Good review. I get mine at WalMart, and I too noticed the price going up, but it's going up everywhere, across the board. I think my grandpa used these scopes, they've been around that long. I also have the bi's. Good set. Gramps had those too and they finally broke after about 40 years of rough usage.
It's really refreshing to watch a video about scopes from someone who isn't a scope snob. Too many people are not in the shooting sports because they have poor eyesight and just don't realize that you don't need an expensive scope to make shooting enjoyable in your latter years. Maybe you won't be a competitive target shooter, but if your range selection is reasonable, you can put some squirrels and rabbits in the pot or kill every wild soda can that dares to enter your domain. The blurriness around the edges of a lens system is called "spherical aberration". All of the light rays entering the system are not converging to the same point, so certain areas, when in focus, require that others be out of focus. To have a system free of that, as would be essential with a microscope or astronomical telescope, requires a stack of many different shaped lenses at the ocular assembly (eyepiece) and that makes it VERY expensive. Each eyepiece for an amateur telescope can cost upwards of $250, depending on the design of that stack of lenses. In a rifle scope, it's nice to be free of it, but you can work around it if you get the center in focus, as you have. In a small aperture scope like this it is even less important, since you won't be "glassing" the field in front of you to spot potential game, as you would with a 50mm scope hunting mule deer out west on the prairie or varmint hunting at 400 yards for gophers or rock chucks. I have a bunch of .22lr rifles and pneumatic rifles (PCP, CO2 and multipump) that have the cheap adjustable aperture 4 X 40mm Winchester scopes, that you could get at Walmart for $40 or less, not that long ago, mounted on them. I have some that are identical with the Tasco branding on them. On a typical CO2 pellet rifle, even the 4X15 or 4X20 Tasco scopes work great for plinking at 20 - 25 yards, if you have 65+ YO eyes like I do. As you mentioned, that diopter adjustment is one of the areas that is cheaped out on on these type scopes. The trick is to get the cross hairs focused and then wrap a glob ( the official term for "multiple wraps") of vinyl electrical tape around the adjustment so it can't be easily nudged left, right, up or down, because the reticle will move. That adjustment will also impact your parallax, so sometimes I've had to settle for a slightly blurry image to get the parallax error down to the minimum that I want to live with. If you're brave, on some cheap scopes you can even remove the front aperture ring and screw the whole lens assembly in or out (you have to have or make spanner wrenches to fit the lens assembly) to remove the parallax error altogether at the distance of your choosing, but it's tedious, can ruin the scope and isn't for the faint of heart. Don't do it with any scopes that you have an emotional attachment to. LOL
Thanks! I agree. Having to have the best when it comes to shooting is counterproductive most of the time in my opinion. It just holds people from actually enjoying their rifles.
I’ve never owned one myself but i know a few guys that love their Simmons scopes. Great job buddy
Looks like a really good squirrel scope!
Good review. I get mine at WalMart, and I too noticed the price going up, but it's going up everywhere, across the board. I think my grandpa used these scopes, they've been around that long. I also have the bi's. Good set. Gramps had those too and they finally broke after about 40 years of rough usage.
It's really refreshing to watch a video about scopes from someone who isn't a scope snob. Too many people are not in the shooting sports because they have poor eyesight and just don't realize that you don't need an expensive scope to make shooting enjoyable in your latter years. Maybe you won't be a competitive target shooter, but if your range selection is reasonable, you can put some squirrels and rabbits in the pot or kill every wild soda can that dares to enter your domain.
The blurriness around the edges of a lens system is called "spherical aberration". All of the light rays entering the system are not converging to the same point, so certain areas, when in focus, require that others be out of focus. To have a system free of that, as would be essential with a microscope or astronomical telescope, requires a stack of many different shaped lenses at the ocular assembly (eyepiece) and that makes it VERY expensive. Each eyepiece for an amateur telescope can cost upwards of $250, depending on the design of that stack of lenses. In a rifle scope, it's nice to be free of it, but you can work around it if you get the center in focus, as you have. In a small aperture scope like this it is even less important, since you won't be "glassing" the field in front of you to spot potential game, as you would with a 50mm scope hunting mule deer out west on the prairie or varmint hunting at 400 yards for gophers or rock chucks.
I have a bunch of .22lr rifles and pneumatic rifles (PCP, CO2 and multipump) that have the cheap adjustable aperture 4 X 40mm Winchester scopes, that you could get at Walmart for $40 or less, not that long ago, mounted on them. I have some that are identical with the Tasco branding on them. On a typical CO2 pellet rifle, even the 4X15 or 4X20 Tasco scopes work great for plinking at 20 - 25 yards, if you have 65+ YO eyes like I do.
As you mentioned, that diopter adjustment is one of the areas that is cheaped out on on these type scopes. The trick is to get the cross hairs focused and then wrap a glob ( the official term for "multiple wraps") of vinyl electrical tape around the adjustment so it can't be easily nudged left, right, up or down, because the reticle will move. That adjustment will also impact your parallax, so sometimes I've had to settle for a slightly blurry image to get the parallax error down to the minimum that I want to live with. If you're brave, on some cheap scopes you can even remove the front aperture ring and screw the whole lens assembly in or out (you have to have or make spanner wrenches to fit the lens assembly) to remove the parallax error altogether at the distance of your choosing, but it's tedious, can ruin the scope and isn't for the faint of heart. Don't do it with any scopes that you have an emotional attachment to. LOL
Thanks! I agree. Having to have the best when it comes to shooting is counterproductive most of the time in my opinion. It just holds people from actually enjoying their rifles.
FYI
Tasco 'Simmons and Bushnell are all made the same manufacturer !