todays and yesterays optics

A few friends and I were sitting in the house a few days ago having a cup of coffee and the discussion of scopes came up. Like most discussions, it led to an argument. The argument led to "you get what you pay for" so I broke out a few scopes I wasnt using just to do a little test. I had a Pentax lightseeker 3.5-10x50, a Sii 4.5-14x50, