My first scope has died.

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WestKentucky

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5FCDB7E5-975B-4300-9782-95BB08645570.jpeg When I was 15 I had mowed yards and scrimped, saved, and finally put together enough money to buy a muzzleloader. It was a much more realistic goal than a bolt rifle, and I ended up going super cheap and bought a Brolin Arms 50cal in-line rifle mainly because it was A. Cheap, and B. Had a wood stock. It was garbage, not very accurate and occasionally dropped the striker when the safety was taken off. It went under the chop saw after a year or two of tinkering with the trigger trying to make it reliable. Part of the deal in trying to get the stupid thing to hit was that I bought a cheap fixed 4 power scope to go on top of it. The scope was an improvement but it was not much of one. In the 20 years following that scope has been on probably 25 different rifles. It was used to see if guns were worthy of glass or not, and often used just to see if I liked something I had traded for or not. It has been on at least 3 different muzzleloaders, a dozen centerfire rifles, and several rim fires. It even got stuck on top of a ruger charger for a few days to see how accurate the charger could be, but it was really awkward to use that way. the scope, a lowly Tasco Pronghorn fixed 4x32

In its last few shots i was walking it in towards being sighted in, but with each shot through the old 30 carbine Marlin 62, the picture got more and more blurry. It’s a sad day, but at a dollar a year I think I got my money’s worth. The scope probably had 15000 or more rounds of experience the bulk of which being 22lr through a 10/22, a 9mm hi point 995, and a bunch of 223 and 5.45x39 on a couple AR uppers.

A lot of people disparage Tasco, but the Pronghorn and most of the World Class lines were well worth the money.

The image at the top shows the scope in its final stage of life. It’s on the rifle on the left.
 
I had similar luck with a Pronghorn 4x32, over 20yrs ago. It still lives, though it hasn't been mounted in years. Unfortunately, it gave me a false sense of confidence in the so-called "good Japanese Tascos". Because I had several others that weren't good at all. I don't even remember all the failures now but I do recall a Pronghorn 4x40 that the reticle broke on the first shot. I also remember a much more expensive 4-16x with a wildly shifting zero. My Winchester 94/22M wore a World Class compact 4x for years with a loose objective lens. Tasco's greatest lesson to me was to avoid cheap scopes at all costs. The only ones I even fool with any more are the ProClass pistol scopes.
 
Some Japanese Tascos worked, some didn't.
Never put much faith in em, but some have worked for decades.
They were the old 4X.
Seen some variables that died.
 
I actually shot my world class today on a 6.8 AR and dialed it in very quickly. 3 rounds on a dime at 50. It’s not as clear as some other scopes I have, but it’s a 20 year old budget scope. It was plenty clear for effective range of that rifle.
 
I'm thinking almost everyone has a fixed 4x Tasco laying around or mounted somewhere, I know I do. Like yours, mine has been mounted on numerous rifles over the years to determine if a scope was bad or see how accurate a new barrel is. The vertical cross hair in mine deviates at the intersection with the horizontal, always been like that too.
 
The "World Class" Tasco's were pretty decent scopes back in 70's and 80's. By the 1990's not so much. IIRC the Pronghorn was from the 1990's after quality dropped. But even high end scopes will go bad with age. Rubber seals break down over time on all of them. Around 30 years is about as long as I'd trust any optic. Doesn't mean they aren't usable longer, but I'd not trust a 40 year old scope on an expensive out of state trophy hunt. For range use, or backyard meat hunting maybe.
 
It’s a sad day, but at a dollar a year I think I got my money’s worth
Rest well little scope!

I'm thinking almost everyone has a fixed 4x Tasco laying around or mounted somewhere, I know I do. Like yours, mine has been mounted on numerous rifles over the years to determine if a scope was bad or see how accurate a new barrel is. The vertical cross hair in mine deviates at the intersection with the horizontal, always been like that too.
Not I, I sold all of mine on ebay for about double what they originally cost :confused:

Ive used quite a few of the old tascos, and a few of the clearest images I've seen from scopes in the 80 were fixed tascos....No I wasn't looking thru scopes in the 80s, those are all the ones I got on guns or in package deals in the last few years that got resold on ebay.
 
There’s a good chance that mine came from Kmart, and it absolutely would have been in that price range. My World Class 3-9x50 came through Bass Pro and is still going strong.
For the money old tascos were good quality.
I too have a 3-9x40 World Class. It's been on my Whelen and muzzleloader. I want it to live so it sits on my wife's single shot Springfield 22 lr.
Old Bushnell scope chiefs are pretty decent also.
 
In the 1980s I had a Tasco World Class 3-9X scope on a Remington 742 semi auto in 308 Winchester. I used that combo to win a small time bench rest match. That scope worked well for me but I eventually sold it with the rifle.

Since then I had a couple of Tascos but divested myself of them after missing what should have been an easy shot at a coyote. The scope, which had been sighted in about 10 days before, when rechecked was about 10 inches off at 100 yards.
 
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