Whatever your choic on brands -- get an illuminated recticle -- with out question. I --for reasons I will not go into -- wound up in a leopard blind last November with a non-illuminated scope --- cat was laying in front of us -- and I assure you it was so friggen dark that I had now way in H___ to see the crosshairs -- it all worked out later but at that moment --things were "not so good"!