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What rifle scope magnification do you need to shoot long range? Choosing the best rifle scope magnification can be confusing, and there isn’t much data out there to help – but you’ve come to the right place! I asked the top 200 ranked shooters in the Precision Rifle Series (PRS) what scope magnification they use in rifle matches to engage targets from 300 to 1200 yards. These are the markmen who have proven to be the most effective in the world at hitting tiny targets at 1000 yards or more, so knowing what magnification they’re using to get to the top of the leaderboard can give helpful insight into how to choose your scope magnification.
I asked the top 200 shooters 3 questions:
- What scope magnification do you use on most stages at a long-range rifle match?
- What is the minimum scope magnification you might use on a stage?
- What is the maximum scope magnification you might use on a stage?
If you want to see the exact scope brands, models, and reticle the best long-range shooters in the world are running, you can see the full breakdown and details here: Best Scope Brands & Models – What The Pros Use.
Why Do They Change Scope Magnification?
Pro shooters rarely adjust magnification mid-stage, unlike amateurs who often zoom in and out while locating targets. Instead, pros select a magnification before the stage—sometimes 12x, other times 25x—based on the stage’s demands.
A PRS match typically spans 20 stages over two days, each with unique challenges. Some require shooting from multiple positions, others from a single prone position at varying distances, and many involve rapid target acquisition under tight time constraints.
Top shooters assess each stage’s conditions to set their magnification. If stable and time allow (e.g., prone shooting), they may use higher magnification for better target visibility and impact spotting. Conversely, for fast-paced stages with multiple positions, they lower magnification to expand their field of view, aiding quick target acquisition and faster transitions. It is more based on stage design than target distances.
Most Common Scope Magnification For Long Range Shooting
Here is a chart showing how these professional long-range shooters answered question #1: What scope magnification do you use on most stages at a long-range rifle match?
On the chart above, the various colors represent where a shooter landed in terms of season rank in the PRS. For example, black indicates shooters who finished in the top 10, the darkest blue is people who finished 11-25, and the lighter the blue, the further out they finished in overall standings. The chart legend itemizes the ranks each color represents, but basically, the darker the color, the higher the shooter’s overall ranking.
18x and 20x are clearly the most common magnifications these pro shooters are using to engage long-range targets. 18x-20x represents what 49% of these top-ranked competitors are running on most stages.
77% of these pro shooters run 15x to 20x on most stages. So, while some of this simply varies by personal preference, it’s very likely somewhere in that range might be optimal for you.
The average over this large sample size of veteran long-range shooters is 17.8.
I did actually analyze if what magnification someone preferred changed based on the brand of scope they were running. I thought maybe some of the brands with higher-end glass might be able to run at slightly lower magnification and still see the same level of detail. However, there didn’t appear to be any correlation. The average for every brand that had 10 or more shooters represented was within 1x of that 17.8x average.
Max Scope Magnification For Long Range
Now let’s look at what these elite marksmen said the maximum magnification they said they’d ever use at a match, even when they’re engaging targets out to 1,000 yards – or occasionally to 1200+ yards.
32% said 25x was the highest magnification they ever used at a long-range rifle match. That included 6 of the guys in the top 10.
I was curious if those shooters went up to 25x because they thought it was what was ideal for them or if they were simply using a scope where the max magnification was 25x. Of the 61 shooters who said the max magnification they ever run was 25x, 56% were using a scope that had more magnification than that. In fact, 25 of those 61 shooters had a scope that could zoom up to 35x or even 40x – but they said they never turn it up more than 25x during a match. So clearly, the majority of people using 25x weren’t just using that because it was all their scope had available.
70% of these shooters fell between 20x and 25x for the maximum magnification they ever had during a match.
95% said they never run above 30x magnification.
23.5x was the average of the maximum magnifications this group reported.
Minimum Scope Magnification For Long Range Shooting
Finally, let’s look at the minimum magnification these shooters said they might run at a long-range rifle match:
76% of these competitors said they might run a minimum magnification between 10x and 15x at a match. 23% said they run 15x, another 23% said they run 12x, and then 20% said they run 10x.
