Simmons Aetec Master Series scopes

[Brithunter]

Hi All,

About a month ago I acquired a Pro hunter and thought it was quite agood scope for the price. Mine is a 3-10x44WA but it does have a few things that I would rather it didn't like when looking through it you get the big black ring around the edge even when the eye relief is correct, a fault with a lot of budget scopes.

Well this morning in the post the Christmas prezzie arrived a new Aetec Master series 2.8-10x44WA arrived. Once I opened the box I noticed that the body tube is much shorter than that on the Pro Hunter and this left a small dilema ......................... would it give enough eye relief on the P-H 1200C which has a M98 action and if fitted with std "Redfield type" Leupold mounts.

Once I fitted the scope to the rifle it was obvious that this was the case and a new set of extended rings were obtained and that sorted the problem.

Once it was all fitted up I could then see about adjusting the scope to my eye. The adjustments for both the fast focus eye piece and the zoom ring are very stiff. I managed to move the zoom ring to 6x where it will likely stay so it's not really a problem for me. A reading on the collimeter had been taken before removing the old scope so the new one was adjusted with the windage central using the Leupold's jam screws and the elevation adjusted to match the reading.

The view through the scope is very clear and bright with no ugly black ring around the edge of the view unlike that on th Pro Hunter and despite they're beign of similar power and ojective size the FOW seems much larger on the Aetec now it needs to be checked out at first and last light but so far I am impressed.

I cannot be sure what it is that makes such a difference to the view but it's obvious that the two models are of different construction.

[jon lynn]

Happy Boxing day!

Well, Simmons is now owned by Bushnell, which I guess is not a bad thing, Meade pulled the quality out of the garbage, where Blount put it. I had a few Simmons from the 'Made in Japan' days, never a problem.

I did have one from the Blount era, and it was a sad scope from front to back. I have seen a few Master series from the newer Meade era of ownership, they seem okay.

I have a Cabela's Shotgun Scope on my 12 ga rifled sluger, I compared it to the Simmons, and saw it was indeed a Simmons, and has held up quite well at the range so far, I am confident it will hold up to the task.

So good luck to you, hope you bag a red stag when shooting............Jon

[Brithunter]

Oh well my luck has been bad with these master Series Aetecs both prooved to be faulty the dealer has sent me a Redhead Visao 3-12x42SF scope for me to try. I believe it's a Basspro product but one they have dropped so I guess that the makers had a lot in the warehose waiting shipping when they were dropped?

Anyway it seems some have ended up here in the UK where we don't have Basspro. The scope is darned heavy that's for sure and the optics seem bright but I am not so keen on the tunnel type view through it preferring a nice clear view out to the edge and not this black ring around the view. The other thing is that two piece mounts will be needed unless a single rail can have high rings due to the size of the saddle on the tube. It's huge as is the eyebell.

The rifle which seemed to break the last Aetec, the elevation adjuster siezed up and the eyebell started to wobble about , is a BSA Majestic Featherweight in .270 Winchester. The rifle weighs 6 1/4lbs but the P-H rings I have at the moment are not high enough to allow the objective to clear the barrel but I have a set of high ones coming that I found on e-bay so hopefully they will be high enough to fit this scope.

None of my Parker-Hales has enough bolt handle clearence without using excessively high rings due to the size of the eyebell on this scope .