Lots of folks are careful with a dollar, nothing wrong with that. It's admirable. But you can go too cheap with optics and waste your money on junk. You can go nuts the other direction and spend $4500 on glass with that last $3000 buying you nary a single extra hit.
My take: what matters is "good enough" glass with solid mechanics. Which brings me to the Vortex Diamondback Tactical 4-16x EBR-2C. It's a first focal plane (FFP) mil-mil scope. I use it on a .22lr trainer (CZ-455 American) in scaled down precision rimfire matches.
The good:
This reticle is amazing. My hold with a 100 yard zero was 2 mils high at 25 yards and 6 mils low at 200 with CCI Standard. So I could just bounce back and forth between +2 and -6 all day and nail targets at both ends. I shot my first match with indifferent results, faring especially poorly with the tiny targets like a tootsie-pop at 50 yards and a pencil at 25. After the match I noticed I was shooting a good group, it was just .5 mils left of PoA. 5 clicks right and I was biting the eraser off the pencil and taking chunks off an inch at a time. Off the bench, mind you.
FFP is a good thing. I want a mil to equal a mil at all magnifications. Some people do prefer a consistent sized reticle at whatever zoom, so SFP is for them. I did read a neat trick where someone figured out the magnification to make the bdc match the actual observed drop of his ammo+barrel combo. For example, at 9x it was off, but dialing back to 7x made the reticle fit the trajectory. You can't do that with FFP. Personally, I'd rather learn the dope against a single measure.
Adjustments are solid and accurate, in .1 mil clicks. Once you have your zero, it's easy to re-index the turrets so '0' is YOUR zero.
Range of adjustment is great: 25 MRAD. If my range of adjustment is close to the middle, then that 13 mils gets me to 300, which is a long way for a rimfire. Then I have 10 more mils of holdover in the reticle.
Parallax goes down to 20 yards which is where we find a lot of rimfire targets hanging out.
The Bad: no zero stop. I can live with that.
There's better glass. Counterpoint: there's ALWAYS better glass. You can buy a Kahles scope for the price of a decent used car and someone will trot out their NASA space glass that puts it to shame for only $10,000,000. What additional shots will it allow you to make? In the case of the Diamondback, I've only shot it in full daylight at max 200 yards. I couldn't say how it performs at dusk at 600+.
Ideal Use Case: imo, this is ideal for a rimfire precision rifle trainer. I picked the Gen 2 PST 5-25 for centerfire and this gives me the same reticle and adjustments for when I can't shoot very far, which is almost always. Finding the right mount can be a challenge. The scope has a 30mm tube, so finding rings to fit on a rimfire dovetail took some research and I wound up with the scope too high for a chin weld. I also couldn't get it as far forward as I'd like. I have taped some foam to build up a cheek riser. If it's dumb but it works, it's not dumb!
I do know that people have had success with it at PRS style matches.
$349 at Euro Optic or Optics Planet. That's high for some of you but I think it's a screaming deal.
Do they have a dovetail to pic rail adapter that would allow you to get a lower mount?
Thank you for the heads up on this scope. I just picked up a Leupold Mark AR 4-12 from Gun Broker for around $250. It is second focal plane Mil dot. They also have the 6-18 that has been selling around $300 (Sportsmans Supply, Butler, PA on GB)