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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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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