Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Update -- failures & known issues SWFA SS

This is a serious problem, i can relate I put a 6x S.S. on my 270 Ti and after shooting out to 600yds it flipped also. Junk scope.

Yep, the Tipover Chronicles!

I reviewed the posts from the old thread. I'm not sure what to make of it all since the sample size is low. But, my take away is that there were more issues than I expected. And from dudes that I feel are credible, don't hold punches or show favoritism. For whatever reason, I usually hear more about issues with the 1-4x Classic, but there were other models mentioned.


For conversation purposes:


If I counted correctly, there were 14 reports of issues, total.

Scopes that failed to hold zero or track properly = 11. Of those, 4 were the Classic 1-4x. As a side note, a member here had the same 1-4x model fail, but reported it elsewhere. Of the remaining 7, there was one 3-9x and one 3-15x. I believe the 5 left were fixed power Classics.

There was one report of side focus knob issue on the 3-15x. I've noted that the SF knob on that scope seems pretty delicate.

There was one with canted reticle (3-15x), and one bad out of the box. Not sure if these are "failures", or QC issues. Either way, I added them to the failed tally.

J

What are you shooting at? Moose or mice?

I generally prefer to use less magnification for less wiggle, wobble and heartbeat feedback from the sight picture. I practice so much at 300 yards on smallish targets with "only" 6x that a deer looks pretty big when I'm drawing a bead.

Saturday I mounted an old Vari-X II 3-9x40 on a Rem 700 in 308 Winchester. I set it up for point and shoot out to 200+ yards with a mild load. On 6x the reticle is 4 moa from the center to where the duplex thickens, which is just about the right hold for 300 yards. I tacked up a blank sheet of letter size paper at 300 and plunked four shots into .72 moa holding center with the transition point of the duplex.

If you prefer more magnification then go with it, but don't think you have to have it to do well. (Barring eyesight issues and the like of course.)

Up until recently I had a 3-9 on my hunting rifle. It occurred to me I have shot every animal I have ever shot with the scope on 3x. I don't find myself shooting far so I may be in the minority. I just put a 6x on, we'll see how it goes. Not sure what to do with all those extra Xs!

Funny.... I just went back to a 3-9 SS on the main hunting rig (7 Mag). I had one years ago with the standard Mil-Dot... and like you, I found I always had it on the same power.... though that was maxed out at 9x. So, I dumped it and got two fixed 10x SS for just about the same money.

The past couple of years we've been hunting elk a lot more... and I can appreciate the virtues of a little lower power when you're deep in the schitt.

I will say the new 3-9 with the MQ is noticeably brighter and more crisp than the older MD version I had... and it's better optically than a 3.5-10x40 VXIII I had laying around.