Economical but sound optics?

BC Bigbore

BC Bigbore

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BC's Peace Country
Is there such a thing? Can one find halfway decent glass without spending $350-$500 to start out? What would be your choice for a clear, reliable scope at a reasonable price? Would you do well with a new Weaver or should a feller shop for an older used "top-of-the-line-in-it's-day" Redfield or similar? What do you guys recommend a guy to do?
 
ive had very good luck with my Bushnell Legend 2-7x32mm for $150.
sharp and clear, coated lenses, 3.5" eye relief, wide angle, fingertip click adjustments. its on a lightweight hinge .308 right now (not the softest recoiling action) and has had no problems keeping and returning to zero.

Like Leupold, Bushnell has a lifetime warranty and a service centre in Canada. Some people have waited months to get their scope back, but generally they will just replace them with another scope and not bother repairing them. So at worst if anything goes wrong with it itll cost you $10 and a couple months wait to get a new replacement.

i own mostly Leupolds (VX-IIIs, FX II, VX II), Burris (FFII) and Bushnell Elites (3200/4200), but if i had to recommend a 'cheap scope' to a friend i would not hesitate to recommend the Bushnell Legend 2-7x32mm as a 'starting point' for a reliable general purpose hunting scope. id definitely buy another one myself.

also, if you are on a limited budget stick to lower powers, preferably even fixed power - its a safe bet that a $100 8x32x50mm scope with target knobs and sunshade will be of much worse quality than a fixed 4 power 30mm objective scope at the same price. forget about bells and whistles like illuminated reticles - theyre not a necessity and add just another point of failure. usually by the time youd need an illuminated reticle most hunters start packing it in since they dont want to end up dressing or pursuing a deer in the dark.
 
X2 on the legend. Have a 5X15 on a 300 wsm bench gun and the scope is clear and has not failed. My only complaint is I find it difficult to get my eye into allignment. No prob on the bench but hunting with it could be frustrating. My hunting gun has a 3200. I find they are much faster for me to get a good sight picture.
 
usually the cheaper scopes have poor eye relief issues, but thats why i picked up this particular Legend: i compared a couple dozen sub-$250 scopes and it was the clearest, had wide angle and generous eye relief.
in retrospect, although i still love my Leupolds and believe they are superior, the Legend is 'good enough' that i wish id have saved some money and purchased one of these instead of a couple of the Leupolds on my less-used guns.

perhaps the 5x15 has less eye relief?
then again i do notice that as i turn it up to 7x the eye relief shortens... but thats normal. not much of an issue since its still plenty, and most of the time its at a lower power anyway.
 
manbearpig said:
usually the cheaper scopes have poor eye relief issues, but thats why i picked up this particular Legend: i compared a couple dozen sub-$250 scopes and it was the clearest, had wide angle and generous eye relief.
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RRGH! I HATE that There's no such thing as 'poor' eye relief. Long eye relief does not equal 'better', it doesn't make a lick of difference to the overall cost or quality of the scope. Eye relief is like shoe size. There's no such thing as a 'best' shoe size, other than the one that fits you best. It's not a matter of opinion or aesthetics.
 
I bought my Nikon Buckmasters 6-18x40SF from the US for $271. The Nikon Pro Staff 3-9x40 often goes for around $125 (sometimes less) down there. Great scopes, and much more reasonably priced than Leupold.
 
for what application
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I was thinking for a predator kinda rifle (my "serious" big game rifles wear Leupolds)
I've found that the cheaper jobs just don't cut it though when higher powers are needed, say over 9x. How's the higher power clarity on that 6-18x Nikon?
 
'clear cheap high power' is an oxymoron.

prosper said:
RRGH! I HATE that There's no such thing as 'poor' eye relief. Long eye relief does not equal 'better', it doesn't make a lick of difference to the overall cost or quality of the scope.
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well, then many cheap scopes are poorly designed in that they do not incorporate enough eye relief. 1/2-1" of eye relief doesnt cut it in my book especially on a magnum rifle. perhaps they just dont put enough time into design and R&D than manufacturers of expensive scopes since most of the time their customers are less discerning.

**edit
they also tend to outright lie about specs.
cheap scopes are like cheap car amplifiers. on the box youll see 1000 WATTS!!!, meanwhile its something like 150 watts RMS and 1000 watts peak in a test room for 1/100000th of a second cooled by liquid nitrogen. an expensive amp by a reputable manufacturer will just discreetly have '250 watts' on it but its 250 RMS and much higher quality and much clearer. unfortunately due to the marketing most people automatically reach for the 1000 watt amp.
same for cheap(er) scopes, often when i pick a scope up that says 'long eye relief' on the box and look through it the eye relief is much shorter than advertised, almost nonexistant at higher powers, and their higher powers are so blurry it makes my head spin.
 
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I have a Legend 5-15x40 on my 10/22 and it's a pretty good scope, unless your wife happens to knock the rifle over onto the carpet and it bends the tube and you can't get warranty so you have to fix it yourself. Otherwise it's all right.
 
Both my 10/22 and my model 70 (in .338 win mag), sported Tasco Pronghorn scopes for over 15 years. These were the older, heavier and more expensive days however (mid 80's production, $179.00 for the 3-9x40 on my .338 win mag) and they still work great today. No problems with them, ever. The price of Tasco has seem to have gone down quite a bit, so I don't know about current production, but I can vouch for the older ones for sure.
 
Bows Up said:
I bought a used Leupold 6x42 for $200. Given the warranty, why not buy used ?
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It takes a while to find a used leupold for much of a price difference with new in my experience, I gave up and bought a vx1 4x12. Nothing special, it's replacing a variX 3 1.5-5 on my .223. Haven't tried it yet in the field, don't know how much the downgrade of optics will hurt... :confused:
 
BC Bigbore said:
I was thinking for a predator kinda rifle (my "serious" big game rifles wear Leupolds)
I've found that the cheaper jobs just don't cut it though when higher powers are needed, say over 9x. How's the higher power clarity on that 6-18x Nikon?
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don't be cheap you cheap bastid....

leupold rifleman 4-12x40mm is around $350 or so.... the leupold rifleman 3-9x40 is $299 at corlanes.
 
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