97% of these top-ranked PRS shooters said they never go below 10x magnification at a rifle match.
13.7x was the average minimum magnification among this group.
Top 20 Shooters Scope Magnification For Long Range
There are many little strategies to scope magnification at a PRS match, and I’ll share some tips directly from some pro shooters below. But let’s now take a look at how the top 20 pro shooters in the PRS Open Division answered those 3 questions.
The chart shows the range of magnifications each of the top 20 shooters said they used. The black line is the magnification they use on most stages. The left side of the green bar is the minimum magnification they said they ever use, and the right side of the blue bar is the max magnification they said they use.
65% of the top 20 shooters said they typically run a magnification between 16x and 20x. So that represents the scope zoom they use to engage long range targets most of the time. That is very similar to what the wider group of top 200 shooters used (68% of the top 200 used between 16x and 20x). However, you can see that depending on the stage, they might run as low as 10x magnification or as high as 30x magnification.
There are a few outliers, like Clay Blackketter, who was the 2019 PRS Champion and took 4th overall in 2024. Clay said he runs at 12x magnification on most stages, and he really never runs lower power than that at a match, but he might bump up to 15x on some stages. I reached out to Clay to see if he could share a little more context with me about his scope magnification strategy.
Clay told me that regardless of the target distances, he will always shoot positional stages at 12x and prone stages at 15x. Those are lower magnifications than what many of these top shooters are running, but here is his thought process:
“What I always tell people is if I put you on a Swarovski BTX Spotting Scope, it has so much magnification that its almost like you’re standing at the target and you will likely see where every single bullet hits. However, if I tap that same spotting scope with one finger while you’re looking you won’t be able to tell me anything about where a bullet hits because the movement is so magnified. More or less it is the same when it comes to shooting. The more zoomed in you are the faster things feel like they happen. So in perfect conditions (I’m not meaning environmental conditions) it is easy to see impacts exactly, but most of the time things aren’t perfect so I find it actually makes it more difficult to spot when zoomed further in. It is also easier to shoot the wrong target when zoomed in further. Lastly, while it’s rare, we’re sometimes in a compromised shooting position or firing off a wobbly prop where there is a chance you could lose the target under recoil. But, I’ve got a much better chance of still seeing what happens down range because my magnification is on the lower side.” – Clay Blackketter (2019 PRS Champion)
I also knew that Clay was running a Tangent Theta scope, which many say has some of the best glass clarity on the market. So I asked Clay if he thought the extremely sharp glass allowed him to run at lower magnification and still see the same level of detail that other guys might see at higher magnification.
“I’m sure that Tangent having the best glass helps with shooting at that lower power, but it has become so natural over the past many years it is one of the things I don’t think about. It is a nice bonus though to be able to see a much larger picture (more vegetation movement, dust coming off other people’s targets, seeing mirage on the horizon etc to help continuing with a game plan in regards to wind).” – Clay Blackketter
Austin Orgain is a two-time PRS Champion who finished 7th overall in 2024. I interviewed him a little over a year ago and asked him: What magnification do you typically run during a match?
“I find myself a lot of times shooting a match on like 16x magnification. If there is a target that is washed out or in the shade and it’s hard to see the edges, I might bump up to 20x on that stage. But typically, I don’t run over 18x or under 12x. I’m almost always between 12-18x for an entire match.” – Austin Orgain (2020 & 2021 PRS Champion)
Do You Need High Magnification For Long Range?
If you’re reading this article to learn what scope magnification you HAVE to have to hit targets at long range, I want to make it clear: you don’t need 20x or 25x to hit targets at long range. I have personally made first-round hits on targets out to 1.5 miles (2,640 yards) in a competition at 9x magnification. (I had to back down my magnification so I could hold some of my elevation correction using the reticle because the turrets on my scope wouldn’t accommodate all of the 43.0 mil correction.) I’m not saying that is ideal, but it is clearly possible.
