Bushnell sportsview 1.5×4.5×20
- Thread starter mike t
- Start date
Not a big bushnell fan myself, so don't know where that scope fits in their lineup..... I ran a similar setup on my scout rifle for the same task and it worked great...... Have since switched to a red dot though..
The Sportview is pretty much the lowest rung on the quality ladder for Bushnell but will be adequate though performance in low light is not the greatest with the 20 mm objective. Eye relief is somewhat less than other low end variables. I had one on a .30/06 bolt gun and it would rap you on the forehead if you crawled the stock any.
Still junk...... You would be surprised at the potential quality of Chinese stuff...... When a quality assurance tech costs you $3 an hour, you can turn out some really good stuff......
Really? So all those busted and defective brand new Chinese Vortex Crossfire's are better made then a Bausch & Lomb Japanese Bushnell.....hmm seems legit.
The best Chinese scopes today still have Bushnell's name on them....Legends and AR series. The AR series is pretty bleh optically but seem durable at least, Legend is better optically but not as clear or as durable ad the older Philippines made Legends. Plus the Legends are the same price as entry level Japanes Elites which are much better scopes.
I'lI buy all the old Japanese Banners and Japanese Tasco's you come across...they are good old scopes.
How many Bausch and Lomb scopes have you bought recently?..... Chinese labour is cheap, and it all hangs on wether a manufacturer wants to spend a few bucks more an hour on labour.....
I spent much time overseas in manufacturing and witnessed it first hand....... It's not pretty...
Vortex is crap, and I am speaking as someone that drank the Koolaid........ Bought 15, 6 went back over time..... Still have one to send in.......
Well Mike, we'll have to clear up (pun intended) this light gathering quality.
The light gathering power of an optic is the size of the objective lens in MMs divided by the power. At a setting of 2 power this would be beam of light coming to your eye of 10 mm across! The size of the pupil of an average adult under normal light conditions is about 5mm. This means a human eye can't make use of any light beam through the scope of more than pupil size, or about 5mm. This scope set at 4 power, will still provide full light.
As a comparison, the super-duper magnifier, 10 to 25 power, with a 50 mm objective lens, will have a very poor light gathering quality of only 2, when set at 25 power.
Bruce
B&L don't make the Japanese Bushnells anymore, Light Optical Works does, and they have a pretty decent reputation. Much better then any single Chinese scope out there....even the blessed "King Optics" with their fluted scope tubes are no match....lol.
Recently I've bought 4 or 5 of the Elites Tradex has on sale....best buy out there.
I won't disagree..... But we are certainly delving into the "bottom basement" of optics........
I choose not to gamble...... And I can tell you first hand that vortex is a gamble...... The latest to fail was a viper pst..... And it's my last one........
I don't care how good a warranty is..... My hunts are precious to me....
It's my opinion that glass has gotten better, but durability has gotten worse. That's why I like the older glass, might not be the best glass out there, but the scopes are tough as hell. I have steel tube Weavers and Lymans, Japanese Tascos and Bushnells, that have been through hell, mounted on magnums, never lost zero or let me down.
Sportviews were budget scopes back in the day. Lens coatings have advanced so much in all those years that when you look back on even some of the so called high end scopes of yesteryear they turned into dim little antiques that aren't worth the ammo to sight in.
I had one I bawt new quite a while ago and the paperwork stated life time warranty. It sat perched on my 8x57 and dint cause me any grief. Swapped it out to a Leupold. To the OP, wait for am M8 to show up. Old world class glass. Now send me $25 buckzs goll danditzz 
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I keep my eyes peeled at gun shows for the steel tubed Weavers with the post & cross hair reticle as well as Bushnell Scope Chiefs from the 70's and early 80's. I also use Elites as they work well.
In total darkness the human eye pupil can dilate to 7mm. But a realistic amount is around 5.5mm as we don't often shoot in total darkness. At 5x with a 20mm objective lens a scope will have an exit pupil of only 4mm, way below that which the human eye can dilate to. Bottom line is buy a better quality scope than a Bushnell Sportview. You get what you pay for in optics.
Mike, you went off topic. I was only correcting your opinion of a 20mm objective lens being much to small for a 1.5 to 4.5 variable scope.
Your opinion of a human eye being 5.5 mm in size, compared to my version of, "about 5mm," is a pretty small thing to argue about.
In talking about the original scope in question, the 1.5 to 4.5, you state, "with a 20mm objective lens a scope will have an exit pupil of only 4mm, way below that which the human eye can dilate to."
Yet you say nothing about a 10 to 25 power scope I mention with a 50mm objective lens, having an exit pupil of only 2mm when set at its highest power, or 25% of the light gathering ability of the small variable at 4X.
Maybe , but since it's dim under the bridge a 1.5-4.5 bushnell isn't going to cut it. I had a couple of those exact scopes back when tbey were still new or current and they weren't anything to write home about back then, and time never did them any favours. As far as that goes, I had the Scope-Chief versinsons as well.
It's not just them, back in the 70s if you had a Redfield scope on your rifle you were a player, and a 60s made in Rochester B&L
Was exotic and expensive. Look through one of those today and they will quickly get bottom drawered, dumped, or used as fish clubs.
Steel tubes Weavers? Their biggest claim to fame was that they were amoung the first affordable scopes, but they broke left right and center back then too. The sun has set on yesterday's scopes, if that makes me a troll, so be it.
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