MOA knobs and a mil reticle  is never a good choice.


OP why do you think SFP would be better for you? What exactly will you be doing with the steel to 600. Just plinking? How high a power you want? Is the .308 a semi or a bolt?

ETA, OP watch the Nikon line as they are getting out of the scope business and now they state that they will cover them under warranty but who knows in the future. Good deals but just wanted you to know as you speak of a lifetime warranty being important to you.

There are two images you see when you look through a riflescope. An image of the scene you are looking at, and an image of the reticle overlaid on top of that scene.

When you zoom in and out, the image of the scene will grow and shrink.

The reticle inside your scope is designed to be like a ruler - it has a very specific scale to all of its proportions (line thicknesses, hashmark sizes, distances between hashmarks or dots, etc) that can be measured in either MOA or MRAD. This scale is designed to work in relation to the image you are looking at through the scope and its size.

In a SFP optic, the reticle is physically placed inside the scope behind all the magnifying lenses. Thus, the image gets magnified to whatever magnification you dial on the mag ring, and meets up with the reticle after all that has already happened. Because of this, when you change magnification, the reticle won't appear to change at all in size with the growing/shrinking image - it will appear to simply stay the same size. If one thing (Scene) is growing and shrinking and the other (Reticle), which was designed to have a very specific scale to the scene's size, isn't growing and shrinking with it - they won't match up until the image of the scene reaches a calibrated size at which they do have the proper scale to one another. This is often times the highest magnification in a scope's given magnification range.

FFP optics have their reticle physically placed in front of all the magnifying lenses. Thus, both the image of the scene and the reticle go through together and are always magnified at the same exact rate. If you zoom in/out, both the image of the scene and reticle will grow and shrink at the same exact rate in perfect relation to one another the whole time. This means any of those lines, hashmarks or dots you might use for holdovers, ranging, spotting shots, etc. can be used to their intended scale on any magnification. It is also worth noting, the reticle will appear to be rather small on the lowest mag and rather big on the highest mag because it has to always be growing and shrinking with the image.

False rumors:
- SFP reticles literally can't be used at all unless you are on the highest magnification. - This is false because the center point of the reticle can always be used regardless of magnification or scale. It is a single point in space and always pointed at the same thing regardless of how much you zoom in/out. Thus, you can dial and shoot of the center crosshairs on any magnification regardless of whether you have FFP or SFP.
- FFP isn't very precise because the reticle is too big and covers too much target on highest mag - This is false because the reticle is absolutely no bigger in relation to the image on the highest mag than it is on the lowest mag, even though the reticle *Appears* to be much larger. Both the image and the reticle grow and shrink together, so the reticle is not covering up any more/less of the target on any magnification as you change. It will, however, take up more of your field of view. For some this is an issue, but it in no way affects the ability to be precise.

That is not always true. It comes down to the reticle. Also with a lot of the new reticles with small dots and open centers it also negates this argument.

OP, get a FFP optic. It is more useful in the end for holds. Range estimation is way down the list on why FFP is useful as most don't do it or practice it enough for it to be accurate. FFP is more useful for hold overs, unders, wind holds, mover holds, quick corrections etc. Take a look at the new Strike Eagle Vortex just came out with. It's just hitting the street but would do what you want and if you are LE/Mil/Vet/Fire you can get them at a good cost. They run about $650 if not but Sport optics has them for $609 now with their promo code.

OP was looking for at least 20x on the top end.