Do you ever just stop and bang your head against the wall?

B

Bigfatts

New member
A buddy of mine has a couple decent rifles. The first is a Century Golani sporter that he dressed up and made it nice. I think he has roughly $1200 in the rifle. He put a decent looking quad rail on it, converted it to an AK bolt carrier and a few other odds and ends. Not my style, but a decent setup none the less. Now, when it comes time to put a red dot on it he buys a $50 Chinee special on Amazon that came with a free 3x magnifier. I tried my damnedest to talk him out of it. Couldn't do it. I've never seen a bigger pos red dot. I think it must literally be made of lead because I'll bet the dot and magnifier weigh close to 2 pounds. He loved it until he took it to the range and it wouldn't hold 0. I'm not against inexpensive sights mind you, I mean my DB15FDE wear one of the Bushnell AR series dots and for the money I paid it's a decent sight. Not an Aimpoint, but it's a good basic sight and I'm realistic about what it is.

Fast forward to the present. Same buddy wants a new scope for his Remington 700 SPS. It currently wears a Nikon Monarch 3-9x50, but he wants more magnification than that. So back to Amazon! He found a scope with ridiculous magnification (6-24x40 I think) and it's illuminated too. And it's only $69 with free shipping. The scope literally does not have a brand name. Again, I tried my damnedest to talk him out of it but he wouldn't hear it. I just want to be there when he shoots if for the first time. I want to see the look on his face when the objective lens goes down range or the reticle disappears.

I keep telling him it's like putting stick on speed vents on a Viper. I just don't get it.
 
After a couple of those "cheap" options fall apart and he is shelling out more $ to replace them (hopefully more $ for a "better" option), it should sink in to him that buying based solely on price is not always the cheapest option in the long run.

Some people just learn better after making their own mistakes rather than learning from the experience of others.
 
If it holds 0 and performs nicely on a bolt action .308 I will truly be surprised. And that's the chance he knows he's taking. He knows it's a cheap scope and likely poorly made but he just kept saying how good the return policy is. I told him lots of people talking about the excellent return policy in the reviews means lots of people have had to return it.
 
Blindstitch,
This is the shooters version of the 2nd law of thermodynamics.

A riflescope under $200 cannot be made.

Sure, there are some $100, $150, etc scopes which can fool you pretty good and for a while, but you will pay in lost game and extra sight in ammo pretty quickly.

Let's say I shoot my 308 with good factory ammo $40 with that $70 + $10 to ship scope. It will cost me $120 to prove out this scope ain't gonna make the grade. If I buy a $200 scope to start with, I'm only out another $80 and I should be able to sight in in 2 shots. If I don't like my $200 scope, in the case of a Burris or Leupold, it trades on eBay or Armslist for about $180, provided I mounted it right.
 
On optics, always better to "cry once" and get good stuff - as high as you can afford. Nikon ProStaff and Burris Fullfield II might be considered a good minimum bar for centerfires. On ESDs (dot sights), the Bushnell TRS-25 is a reasonable minimum.
 
Pentax

He shoould have shopped around......I picked up a 6-36 x50 Pentax Game getter for $110 and that would have served him plus it has teh range graduations for out to 600m.

My niece buys her crap from amazon because of the return policy .....nevermind that it is crap.
 
Guy on armslist was selling a used p95 for$600. I asked him if it came with gold bullets he said no they were brass hollow points
 
You need to snag that Nikon fast, before your buddy realizes it!

Bought three nice scopes last year, a Pentax 4x-16x, Bushnell 4x-16x, and a BEC 10x-40x, at local shows for $75 to $125 each.

My three Leupolds came with the rifles, won't ever pull one those off.
 
it's probably a barska. I bought one of those super tactical high zoom illuminated reticule models... very poor picture, zoom was about like a 12 power from a nice scope, paralax was very inaccurate, you had to adjust while looking through it to find the best picture.

some people just don't learn.
 
funny post, it took me waaaayyy too long to learn that lesson, lots of amazon scopes under my belt, finally learned



i used to have about a dozen wasting space, but i throw them on a gun when i sell one
they all work, just not well, and actually the 20$ ncstar 4x30 actually lasted a long time(2000+ rounds) on the wifes 9mm carbine, then i slapped it on the ar and it didnt last one mag before the lens started spinning around

i still havent purchased a really nice peice, but i do typically spend over 100$ now
 
for the record... I have a leapers red/green dot from amazon... it's a great little dot which has been passed to a number of different guns... always easy to zero, hold zero and is relatively nice, even in low light... not all amazon purchases are all bad:D
 
"But what if it holds zero and performs nicely?"

Then he needs to run out and buy a lottery ticket because his luck is amazing.
 
My niece buys her crap from amazon because of the return policy .....nevermind that it is crap.
Click to expand...

Not everything on Amazon is crap. You have to know what you are buying.

If you buy crap knowing it's crap, then that's on you.
 
Actually, I'm about to make a deal on a real nice .270 (which I have never had before), so I was thinking a decent scope would be something like a Leupold variable. I have a Leupold 4x that I could take off another rifle, but I don't think that would do a .270 justice. Any suggestions?
 
I'll second Mike's comment. Through the years I've used 2.5X, 3X and 4X, mostly Weavers. With decent-quality rifles I've been able to do five-shot one-MOA groups. Plenty good for Bambi out to 350-400 yards, anyway.
 
I normally do 3-9 power scopes. I've used 4x on 22s with good success.., and I tried a 1-4 leupold on a 9mm carbine but the thing was absolute garbage so I traded it off for boolets and went with a cheap red dot.
 
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