What are turrets on a scope?

Just bought a Nikon prostaff target efr and it has a zero turret feature. Not quite sure what it is or how to use it? Any idea?

The turrets are what you use to align the point of aim and the crosshairs of the scope. Once you have done that, you take the turrets off and 'zero' them so that they are at the midpoint or wherever the 'zero' is for the turret. That way, when you start shooting longer ranges and dial in windage/elevation, you will always be starting from 'zero', rather than whatever offset you had already set when you were 'zeroing' your scope (aligning point of aim and crosshairs).

Imagine it kindof like in science class with a digital scale, where you put an empty beaker on the scale first, and then 'zero' it, so that it only measures what you add to the beaker, rather than what you add plus the weight of the beaker.

It's the same way with a 'zero turret', except instead of weight, you are dealing with angles.

Hmm may i suggest "READ THE MANUAL"! Typical buy something you know nothing about.

Umm… You bought a scope and have no idea of how to use it or read the instructions that came with it? Try doing that… Or take it to the store you bought it from and ask them. They probably haven't seen a good joke in awhile…

A "zero turret" feature simply means that once you zero the scope, you can lock the dial to that. It allows you to make adjustments knowing where you started from so you can return to it.

Suppose you zero in at 100 yards. Now suppose one day hunting, you shoot the same 100 yards but because of the wind you shoot to the left. Now you can know how many clicks you are and be able to reset it after the day's hunt back to the same zero you did originally at the range.