I've had a number of cheap Chinese scopes now. Some of them are really pretty decent these days. My favorites are the higher end Leapers and the Centerpoints, (they're the same thing). They're really pretty good scopes for the money. There's a world of difference though between a $20 Leapers and a $145 Leapers. I've got both and the $20 scope is the kind of thing I keep around to put on cheap plinking toys.
From what I've seen of NC Star, I'd stay far away. I've used two of these and they both sucked. Awful optics and one did not retain a zero.
Unlike other people here, I've had good luck with BSA. I've got three of them and they have all held up and held a zero, even the one I've got mounted on a Saiga 308. I did a side by side comparison though one day with a 6-24x40 BSA next to a 4-16x56 Leapers, and the Leapers was just a better scope right across the board. Better optics, better turrets, less glare, etc... It wasn't much better in any given category, but when you compared it overall it seemed pretty significant. One of my biggest gripes about the BSA is that nothing is quite what it's labeled. For example, it says it's a 6-24x scope, but when I actually measured the distance between mildots on various powers I found out that 24x was almost exactly 3.5 times the magnification of 6x. The distances on the parallax ring are also wrong. A true mil-dot isn't at 10x, etc... I've got to give a big thumbs up to the BSA 2-7x32 Airgun scopes though. These are $50 scopes that really take a beating. At one point, I got the second stage on my RSA trigger adjusted wrong and I ended up bump firing my S308 four or five different times before I got it right and that cheap BSA scope was still just fine afterward.
I've got a cheap Barska scope as well. They're nothing special, but for a $30 scope I prefer them to the Leapers, Tasco or Simmons. Mine has a mil-dot reticle and the cross hairs are fine enough for accurate shooting. I can't say the same for my $20 Leapers scopes. On those the crosshairs obscure smaller targets.
I've used several cheap, ($30), Tasco and Simmons scopes as well and I've had better luck with Tasco than with Simmons, (My Simmons self destructed on me with one of the lenses turning sideways inside the scope). There's nothing really notable about them except for the fact that they are very lightweight. The optics are mediocre at best and the crosshairs are generally duplex reticles but functional and not overly thick. Nowadays, the turrets are generally plastic inside with rectangular knobs that stick up under the caps. They really look cheap, but they seem to work OK. I've got a Bushnell that has the same type of turrets, so it's not confined to just the Walmart $30 specials. These are the kinds of scopes that I might put on a kids CO2 rifle.
