Anybody use older Redfield Partner 3-12×44, decent quality or junk?

[DustyGmt]

I have this redfield partner 3-12×44 scope with duplex reticle that I impulse bought on a whim for $100 like 5 years ago and didnt do any research on it, which turns out doesnt matter because there is no information about these scopes online. Lots of threads from different forums where the OP asks but 0 replies. I know they aren't "high end" but are they outright junk? I used it one year on my 7-mm08 and it worked well enough, glass is pretty clear. I was thinking of mounting it in a one piece mount atop one of my AR's but didnt know if any of you guys had experience with this line of redfield and whether I should just lay down a few sheckles on a newer, better quality scope.

 

[LoonWulf]

Found a post 24hr campfire mentioning the Partners were rebadged Trackers made for Walmart (other posts say Kmart)....Sounds like sometime in the late 80s-mid 90s
If thats the case Its a good scope for 100 bucks, not fantastic by any means, but good. A friend of mines dad liked Redfields, and had G5S or Trackers on most of their rifles.

 

[greyling22]

I had a redfield wideview that came on a rifle I bought about 5 years ago. It was not great. A hundred dollar nikon prostaff was vastly superior glass. While furniture and appliances were better back in the day, scopes, flashlights, cars, and TV's are all way better now than they used to be.

 

[redneck2]

Back in my youth (60’s-70’s) Redfield was a premier scope. Quite expensive for the time.

I believe the brand has been bought, sold, re-branded, etc. IIRC, they were bought out and made considerably cheaper at one point to take advantage of the name. As to the relative quality, that may well depend on the vintage.

 

[Bartojc]

Redfield in the latest iteration were a subsidiary of Leupold. I have a Revolution and while not a great scope it is decent enough for a hunting rifle. Not sure if they are still making scopes or not. Their website has not been updated in a couple years.

-Jeff

 

[Laphroaig]

Redfield Company was caught up in a groundwater contamination situation at their Denver manufacturing facility that put them out of business. The current Leupold products only use the name.

Back in my youth (60’s-70’s) Redfield was a premier scope. Quite expensive for the time.

Back in those days, they were definately top-of-the-line optics. I think that they were among the first to use a second focal plane reticle in their variable scopes. Although that has certainly fallen out of fashion with some users who use reticle subtensions for holdover, it was revolutionary in that the cross hairs maintained the same thickness over the range of magnifications, not becoming thin at low powers and thick at high powers as was the case with first focal plane optics of the time.

The quality of their scopes definately declined over the years. I'm not sure about the Partner, but imagine it was made in the later years of the company.

 

[DustyGmt]

It's pretty clear glass and just a simple duplex reticle. It's just kind of cheap feeling but it worked well on my 7-08...

 

[jmr40]

That scope was probably made in the 1980's. Today a $300 scope is better than most high end scopes from that era. And even with high end scopes the weak link is deteriorating rubber seals on anything that old. The glass may be fine, but I'd not trust it to be water and fog proof in a situation where the scope absolutely, positively needed to work.

 

[DustyGmt]

That scope was probably made in the 1980's. Today a $300 scope is better than most high end scopes from that era. And even with high end scopes the weak link is deteriorating rubber seals on anything that old. The glass may be fine, but I'd not trust it to be water and fog proof in a situation where the scope absolutely, positively needed to work.

I used to have a W. German T* zeiss diavari that I traded into. I paid $200 for a single six .22lr and traded for the zeiss. I then traded the zeiss on here for an aimpoint but I did side by side comparisons of the zeiss against a few high dollar leupold scopes and even though probably 30 years old the zeiss glass wins hands down

 

[Sniper66]

I had a Redfield maybe 30 years ago; a 3-9x that looked blurry at 9X. So I ditched it.

 

[Bill M.]

For me, even with the Denver scopes, Leupold has always had better optics. But my 3 Redfields have served.

If you can see the target clearly and shoot a good group then it should serve. But I expect the optics to be better in even the cheap modern scopes and way better in the expensive ones.