly direct. Useful as a first optic rather than a lasting one.
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Elcan (Raytheon Elcan)
The SpecterDR switches between two fixed magnifications with a lever rather than zooming through a range, so both settings are optically optimised and the eye relief does not change.
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C-More Systems
The Railway is a fixture in practical pistol competition — an open-emitter sight with a very large window and user-swappable dot sizes.
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Sightron
Japanese-made glass with a following in benchrest and silhouette shooting, where the SIII and SV lines are common on the line despite the brand having little mainstream presence.
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SWFA
Stopped reselling other brands and closed its retail store to concentrate on its own Super Sniper line, which is now the whole business. The fixed-power SS scopes are the ones with the reputation.
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Celestron
An astronomy company whose spotting scopes carry that heritage — strong objectives for the money, and the Regal ED is a genuine hunting-weight option.
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Nikon
Prostaff, Buckmaster, Monarch, M-223, M-308 and P-series riflescopes are all discontinued. Tract Optics was founded by former Nikon Sport Optics staff and is the closest thing to a continuation.
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Weaver
Weaver’s lasting contribution is the mounting standard: the Weaver rail and its slot spacing still define a whole class of rings and bases.
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Millett
The DMS-1 and the Buck Silver and TRS-1 series are the models most often still asked about.
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Redfield
The Revolution is the model still in circulation on the used market.
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Mueller Optics
Worth knowing about mainly because the APV and Eraticator still appear in older buying guides.