Many amateur shooters have the notion that you need 30x or maybe even 50x magnification to be able to see a target at 1,000 yards or more – and that just isn’t true. Clay and Austin are both PRS Season Champs, and neither of them ever uses more than 20x magnification!
That is the biggest reason I was motivated to ask these guys about magnification on my survey and then publish all of this. I don’t feel like any of this is talked about in a way that is definitive and data-driven (mostly just people spouting their opinions on forums – and often those keyboard commandos aren’t accomplished shooters themselves), so I hope this content helps educate guys wanting to get into long-range shooting. You don’t have to go out and buy a really high-powered scope to start trying long-range.
The Ideal Scope Magnification Range For Long-Range Shooting
All of these shooters said they NEVER ran below 5x or above 35x magnification. There were several guys who said they only ran up to 35x who were running the Zero Compromise 8-40×56, so they could have run higher magnification if they wanted to.
93% of these shooters said they’re always within 10x and 30x, so the overwhelming majority of these shooters would say if your scope covered that range, it would be ideal. In fact, 10x to 30x would cover the full range of what all of the top 20 shooters said they ever run at a rifle match.
Only 4 of the 200 shooters surveyed said they ever run below 10x. Two of those people said they might run down to 8x, 1 said 7x, and 1 said 5x.
5-25x scopes are a very popular design, and those would cover the magnification range that 82% of the shooters said they prefer to use. So that might not be the ideal. That’s because 17% of these shooters said they might run magnification above 25x on some stages. However, there was only 1 shooter surveyed who said they run above 25x on most stages. So, 5-25x scopes would cover most scenarios, but almost 1 in 5 would say they are less than ideal.
7-35x scopes are another popular magnification range, which would literally cover 99.5% of these shooters. There was 1 shooter who said they might run down to 5x magnification on some stages, but everyone else was a minimum of 7x or more. Now that one shooter was Daniel Bertocchini who finished #23 overall – so it’s not like it was a guy that was ranked 199th. But, simply based on the numbers, 7-35x would be the ideal scope magnification range to cover what virtually all of these top shooters prefer to actually run when engaging targets at long-range rifle matches.
If you’d like to see the exact scope brands, specific models, and reticles these guys are running, you can view the complete breakdown and all the details here: Best Rifle Scopes for Long Range – What The Pros Use.
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Cal love your articles ! This might be a real newbee question if so please forgive me. My understanding is that if a scope has a higher magnification like a 7-35 you will have a wider range of view at 20 and beytter sight picture than the same quality /brand of scope that is 5-25 at 20.
please advise
Hey, Bill. The field of view of a scope isn’t as correlated to the magnification range as you are thinking it is. I actually did a very extensive test where I measured the field of view for all of the high-end scopes at the time at the same exact magnification (18x). You can read all of the details of that test and see the results in this article, but here are the results of what I measured:
You can see the actual field of view that was measured varied wildly, but it wasn’t necessarily that the scopes with a higher or lower top-end magnification range all ended up on one end or the other. For example, one of the scopes that went up to 30x was very close to another one that only went up to 18x.
Field of view is one of many aspects that an engineer is considering when designing an optical lens system. There are a lot of competing design characteristics, and they’re trying to strike the balance between a lot of things (including cost). So unfortunately, it’s not as easy as just looking at the magnification range and saying if it has a higher max magnification that it would have a larger field of view at the same power.
I wish it were simpler, but that’s the way I understand it.
Thanks,
Cal
I’ve noticed that when the mirage is heavy, using a lower setting like 10-12X helps minimize the effect. I typically run around 15X for most stages.
That’s a great point! Mirage can definitely limit how high of magnification you can run. I had a friend that bought one of the Schmidt and Bender PMII 5-45×56 scopes when they were released a few years ago. He thought that he’d run at that higher magnification occasionally, but he almost never used it because mirage would blow you out at 40x or more.
