Best Rifle Scopes Under £800: Where the Value Actually Sits

Rifle scope pricing in the UK is not a smooth curve, and the shape of it should change how you shop. Before writing this guide we pulled the price of every active rifle scope we hold — 101 of them — and found something that decided the band for us: there is a complete gap in the middle of the range. Not a thin patch, a gap. Nothing at all sits between £800 and £1,030. That makes £800 the natural ceiling for the "everything you actually need" tier, and this guide covers the 27 scopes that live below it.

The gap, and why it matters to you

Here is the distribution the guide is built on, taken from live stock rather than from a hunch.

The practical reading is this: if your budget is £850, you are not buying a slightly better scope than the £800 one — you are buying nothing, because the next scope up costs £1,030 and is a different class of instrument. Either finish below the gap or plan to cross it properly. That is a more useful piece of advice than any amount of prose about glass quality.

Prices change, and ours change with the exchange rate and with the manufacturers, so we have deliberately not printed a figure next to any product name below. Everything here was correct at the time of writing and the product page is always the authority. Do not treat "Rifle Scope" and "prism scope" as the same product type — the 101 figure above counts rifle scopes only, and the prism scopes we hold are counted separately.

Under £500: the honest working tier

Sixteen of the 27 sit here, and it is a more interesting group than the price suggests.

• The classic 3-9x40 hunting scope. The Burris Fullfield E1 3-9x40 with the Ballistic Plex shotgun reticle and the muzzleloader version are the cheapest rifle scopes in the catalogue, and 3-9x40 remains one of the most sensible specifications ever drawn for British woodland ranges.
• Scout scopes. The Burris Scout 2.75x20 is the forward-mounted, long-eye-relief answer for a rifle that will not take a conventional over-action mount.
• Genuine 1-6x and 1-10x LPVOs. This is the real story of the sub-£500 band. The Primary Arms SLx 1-6x24 with ACSS Nova, the SLx 1-6x24 with ACSS Aurora 5.56 metric and the SLx 1-10x28 with ACSS Griffin M10S all sit here, as do the SIG Sauer TANGO-MSR 1-6x24 FFP and the TANGO-MSR 1-8x24. A true 1x bottom end at this money was not available five years ago.
• The Burris RT-6. The RT-6 1-6x24 with the illuminated Ballistic 5x reticle is a second-focal-plane 1-6x for people who want a plain, bright, uncomplicated LPVO.

The Primary Arms ACSS Aurora 5.56 metric reticle deserves a specific mention on a British site: its ranging and holdover subtensions are laid out in metres rather than yards, which is what you are actually shooting at on a UK range.

£500 to £800: more magnification, better turrets

The eleven scopes in the upper half of the band buy you range at the top end and, in several cases, a first focal plane.

Two of those are packages rather than bare scopes: the Burris RT-6 kit and the TANGO-MSR Compact with the offset ROMEO1 both include a red dot, which is a materially better deal than buying the two separately if an offset sight was on your list anyway. Our guide to red dot vs holographic vs LPVO covers when that combination earns its weight.

Choosing between them

• Shooting a straight-pull or gallery rifle inside 300 m? A 1-6x or 1-8x LPVO is the right tool, and the sub-£500 group covers it fully. See optics for a straight-pull AR.
• Stalking? The magnification you want starts low, not high. Our deer stalking scopes guide explains why the bottom end of the range matters more than the top, and the deer stalking scopes collection is filtered for it.
• Rimfire? Check the mounting before the glass — most British rimfires and air rifles carry an 11 mm dovetail rather than a Picatinny rail. Read 11 mm dovetail scope mounts and scopes for a .22LR rimfire.
• First or second focal plane? Only two scopes in this band are FFP. If you hold rather than dial, that matters; if you dial, it does not. FFP vs SFP explained settles it.

What the band does not buy you

Three things separate this tier from the one above the gap, and it is fairer to name them than to imply the difference is only branding.

• Top-end magnification. Nothing under £800 goes beyond 10x. If you want a 3-18x or 5-25x for hill work or F-Class, you are shopping above the gap, not in it.
• Exposed dialling turrets with a zero stop. The scopes here are built around holding on a BDC reticle rather than dialling elevation and coming back to a hard stop. That is a legitimate way to shoot inside 300 m and a liability beyond it.
• Adjustable parallax. Fixed parallax is normal at this price and is entirely correct for an LPVO. On a magnified scope shot at varying distances it is a real limitation.

None of that makes a sub-£800 scope the wrong purchase. It makes it the right purchase for a defined job, which is the only sensible way to buy glass.

Budget for rings, because none of these include them

Every scope above is supplied without rings except where the listing says otherwise, and rings are not a rounding error — a 30 mm pair runs to a meaningful share of a sub-£500 scope. Get the height right first: the lowest ring that still clears the objective bell gives the firmest cheek weld. Our rifle scope rings and rifle scope mounts collections cover it, and the mounts and rings buyer's guide explains cantilever, one-piece and quick-detach.

Frequently asked questions

What is the cheapest rifle scope you sell?
The Burris Fullfield E1 3-9x40, in its Ballistic Plex shotgun and muzzleloader variants. Both are conventional 1-inch-tube hunting scopes rather than cut-down budget optics.

Why is there nothing between £800 and £1,030?
It is a genuine feature of the ranges we carry rather than a deliberate choice. Below £800 the catalogue is LPVOs and traditional hunting scopes; above £1,030 it is first-focal-plane precision glass and ACOGs. Nothing we stock happens to be priced in between.

Is a sub-£500 LPVO a real 1x?
Yes on the models listed here — they are true 1x at the bottom of the range, which is what makes both-eyes-open shooting work. What you give up against the premium tier is edge-to-edge clarity and eye box forgiveness at the top magnification.

Do I need a licence to buy a rifle scope in the UK?
No. Optics are not firearms and are not entered on a certificate — the framework is set out in do you need a licence for a rifle scope, red dot or torch.

MOA or MRAD turrets?
Whichever matches your reticle. Consistency between turret and reticle matters far more than the choice itself — see MRAD vs MOA explained and the MOA at distance chart.

Start with the full rifle scopes range, or go straight to LPVO rifle scopes, Primary Arms optics, SIG Sauer rifle scopes and Burris rifle scopes. For a lower budget still, our best red dot sights under £300 guide covers the unmagnified option, best weapon lights under £250 does the same for torches, and optics for fox and night vermin control covers the after-dark side. Everything is held in our UK warehouse and dispatched tracked, with no import charges to follow — the detail is in buying optics in the UK.