i had a richter 3-9x40 opik scope on my first rifle, which was a chinese tx200 copy and it were sound, never got knocked out or owt like that, and my mate had one the same on his smk that he'd done summat stupid to and it handled the recoil on that fine. 50 quid and it had mil-dots, you cant go wrong. they even do some scopes that have like a realtree-like camo design on them nowadays I'd buy some again. i've never owned any hawkes so i cant really comment on them. i know a lot of people swear by them though and id imagine them to be a bit better than the richters.