Lets hear about the worst scope you ever owned. I mean your stories about that scope you bought and it turned out to be junk, just plain unusable. If you have a Leupold, or a Tasco that has been on your .458 for thirty years that is great, but save that for another thread. I want to know about the scope you have had problems with. Brand, magnification, problem with it, and why you think it happened. Interested to see what we get.
Bad and malfunctioning scopes
- Thread starter jl1966
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rcmodel
Member in memoriam
Three in a row - BSA air-rifle scopes.
None of the three would zero, or hold zero if you somehow got the cross-hairs to move the same amount twice in a row.
Had I been shooting real center-fire ammo fooling with them, instead of cheap air-rifle pellets, I could've bought a Leupold and saved some money.
rc
None of the three would zero, or hold zero if you somehow got the cross-hairs to move the same amount twice in a row.
Had I been shooting real center-fire ammo fooling with them, instead of cheap air-rifle pellets, I could've bought a Leupold and saved some money.
rc
matrem
Member
Bought a Bushnell "Sportview" that made about 500 rounds on a 10/22. After a couple hundred rounds, I could occasionaly see what looked like a machine screw "floating around" in the sight picture. Turns out, it was, and it found it's way to the reticle enough times to break the vertical wire, which in turn bent the horizontal one.
This happened in the early 80s, I've heard they've improved.
This happened in the early 80s, I've heard they've improved.
I guess, since I was the one who started this thread, I should tell my bad scope story. I once had a nice little .22 I bought at a gun show. The gun was nice, a keystone with a varmint weight barrel and a thumbhole stock, a kids .22 , but a very nice one. It had one of those chi-com sks scopes on it, very blurry, bad adjustments, never held zero, complete crap. ended up trading the gun a few months later. My reason for the thread is, you always hear, "scope X is junk, you get what you pay for, buy a ZYX or just dont bother." You rarely ever hear how the guy saying this arrived at this opinion. I have owned Tasco, Bushnell, Nikon, Leupold, BSA, and Simmons, among others. All have proved servicable, some were clearer or had better this or that, but all were perfectly usable scopes. It kind of irks me when someone makes a pronouncement on something and then cannot relate how he came to this. So I figured I would see who had actually had a problem with a scope and why.
Thought I would bump this one up to the top again. Here is your chance guys, tell us about how that cheap scope messed up on you. I see so many posts about "brand X scopes are junk, save your money and get brand Y." Lets hear actual experiences with a junk scope going bad.
Maverick223
Member
Tie between BSA and NCStar, Simmons and Barska hasn't been too kind either, but the aforementioned pair were the worst. My CenterPoint started to act up about a week ago and has since been replaced...we'll see how good the new one is.
matrem
Member
Well... Since you brought it up again.
I also owned a Simmons on which the reticle became blurry(attempted adjustments did nothing).Continued to shoot it untill it "fogged up"inside so bad I had a hard time seeing through it.
I did get several years out of that scope on a .22 mag, and to be fair, it had done duty on a Win model 94 .30 /30 before that.(No idea how many rounds ,as I bought it used)
I don't have much experience with "bargain" scopes, but what little I've had tells me to spend more.
I also owned a Simmons on which the reticle became blurry(attempted adjustments did nothing).Continued to shoot it untill it "fogged up"inside so bad I had a hard time seeing through it.
I did get several years out of that scope on a .22 mag, and to be fair, it had done duty on a Win model 94 .30 /30 before that.(No idea how many rounds ,as I bought it used)
I don't have much experience with "bargain" scopes, but what little I've had tells me to spend more.
Maverick223
Member
That is the moral of this story.
JeffsJeep04
Member
Had a simmons 8 point. Killed a lot of deer for the ~$20 I paid for it, but in the middle of a hunt it lost all ability to even remotely hold zero. It'd move around feet at 50 yards with every shot. I learned my lesson and I'm putting a peep site on that gun (remington 7600) for the woods and I'm throwing some good glass on my new savage 114 for my stand gun.
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