I posted this before years ago, but............
I had a buddy that believed in the free lunch.
He told me that he was going to buy a BSA brand red dot sight to mount on a .41 mag pistol. I did my best to talk him out of it. He didn't listen.
By coincidence, I happened to be at the range when he showed up with his new rig. On the third shot, the sight completely disassembled itself with parts flying through the air. I wanted to laugh in the worst way, but he had his wife and kids there and I didn't want to show him up in front of his family.
It's my opinion that you simply can not buy a quality, optical instrument for less than a couple hundred dollars. No matter what gun I am shooting, I make every attempt to shoot in accurately. There is never a time when I am shooting that I am not serious about hitting the target. There is also never a time when I am shooting that I want to be handicapped by my equipment.
Buy good stuff and pay the money for it and cry once. Buy cheap stuff and cry as long as you own it. Quality is remembered long after the price is forgotten.
Something I have read a thousand times on internet gun forums:
I am not going to spend that much money on an optic for a .22
If you think about it, what gun do you shoot the most ? For me I fire thousands of .22s for every centerfire rifle round I fire. Wouldn't it make sense that I would spend MORE money on a .22 optic than I would on a rifle I seldom fire ? Same logic even applies to air rifles. I frequently practice with an air rifle in the basement. I can shoot there year round, day or night, no matter the weather. It only makes sense for me to buy a good quality air rifle with a good quality optic since I use them all the time. If I divided up the price of the scope per round fired, the .22 wins every time. Same with the air rifle.
The price of an optic has absolutely nothing to do with the price of the gun. Another thing I see frequently posted is: "I am not going to spend more on the optic than I paid for the gun". Why not ? What has one got to do with the other ? If I got a free rifle does that mean that I can't spend more than zero on the optic ? In the end you have a good rifle with a cheap scope.
Just one man's opinion. I have been down this road a number of times and learned this lesson the hard way. There is no free lunch. You get what you pay for.