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Walmart has straight 4 power Simmons rimfire scopes for $30 bucks. Not exactly what you are wanting but they seem to last a long time and are OK. That is about half price.
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I am impressed with the fixed four power Simmons 22 mag.
I was in the same boat as you OP with a junker gun that i was fixing up for fun.
I had this junky Norinco copy of a Browning takedown .22 that had an old tosco junker scope on it and jacked up irons. lots of the parts were loose and i coudnt get the barrel to affix properly to the reciever (take down) as it has lots of wear. I finally got it to fit together pretty solid and wanted to see how it would perform with a better scope but i didnt want to spend much in case the rifle didnt work so i picked up a simmons fixed power 4X (i would go fixed power in an ultra cheap scope) and some redfield rimfire rings. The rings that come with the simmons scope are real, REAL, garbage. I put it on the rifle and it started getting single hole groups at 50 yard. The thing is still wobbly between the barrel and the recover so i have no freaking clue how its shooting so well.
The scope is extremely clean for the price. It has become one of my favorite range toys because of that scope. I kid you not. the simmons scope made the gun fun to shoot.
I would consider this my go-to cheap scope for any .22 rifle that i am not building into be a nice gun.
It is pretty damn clear. I would say that the performance of the scope is easily twice the price point.
if you are going to make a nice gun, i would get a leupold rimfire scope. If you are going to build a .22 trainer then i would get a low powered SWFA SS scope with parallax adjustment, mil turrets, and mil dot crosshairs.
Primary Arms also has a 109 dollar 6x scope for rimfires now that is worth taking a gander at. It is all determined on how much you want to spend.
but if you are looking to save money, the simmons is not garbage despite the low price.
I kid you not, that simmons scope blew my socks off for the 40-50 dollar or so price i paid for it (with the redfield rings).
If you shop around you can get it cheaper than what i paid, i bought it at an outdoor store and it cost about 5 bucks more there than at discount and online shops.