Well lucky you, you are an hour North of me and I've got SCOPES you can peer through and even shoot. I've got 1.5 decades on you and use Progressive lenses, generally no issue until you get into the 24x range but you get use to it.
Hogkiller, I appreciate your offer and would love to take you up on it in the near future. So far I just have the M3, I did order a cpl magazines from Europe (Carm) earlier today as well as a cpl tins of pellets from Airgun Depot. And I can surely use some advice and knowledge on airguns!
Check out Orion the Iguana Hunter Mags, they work quite well. I have a few CARM's zero issues with them, nice guy to deal with also.
I'm 61 myself, not for long, very soon to be 62. On a 1500 dollar budget I think you should be looking used and get the best you can. You can easily get a Vortex Razor HD FFP scope that is barely used for under that budget. I don't own one, but have spent a good bit of time behind a friends 4.5-22x50 on his 100yd benchrest centerfire, actually a poor choice for a benchrest rifle. I told him to get a target scope for it but he insisted on the Vortex for versatility. That makes no sense on a benchrest rifle, to each his own i guess. Parallax on his went down to 25 yards, not a problem for me but may be for someone that wants 20x+ mag on a 50ft target. For target shooting it is very good glass, turrets are fairly good by standards of 2.5k+ scopes, not quite there but very close. In daylight, his was virtually, not completely, indistinguishable with my lousy eyes these days from my top end Zeiss/Swarovski/Schmidt&Benders resolution. At dusk it fell away, I'm talking 45 minutes after sunset before it lost out to mine big time. But my scopes are hunting scopes catering more to low light than target shooting/daylight tactical shooting/etc.. I don't think there is a better bargain than those out there on the used market, and Vortex has a no excuses, no receipt needed lifetime warranty. They actually fix scopes, they are not throw aways they just send you a new one on warranty.
