Leupold VX-3 3.5-10X 40mm With B&C Reticle

One of the finest on the market, Leupold's Boone and Crockett reticle is designed specifically for big-game hunting and combines several excellent virtues into one aiming system.

First, it's inherently simple; for a close-and-fast shot your eye still goes straight to the primary crosshairs without confusion. That's important.

Second, the cross-hashes for distance work make sense — you don't have to have a PhD and manual to decipher how to sight-in and what marks to use when reaching way out there. Third, it has windage reference marks on the hash lines, but for just one speed: 10 mph. While varmint shooters may desire marks that can be used when the wind is kicking 20-mph dust in their eyes, big-game hunters shouldn't be shooting far enough to need a hash mark in that persuasive a breeze.

And lastly, the B&C reticle is housed in one of America's favorites. Leupold optics are a nonentity nowhere and envied everywhere. The 3.5-10X 40mm version I'm partial to has been atop my rifle during the hunts that yielded the two biggest mule deer of my life.

I suspect it may be along on many a future hunt in the rugged, unforgiving terrain of the Rocky Mountain West.