Best Scope for .17 HMR: A US Rimfire Varmint Buyer's Guide

The Vortex Crossfire II 3-9x40 carries an MSRP of $189.99 and is commonly found at US retailers for $118.99-$149.99, making it one of the most consistently recommended budget rimfire scopes on the market. It runs a 1-inch tube, 3-9x magnification, a V-Plex or Dead-Hold BDC reticle option, fully multi-coated lenses, and long eye relief of 3.8-4.4 inches — genuinely useful on a lightweight rimfire rifle where a shorter eye box can lead to scope-eye contact under recoil-free but fast follow-up shots.

The Leupold VX-Freedom 3-9x40 Rimfire MOA has a list price of $399.99 and is purpose-built for this exact cartridge class. Its headline feature is a fixed 60-yard parallax setting rather than the 100-yard-plus standard on most general-purpose scopes — a real, measurable advantage for the closer engagement distances typical of rimfire varmint shooting. The Rimfire MOA reticle is a proprietary Leupold design based on the T-MOA pattern with 1-MOA hash-mark increments across 25 MOA of holdover reference, built specifically around subsonic and standard-velocity rimfire trajectories rather than adapted from a centrefire reticle. It weighs 12.2 ounces and uses a second focal plane design with 1/4-MOA click adjustments.

For most .17 HMR shooters, the Leupold's fixed 60-yard parallax is the more meaningful upgrade over the Crossfire II than raw glass quality alone. A .17 HMR's practical engagement distance for varmint-sized targets rarely goes much past 150-200 yards, and a parallax setting matched to that range removes a real source of aiming error that a 100-yard-parallax scope leaves uncorrected at the closer distances where a lot of .17 HMR shooting actually happens.

Reticle design matters more on .17 HMR than on many other rimfire cartridges because of its trajectory shape — flatter than .22 LR but still with meaningfully more drop than a centrefire varmint round at extended range. A reticle with rimfire-specific holdover marks, like Leupold's Rimfire MOA, lets you use a known drop chart directly rather than estimating holdover from a generic duplex crosshair, which becomes genuinely useful once you are shooting past 125-150 yards.

If your .17 HMR use is mostly close-range pest control under 100 yards — around a barn, yard or garden — the Vortex Crossfire II's lower price and long eye relief make it the more sensible buy; the rimfire-specific parallax correction on the Leupold matters less at those closer, more forgiving distances. If you are stretching shots to 150-200 yards on open ground for prairie dogs or ground squirrels, the Leupold VX-Freedom Rimfire's dedicated parallax and reticle earn their higher price.