Okay, I really appreciate the help on choosing a rifle scope. I ended up with the Nikon Monarch in 4-12x 40mm with the BDC rectile.

Now I need to decide what my next optical purchase should be. I have some cheap Bushnell 35mm binoculars 5-15x that are horrible for using with eyeglasses. (I got them as a gift) but I don't know if they would count as already owning a pair of binoculars or not.

I will be primarily using whatever optics I purchase in the wide open spaces where 1 mile looks are not uncommon. I have a personal preference for the Nikon brand, but I'm not completely zero'd into them if there are other options out there that are better bang for the buck.

I was looking at the Nikon Spotter XL II, 16-48x 60mm. They seem to be hanging around in the $400 range and www.samplelist.com has a refurbished one for $350. We had a crappy spotting scope growing up and it wasn't really even worth having. Is this something where I should be looking at spending $800+ to get a good one or not get one at all?

I've also been looking at some of the refurbished rangefinders on the samplelist. They have the Nikon Monarch 1200 for $320 refurbished.

Then again, I started thinking that maybe I should just get a good quality set of binoculars instead of either of the above choices.

I could probably pull the trigger on a couple of the above purchases if needed. I would appreciate some input from others though.

Thanks, Nathan