The Gun Pimp wrote:This question comes up again and again............
Most cheap scopes (under £500) are Chinese. Most Chinese scopes are 'useable' but, it's frightening to see what some dealers charge for the same Chinese scope.
Brian Fox charges what they are worth - around £110 for an 8-32. You will find the same scope on sale for up to £495! Good luck if you can get it! For a new shooter who just can't envisage paying more for a scope than his rifle, the Fox scope will get you shooting. But, don't go thinking you've bought a March for £110!
If you want to rise above the Chinese offerings, then Sightron probably offer the best value - around £800 for an 8-32. Better still, the UK importer John Dean of Aimfield Sports is a shooter himself and a really nice guy to deal with.
If Sightron is too 'mainstream' then look at Nightforce and March. If weight isn't a problem, Schmidt & Bender. And, Leupold had a new high mag. variable at Raton...................
But, none of 'em will make you shoot better than you will with a Sightron.
Very fair.
The difference between the capability of my old M67 (cost me £100) I started in F/TR with was staggering between a "well known Chinese scope" and the Sightron.
I never did particularly well, then put the 8-32 on and got a 48.2....so went and bought a Dolphin to compliment the scope.
The reason I want a March is pure indulgence really, it also means I can put the Sigtron back on the Konnie and have another capable trainer/all purpose rifle.
Its not really how it looks, but how it shoots that matters. Crap glass, instant head/eye ache, poor shot placement, poor tracking (vital the ret tracks well for anything F as you know).
Can I afford it? In reality not easily no, but I don't smoke, hardly drink, kids have gone and wife works as well.
We don't do holidays so as wifey says, "Make the most of it".
I don't really see how you know your rifle is performing with unreliable glass.
many bang on about "This image is better than that image" but I work in optics and worked in projection for years so this is by and large crap.
The "ONLY" way to tell is try one, ideally for a reasonable amount of time, across conditions and see how you feel.
All a scope does (optically) is enhance your natural vision (which is different between us all) so reviews and various charts are subjective and only really valid to the reviewer for personal comparison.
When setting a projector up we always got the customer to "OK" the image when we were finished.
Mechanical considerations however need to be the very best you can afford, particularly if you want to shoot anything that requires elevation and windage changes.
This needs to be predictable, repeatable, precise and above all reliable.
You might get away with an MOA not quite being an MOA, but you wont get away with the ret jumping about or tracking left as well as up when all you want to do is go up.
Like I say, the wisdom used to be that rifles can come and go, good glass is guarded jealously.
This is born out by the readiness of the likes of John Dean to unquestioningly send my Sightron back to the states for a service when I suspected it was shifting POI....me entirely (although to be fair it did have some debris inside).
John accepted my thanks and apology rather well I thought, top man.
Also, look at what you are paying for, Sightron offer lifetime warranty. March is 5 years (IIRC) I don't know about IOR, S&B or Niteforce, but I doubt they are much different.
It comes down to expectations unlimately
sign85