But the mirage can be helpful too. I know a few of these shooters who look at the mirage before every single shot at a match, just to make sure the wind didn’t change. So mirage in your scope isn’t all bad, but if it blows you out … it is. 😉
Thanks,
Cal
When I was much younger I had 20/15 vision. It’s pretty widely documented that Chuck Yeager had 20/10 vision which is much rarer. I’d be interested to know if any of these top shooters are also outliers on the vision curve.
Ted, that is a great question! Phil Cashin hosts a podcast called The Winner’s Circle, and each week he interviews one of the recent winner of a PRS pro-series match. He started asking most of the competitors about their eyesight about a year ago, and it’s been fascinating to hear. I’ve listened to all of those shows, and I didn’t tabulate the data – but I’d guess that maybe 1/3 of the winners do seem to have eyesight that is better than 20/20.
I’ve been competing in the PRS since 2015, and placed in the top 100 last year … and I can say for sure that a HUGE part of this game is spotting your impacts and then applying tiny little corrections to try to get your next bullet more centered on the plate. If someone can pick up a little more detail on the target than someone else, they have a sizeable advantage over a the course of a 200-round rifle match. I’d bet they pick up 5+ points that someone else of the same shooting skill might not. Most of these matches are decided by 2 points or less, and a difference of 5 points might drop you from 1st place to 12th in some matches. So it is a VERY big deal!
I’m sure that is why some of these shooters run a little higher magnification than others. It would be interesting if I asked these guys specifically what their eyesight was on a future survey. I added that to my list of questions to consider next time! 😉
Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
Cal
Tell Sam that he needs to hide those destructive devices before BATFE finds out!
Thanks for the insight, Cal. The quality of glass over the last several years has certainly helped with high magnification use. I’ve always believe 18-20 is the sweet spot in PRS/long range.
Ha! Thanks, Dustin.
This was actually really interesting for me to see for myself. I typically run around 17-18x, and I always thought I was likely running lower magnification than most of these guys. But I guess I’m right in there with the rest of them! I’d heard a couple of top 50 guys say they ran higher magnification, and I just assumed that is what most of them did … but that’s why data like this can be so helpful. It’s not just anecdotal from one or two guys, but a really large sample size.
Thanks,
Cal
Hey Cal, thank You SO MUCH for gathering and publishing data like this. It really helps the newer folks and recreational shooters understand that the highest magnification may not be the best choice.
You bet, Todd! I definitely thought this would be a helpful tip for a lot of people, because virtually nobody ever talks about it. It’s kind of one of those things that everyone just has to learn by trial and error to see what works for them. I guarantee there were even a few of these pros that were interested in seeing what everyone else was doing. I’m one of them, and I thought it was interesting! 😉
Thanks,
Cal
Hi Cal
Great article.
This article supports the facts in your last article but with much more detail.
I found the part where you asked the top 20 shooters what scope magnification they use at a PRS match very interesting. Due to this chart I am thinking I should maybe try 16X, from my normal 18x magnification. Austin Orgain comments got me thinking and I believe that why you write these articles Cal, to get us thinking about making changes.
Paul Goggan
That’s awesome, Paul! Thanks for sharing. And you should give it a shot and see what you prefer. Just knowing what some of the veterans are doing can sure be helpful. Then you can try them out for yourself and see what makes the biggest difference.
Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts.
Thanks,
Cal
Enjoyed the article. As I have all of this series.
I don’t shoot matches just against my personal best. Occasionally shoot 600 yards but most of my shooting is 100 to 300 yards I’m 74 and over the years I have found that more magnification helps these old eyes. But I have never used over 30X. Can you give the ages of the top twenty. I would think 20-40.
I’m looking at scopes right now for a new rifle. So this article comes just at the right time as I was considering increasing magnification. Budget will not allow one of the $5000 dollar scopes that these guys run. But rifle and scope together might get there.
