Before you think 'oh christ, i'm not reading all that', please take a few minutes to read this. I'm desperate for help and you never know, it might help others out, and also be a little interesting for you.
Right, best get comfy...
I'm hoping someone (anyone, at all?) can help me out with some straight talking sound advice regarding optics.
To put you in the frame, I used to shoot regularly, even became a club sec. at one point and in the younger years I was heavily into air pistol target shooting. Throughout the years my interest in my shooting kinda dropped off, meeting mrs right, getting married, first kid coming along took up all my spare time etc etc, I'm sure a few of us can relate....
So I have a history in shooting, know which end to point towards the target and I'm also proficient enough to get my hands dirty and make 'stuff'.....
Anyways, I've decided to get back into things and go shooting more regularly. To kick things off I'm going right in at the deep end and building my own rifle stock for one of my rimfires, which hopefully i'll spill the beans on at some point in the future.
During the planning stage of building my custom stock, I decided to go the 'tacti-cool' way, as buying a sig 522 (its nice to dream) or anschutz msr rx22 (never have found out if they're good or not) was out of my price range. I want something unique and different and know that I can do this for less than either of what the sig or anny cost.
So why am I here you might think? Well I need some help because since going on 'sabatical', the wheels seem to have fallen off things, especially where optics are concerned.
Back in 'the day' as it were, 10 years or so ago, I remember there being loads of different makes of scopes and other types of sights. Tasco, Webley, Simmons, they all were pretty good, more than capable for rimmys.
I recently set out to find the right optics for my custom build, with the following being crucial elements;
- Lightweight. With my design not being too conventional, I'm literally having to weigh each component and shave off as much meat as possible. I'd like to be able to use my new build for LWSR, so total weight all loaded and scoped has to be under 4.5kg. I can allow for the scope to weigh 500g max, including mounts.
- Short eye relief. I don't want to be looking from 5 feet back, and a pistol scope will be waaay to far away for what I need. The shorter the eye relief the better. "A pistol scope?" you might think.. well I did look briefly at pistol scopes as they're short in length, as I need a...
- Short body. To keep within the weight limit, the scope will have to be a compact design. I'd also like something that looks a bit different, or similar to the american ACOG type sights. The standard 3-9x40 concept isn't really what I'm after.
So I set out on my search..... oh dear, how times have changed.
They say the internet can be a great source of information. The major trouble that I've found is so many different opinions from so many different types of shooters.
Tasco, apparently, is now c**p. Webley I've no idea what happened to them. Simmons got bought by the chinese?
The big names I used to know and trust are now apparently gone or cheap chinese made guff.
I have literally looked everywhere, ebay (which used to be great for bargains) is full of tat and what looks to be overpriced airsoft optics. Now don't get me wrong, everyone is into their own thing, but I can hazard a guess that the airsoft stuff will literally rattle apart when sat on a rimfire, or am I wrong? For what it is, the airsoft stuff looks to be very expensive.
Most forums I've looked at same the same thing; "buy expensive leupolds or schmitt & benders and you can't go wrong" but I can't afford these top of the range scopes, and I've always believed in .22LR to be the affordable end of the sport that got people (ie valuable new blood) interested in shooting.
The other issue I've found is that some scopes look identical but feature different brands. Kruger for instance make a small 1.5-5x32 that is identical to one with tasco on it, but the Kruger gets great reviews as its apparently american, while the tasco stuff gets written off as chinese cack. Guess what, the Kruger is made in china as well....
Another brand I found is AGS/Leapers/UTG..... is this the same firm with a different badge, the same chinese factory making the same scopes for different brands, or are they different brands which just look very similar?
So after all that background story, I've got 3 questions;
1) What happened to all the decent brands?
2) Can anyone recommend an affordable, light, compact, well made scope that I can trust to hold its zero?
3) Am I right in assuming airsoft scopes are just not up to riding rimfires?
To give people an idea of what I've found, this is the best idea I've found so far;
http://www.laserscopesandgadgets.co.uk/ ... hp?idx=198
which looks very similar to the kruger;
http://www.opticsplanet.com/kruger-opti ... matte.html
If I could find one for the right price, I'd stretch to a Simmons WTC 1.5-4x20, but is there a more recent alternative?
If anyone can help then I would really really appreciate it. Thank you for taking the time to read all this, but hopefully by doing so you can get a feeling of the confused state I'm in, and why I've turned to this forum for some help.
Cheers,
J
