Giles, thank you for the thorough reply. I look forward to watching your reviews, pros and cons. It will be interesting to hear your comparison of the Element scopes to others you have experience with, as well as the comparison between the Helix vs. Nexus (which really shouldn't be much of a match up, since they appear to be dedicated to different parts of the market).
Tommyj157, right now, I am plinking in my back yard (out to 43 yards comfortably - anything further gets challenging). Outside of plinking, I do go pesting (starlings, sparrows, rats, and Eurasian collared doves). Some of the pesting gets difficult at close range (under 25 yards) once they realize that the dopey looking bald guy walking around with the funny looking stick has something to do with all of their friends "falling asleep."
At times I have to go out further (50 yards is the farthest right now), and the scopes that I currently have are on the lower end. The nicest one I have right now is a UTG 4-16 IR with etched glass reticle (which is a very noticable difference from the other one I have with a wire reticle). It's a sub-$200 scope, and I didn't expect that much performance out of it, but it was topping off a .22cal Discovery (my first PCP).
Now that I have the .25cal Dreamline, I would like to see what it can do. I have that same etched glass UTG scope on top of the Dreamline (I put the wire reticle scope on the Discovery). In the end, my thinking is that if I save my pennies, and spend money on a mid-grade scope (like the Titan or Helix), that might allow me to really enjoy what the Dreamline is capable of (if I can get my abilities to match).
You think that I would know by now...buy once, cry once, but it didn't make sense to put a $500 scope on a $200 Discovery. That equation has changed somewhat, now that I have an airgun that can perform to the level of a $500 (or more) scope.
OK...sorry for the long-winded reply, but I wanted to get you the details behind my decision.
Thank you in advance for any advice/input!
Cheers,
Bill