Hey, Matt. I know almost all of those guys, and although I don’t know their exact ages … I can probably guess pretty close. I can’t think of any that are under 25 years old in the top 20, and there might not even be any under about 28 or 29 years old. I’d say they’re pretty much all 25 to 45, with a few exceptions. For example, Dale Rhoads is considered a “Senior”, which means he is at least 55 years old and he took 20th overall in the Open Division. Dale is a heck of a shooter, not just for his age … but even among the young guys in their prime! Clearly that’s true because he took 20th overall for the season in the Open Division. For example, Dale won Clay’s Cartridge Classic in 2024 and Ben Gossett was there (2024 PRS Champ) along with others like Austin Orgain, Austin Buschman, Chris Kutalek, Kyle Mccormack, and other world-class competitors.
As far as others within the top 20, I’d bet Keith Baker is probably over 45 years old. Keith Rudasill and Chris Kutalek might also be over 45 years old, but I’m not sure. So there is at least two in the top 20 that I’d bet money are over 45, but it might be as many as 4-5. I’d probably say the majority are 30 to 40 years old.
If I were going to spend $5,000 on a rifle and scope setup … I’d probably put a big chunk of that in the optic. I’ve heard a lot of these guys recommend the same thing. And if it were me, I’d take a hard look at the Leupold Mark 5HD 7-35×56 with the PR2-MIL reticle. Street price on that is around $2,400, and I’m not sure there is a better bang for your buck on the market. Now, it’s not the best glass … but the scopes that have the best glass are over $5,000, like you mentioned.
For the rifle, you might check out the MPA PMR which is their “production rifle.” You can pick up one of those for $2,600 and I also think they’re the best bang for your buck on the market. In my opinion, if I picked the best value for each rifle component in terms of how much it helps you for the price you pay … I pretty much would agree with all of the choices of what MPA did on the PMR rifle. There is very little you can’t do with that rifle that you could with a $8k full custom build. And it’s based on the Remington 700 footprint, so you can upgrade it as you go, if you ever wanted to.
And if speed isn’t a concern, the only downside of extra magnification would be your ability to spot your impact. Like Clay said, sometimes when you zoom way in you can lose the target under recoil or the picture is moving so much that you can’t see the bullet impact as well as you might be able to if you backed off the magnification some. So if I were you I’d probably try to find an optic that had up to 35x magnification.
Hope that is helpful, and I also hope it encourages you to hear that not all of these guys are as young as you thought they might be! 😉
Thanks,
Cal
Say a shooter is going to run their scope mostly at 20x and occasionally at 25x, is there an advantage to having a scope that maxes out at 35x to 40x as opposed to one that has a maximum of 25x. Asked another way, does a scope of given quality function better near the middle of its magnification range as opposed to the magnification limits. Thanks
Hey, Bob. That is a good question. I have never heard of a reason that it would be better to be at the middle of the magnification range rather than at the max end of it. I do know there are reasons that being in the middle of a scopes elevation adjustment range (the turret travel) has some benefits, but I’ve had a lot of conversations about scopes over the years with different people in the industry and I’ve never heard any of them mention anything like that. I would suspect it would have come up if there was some truth to it, but it hasn’t. I’d say I’d bet it is unlikely, but I also don’t claim to be an expert on that topic.
I 100% know there are optics engineers reading this article, so maybe they’ll chime in here in the comments and enlighten us. I might even reach out to a few of the guys that I know in the industry and see if I can get a definitive answer to your question. I’ll post it as a reply here if I feel like I learn anything more.
Thanks,
Cal
Ive noticed that all the shoots are in warm places. Do they ever run them in cold weather. Shooting at 0 to minus 30 degrees is a whole different world…..
Hey, Pierre. There are a couple of matches ever year where the temperatures dip below 30 degrees, but it’s pretty rare. Honestly, I don’t love shooting in those conditions! This is all for fun, so if I can shoot in milder weather, I’m for it. The finale this year was in Idaho in early November, but I think the coldest we saw at the match was around 40 degrees. It might have been below that, but if it was it was only for a little while. Now it was raining a little on us during that time, so it was chilly. But there are a few matches every year where there is snow on the ground at the match, and sometimes a lot of snow. So at least a few of these guys shoot in those kinds of conditions somewhat regularly.
