Any experience with this scope? Would appreciate responses from actual users.
Well, there are several "vintages" of those scopes floating around.. The first and the one that made the good rep for the Aetecs were the older Phillipine made scopes. Overall they were better quality than the 44 mag series(which many folks also liked for an economy scope). I know several local fellows here that use older Aetecs on .300 mags and so far they have held up. They like the scopes.
Simmons stopped sourcing there scopes in the Phillipines around 2005. The newer scopes are marked "Master Series". They are made in China and debuted around 2006 under the MEADE ownership. The scopes are now imported by Bushnell who owns Simmons. The new designs have th new rear spring erector system which is simpler and makes for a lighter scope. The scopes in all the variable models are light for their power and lense sizes. Most of them are under 14 ounces.
I have used three Master series scopes so far -all three made for Meade. The Low end Prosport in a 3-9x was a $30 affair I put on a rimfire rifle. It performed like a $30 scope, too.
The other Two recent Simmons I have owned were one 4-14x Aetec and the other is a 6-21x Pro-Hunter which is the line they orgionally had just under the Aetecs for a while after they discontinued the 44 mag series. Both scopes had side focus knobs.
The Meade Aetec 4-14x was a little disapointing. The eye relief was very critical and was relatively short at just over 3". Optically, I did not like it any better than the old 44mag and ATV scopes I have.There was quite a bit of bow distortion in the image at low power. For about $200, there are way better scopes out there right now,IMHO.
The second scope, the new Pro-Hunter 6-21x was a pleasant surprise. It was optically at LEAST as good as the new Aetec. It had over 4" of constant eye relief ,not very critical at all given the power range. The combination of the longer Eye relief and the longer tube length at the rear allowed me to put it on a very accrurate Ruger No 1 in .22 Hornet. So far it tracks lik a champ and works great on that rifle.It also does something few other scopes do which is offer plenty of eye relief when mounted on a Ruger no.1 wiothout having to crawl the stock.
In the last year, ATK has brough back the "44mag" brand. Basically, what they did was "poach" the higher end variables off of the Pro Hunter line to do it. Other than the Name change, they apear to be the same exact scopes with minor changes.
One real improvement ATK has made on the new 44 mags over the older Pro- Hunters is the fact they added actual Yardage markings to the side focus rings. The early Pro-Hunters just had circles increasing sizes.
If I were in the market for a new made Simmons scope, I would stick with the 44mag series. Most of them cost between $99 and about $175 street price . From what I have seen,I think they will work better for the dollar spent than the new Aetecs unless they have improved those DRASTICALLY over the last year or so.