Quote Originally Posted by sharpshooter View Post
Air rifle scopes are made to take recoil both ways and usually have a glass reticle. The sudden jolt and learch forward seems to have an ill effect on wire reticles. I once thought a good centerfire scope would be sufficient for a spring piston air rifle, but after 5 shots my 36 Leupold gave up. It would be best to have one rated for air rifles.
^ this, for real. Powerful spring-piston air rifles are brutal on scopes. My old RWS has made more than one "baby rattles" as you described, before I became convinced of the necessity to put a true airgun-rated scope on it. I have a Swift 6.5-20x44 on it and it's held up pretty well so far. I think it's the one Dean linked above, but his link didn't work for me so I can't say for sure. Also have an adjustable, airgun-rated mount for the scope on mine, and it is a big help. Still, with these specialty optics and mounts, true precision has been elusive with mine. I feel it's due to the severe vibration and back-and-forth motion generated by the piston mechanism. Very hard to keep a large scope zeroed with all that going on. Sounds hard to believe, being "just an airgun" and all, but true.