I am a big believer in the scope being where the action is at. I will buy a cheaper rifle to afford a better scope if it comes down to it....every time. I don't want to be held back by my equipment. I don't always buy the best stuff I can get, but I do buy quality stuff and never take a chance that some mickey mouse scope will work. I guess I just never go into any project and start off with the goal of doing it halfa**ed.
There is no free lunch. You simply can not get a cheap precision optical instrument: those words just don't go together. Like most gun owners, I have purchased more than my share of cheap scopes over the years only to be let down by them. And like a lot of guys, I realized that if I had taken all that money I had spent on cheap junk, I could have purchased a good scope that would have lasted me a life time.
Another thing that I have gotten in a lot of arguments about over the years is the idea that the quality of a scope or the price of a scope is in some way correlated with the cartridge the gun fires. In other words, people can see spending the money on a good quality scope for a centerfire rifle that they only shoot once in a great while: maybe even once or twice a year but they think it is foolish to spend money on a scope for a .22 that they shoot all the time....simply because it is a .22. Currently, I shoot airguns a couple times a week with a group of guys. We shoot for accuracy at 30 yards on an indoor range. The good shooters are firing 10 round groups slightly larger than the diameter of the pellet. I have heard a number of guys say: "I am not spending that kind of money on a scope for a pellet gun". And I say to them: you shoot this pellet rifle Tuesday night, Thrusday, and Sunday. That is three times a week you shoot this rifle, probably 100 times a day, three times a week and you can't see spending the money on a good scope. But you would spend the money for a good scope on a centerfire rifle you only fire once a year ??????? That doesn't make sense to me. If I was going to drop a lot of money on a scope, I would be putting that scope on a rifle I shoot three times a week.
Another way of saying the same thing is to take the amount of money you spend on a scope and divide that by the number of rounds you fire in the rifle the scope is mounted on. To me, it makes all kinds of sense to put the money into the rifle you shoot the most. If you fire one rifle 40 times a year and you fire another rifle 40 times a week, I am putting the best scope on the rifle I fire 40 times a week and I don't care if that rifle is a .22, or an airgun, or whatever. I am getting most use out of the money I spent.
Now, don't get me wrong. I am not talking about spending $1800 on a scope for your .22. I personally have Leupold .22 scopes on all my .22s that have a scope on them. Yeah, they are a couple hundred dollars. But again, I shoot my .22s all the time. I definitely average shooting them once a week year round, why wouldn't I want a quality scope on them ?