Rimfire Scope Review: The Nikon Pro-Staff BDC 150

_by David E. Petzal
_
When I showed up at the Kittery Trading Post to buy a used Anschutz .22, I was saddened to see that this peerless piece of Teutonic precision (one with a $1,000 price tag, new) was saddled with a piece-of-junk scope that you might use to hold a window open, or throw at an armadillo if one particularly annoyed you.

There is no abundance of good rimfire scopes–in fact, there are damned few–despite the fact that that the .22 is the foundation of any serious shooter’s gun collection. I guess most people feel that when they’ve bought the gun they’ve shot their wad (as it were) and look for something cheap and rotten to use as a sight.

This brings us to the new Nikon Pro-Staff BDC 150 3X-9X-40. It is a very, very good scope, and it comes with Nikon’s BDC reticle, which will enable you to shoot out to 150 yards. This particular reticle is calibrated to work only at 9 power, and only with hyper-velocity (1,600 fps) ammo, but with a little experimental shooting, you can adapt it to just about anything.

For example, I found that with high velocity ammo (1,200 fps) I could sight dead on at 25, which still had me dead on at 50 yards, and that, using the scope at 4X and sighting with the topmost BDC aiming circle, I was dead on at 100 yards. And that’s all I need.

Aside from that the BDC 150 is a full-sized scope (You’ll almost certainly need high rings.) that has brilliant optics and superb adjustments. Indeed, the adjustments are among the most accurate and positive that I have used on any scope, rim- or centerfire.

And now, you’re thinking, we come to the part where he says that the price is $1,098.35, but that it’s a great investment. No. This is the part where I tell you that the MSRP is $169.95 and that I see it on the Internet for $126. This makes it one of the great optical bargains of the year, or perhaps the century. www.nikonhunting.com