I’d say lots of the scopes that we’re using are also used by military units all over the world, and have been tested down to extreme temperatures. I know the Nightforce ATACR scopes, Leupold Mark 5HD, Schmidt and Bender PMII, and Tangent Theta scopes are all being used by some countries military forces. I’m sure lots of the other brands are being used as well. I’ve hunted a lot in temps below freezing, and I wouldn’t hesitate to use my match scope in those conditions. It’s not ideal for hunting necessarily – but at least the brands I use wouldn’t struggle to perform in freezing temps. Of course, I can’t speak for all the brands.
Hope that is helpful!
Cal
Thanks for this helpful statistic, Cal. 👍🏼
My own shooting is mainly at really tiny targets at ranges less than 300y. But the ballistics of the gun and the ammo compare to PRS guns hitting 1000y. So, I was very interested what PRS shooters use as max. magnification.
If I counted the numbers from this and your previous article correctly, there were 67 shooters who had only up to 25x max. magnification available. And 61 used 25x as max.
However, there were 111 shooters who had more than 25x available — but only 33 used more than 25x.
➠ Maybe 2/3 of those 111 shooters use their scopes for other shooting scenarios outside of PRS matches — but if they don’t… — they might have bought more magnification than they are actually using.
As you say, mirage is one of the reason why higher magnification might not be used.
Cheers,
Matthias
Hey, Matthias. Those are good points. There are certainly a significant number of these shooters who bought more magnification than they’re actually using. I went and looked at the underlying data and only 23% of the shooters said the max magnification they used in a match was the same as the upper limit of the magnification on their scope (e,g., they use up to 25x on a 5-25x scope). That means 77% bought more magnification than they’re actually using.
Let me give you a little anecdotal information that might help. I personally placed in the top 100 this past year, so I’m one of the shooters represents in this data. I use a 7-35×56 scope, but I answered that 10x was the minimum I ever used on a stage and 25x was the max I ever used on a stage. So I have some margin on either side of what I actually use, which I like. Now, when I’m zeroing my rifle, I always bump it up to 35x. I really like having 35x magnification to get a good zero. I also like having it when I’m spotting shots for another shooter. But, I very, very rarely fire a shot at 35x – even when I’m just plinking at the local range with friends. And I can’t remember ever using 35x while I was on a stage at a match. I really can’t remember ever going above 25x while I was on the clock at a match. But, that doesn’t mean I don’t have a niche scenarios where 35x isn’t helpful. Now, I personally can’t think of a time where 5x would be helpful on my match rifle, which is why I don’t feel like I’m giving anything up on the low end with it starting at 7x. I really can’t see myself ever running anything below 10x, and even that is very rare. I very likely haven’t ran below 12x on any stage at a match over the past year, but I think I can remember a time I dialed back to 10x – but it’s been a while.
So there is a little more hard data to confirm what you were saying, along with some anecdotal information to try to help you understand why someone might want a little more magnification than they might actually use during a match.
Thanks,
Cal
I notice a few with aging eyes like myself dialing it up, so it would be interesting to overlay these data with each respondent’s respective age to check for a little multicollinearity. 🙂
Love the articles, sir…one of the few emails that compel me to drop everything and click on them the moment I see them in the inbox. Good stuff.
PS: Consider moving your Amazon affiliate link to the header, so it’s a little more prominent (and more readers need to be clicking on it to support Cal!).
Thanks, John. I appreciate the kind words. Love to hear that you look forward to them like that.
I don’t have the exact ages, and you are making me wish I’d have asked that. It’d be interesting to see how it correlates. I did try my best to estimate the ages of the top 20 and itemized that in this comment, if you’re interested: https://precisionrifleblog.com/2025/02/02/best-scope-magnification-for-long-range-shooting-what-the-pros-use/#comment-79501
And I’ll take that advice! I’ll try to make the Amazon Associate link more prominent.
Thanks,
Cal