Chris Ferris, owner of SWFA has come up with some gems over the years.
You, me, or anyone else can go to an optics maker, give them your specs and price point and they will contract to produce scopes.
About 20 years ago, he took a Swaro and a Schmidt & Bender to Hakko, a Japanese optics maker. They produce any thing from medical grade microscopes to binos and rifle scopes. Told them to reverse engineer the German scopes and come up with something that approaches them at a much lower price. He got them made and sold them under the brand Tasco Eurscope/Titan. This was when George Rosenfield still owned Tasco.
These were first called Tasco Euroscopes, then they they had a revision and became Titans. I have several and have hunted in the US, Europe, Africa, and Argentina with them and never had a failure with any of them. They still sell for several hundreds bucks used on Ebay when they come up. People who have had them love them.
The Super Sniper line came out of Tasco putting in a bid for a military contract for a sniper scope. Rosenfield had the specs drawn up, the scopes made and submitted for the military contract. The scope faired well, but was not ultimately chosen.
Rosenfield sold Tasco to Celestron, who lost interest in riflescopes of quality and contracted all the lines out to China, and hense the Walmart reputation of what was once a decent scope for the cash (Tasco Worldclass Japan).
Farris knew that Hakko was sitting on a design for a very rugged scope, and went to them and contracted a run of them. No marketing expense, no advertising expense, no middle men all equals a $1200 scope for $300.
I have a 6 X 42 Super Sninper and think it is great. It is heavy, the turrets protrude more than I'd like on a sporting rifle, but so what'I think the summation by C9 about is accurate. I think a little more of the lens coatings than he, but not enough to pick a fight.
So there you go...
