Weird experience on the range today with scope.

R

rantingredneck

New member
I went to the range after work for a little .17HMR plinking with the Savage 9317. It has the package deal Simmons 8 point scope that came on it still. After the 15th round or so I noticed that my crosshairs seemed a bit off level. Not majorly but just a little.

I picked the rifle up off the bench and eyeballed the adjustment posts and their relation to the rifle itself. Seemed normal. I dropped a .45ACP case on the bench and watched it roll quickly to one side. "Ah Ha," says I. "The bench is not level". So I adjusted my bipod to be level the crosshair.

I resumed shooting and after two more mags I notice it is REALLY off level now. I looked at my bipod, still where I had adjusted it, hadn't moved. I picked the rifle up off the bench and shouldered it. Crosshairs way off. I looked at the exterior of the scope and it's still fine. Tried shifting it sideways in the rings and it wouldn't budge, nice and tight.

I've never had anything like this happen before so I'm a little out of my element, but I'm assuming that the prism? came loose inside and is shifting with the recoil of each shot.

This is a budget scope that came as a package so I wasn't expecting great things out of it anyway. I was planning to upgrade to either a BSA or Cabela's Pine Ridge .17 BDC scope so I guess now is the time. After that I'll probably drop in a Rifle Basix trigger and see what kind of performance I can wring from this puppy.

Having said that, though, Simmons has a limited lifetime warranty on their products and this scope is less than a year old. Time to test their customer service. I know it's only a 40-50 dollar scope, but I feel like an experiment. If nothing else I might put this one on my 10/22 or something once it's fixed. I'll post the customer service story here as it develops. Stay tuned. :)
 
Funny thing happened at the range the other day...lol..
I put a new 8point on my extra 3006 a couple years ago and got the same results after a couple boxes of shells.
I sat on it for a couple years and finally went to their websight and got a phone number. They issue you a control number and you ship it to Ca. to the Meade Corp..
It took about 8 weeks but they sent me a new one in the mail. Next version up, about a $60 scope. I was a little less brave so put it onto my .243 this time. Has been good so far. I didn't have a reciept, just wrote a note of disappointment and shipped it off. They made good,,,,I hope.
elkman
 
What's really funny is that I had an earlier version of the 8 point Simmons on my Remington 700 .30-06 for about 5 years and killed 8 deer with it. A friend of mine also killed a deer with it. Right after he fell 15 feet from his tree stand with my rifle and scope on his back. He wasn't badly injured so he climbed back up in the tree, sat there for 10 minutes and killed an 8 pointer. After falling on the gun from that height.

Now the newer one can't handle the recoil from a rimfire. Guess they don't make them like they used to. :D
 
Indeed. I'm not going to put a 300.00 scope on a 200.00 rifle though :)

I checked meade optics website and got the contact information for the simmons scope warranty. I called and sat on hold for 20 minutes and got fed up. I also noted that I would have to ship the scope to them and then give them 10 bucks to send it back to me. For a roughly $50.00 scope that makes no sense. I still may send it in, but I'm not in any kind of hurry to do it.

I went to Gander Mtn. on Saturday and picked up a Bushnell Banner Dusk and Dawn Super 17 BDC scope for $99.00. It's very clear and bright. Much more so than the BSA that was the same price. I mounted it Saturday night and took it to the range Sunday. I put three shots centered in the 10 ring right out of the gate at 100yds. No adjusting necessary. I definitely want a better trigger on my Savage though. I'm thinking one of those Rifle Basix triggers is in order. I'll take the scope back to the range later this week or next and do a more thorough range report on it. So far I like.....
 
My gunsmith sells a ton of the Savage package guns and claims most of them come back with "scope" issues. While the scope ain't great, he claims that most of the problems can be fixed by buying a good set of rings. Those package ring are total crap.
 
Actually the rings on mine are solid. This was an internal problem in the scope. With the scope body level the crosshairs are about 25 degrees off level.
 
Yep, cheap scope. Replace. This is why I personally avoid, and advise others to avoid, the package deals. I have a Simmons Master Series Aetec, but I won't go to any lower lines on Simmons.

Indeed. I'm not going to put a 300.00 scope on a 200.00 rifle though
Click to expand...

How come? I had a $500 Trijicon on a $99 Marlin 60. Now said Trijicon is on a Winchester 69A .22 which I have about $200 into.... what works, works. Find the scope that does what you want, and put it on the rifle that does what you want. There may or may not be ANY correlation in pricing. Having said that, I do generally agree that the better the rifle, the better the optic. But since you can't get much better than an old Winchester for a .22, I thought a very very good scope makes sense on it. Super clear, super eye relief, excellent post reticle, and light & compact - it jives with the theme of the rifle. I've also got some rifles though that have scopes which cost much less than the rifle. So can go either way. But completely junky scopes shouldn't be found on ANY rifles, and I put Simmons 8 point & Simmons Blazer in that category. Not sure about the ProHunter. I had a Simmons ".22 mag" scope and got rid of it too, as it was horribly cloudy. I've heard good about the now-defunct "Whitetail hunter" scope, and the Master Aetec is quite nice for the price. On *average*, I spend about the same or a little more on the scope than on the rifle it's on.
 
Think about a cheap scope.

You buy it for $99.

The dealer buys it for $60 from a wholesaler.

The wholesaler buys them for $50 from an importer.

Costs the importer about $35 to get them, including shipping from China. $20 of that is the right to name the brand. Ya got $15 of materials and labor. Blaser charges that for an allen wrench.

WildilovethechinesefolksatshotshowsuchhardworkersAlaska
 
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