You don't say which chambering(s) these are for. But, you're also making this far more complicated than it is. Like you, I don't like how cluttered most reticles are now. They may be wonderful for target competition application, but most of them are far too busy and of no use for shooting small varmints that dig....pd's and sage rats. I like a simple fine crosshair /dot, fine duplex, or something with fine crosshatches and not a whole lot of them. Same with 2nd focal plane, at your distances a FFP scope is unnecessary. When you're shooting these things, as you know from sage rat experience, they can be at all different ranges from one shot to the next, and in different directions. Fooling with elevation / windage dials is pointless. At your distances, just zero at, say, 200, and don't worry about dialing elevation or windage. Know the trajectory of your gun and 300 or 400 yds or so holdover / holdoff is easy. And a variable that goes down to 6 at the low end works a lot better than one that begins at 12 or so. Find a small target out there through binoc is one thing, then finding it again in the scope at 12x can be tricky. Good glass is really nice but for your purposes you don't need a $1000 - $2000 scope. On Youtube the best scope test evaluations I've seen are by a guy called Cyclops who's done lots and lots of them. Go on there a check out what he has to say. Very interesting, easy to google.
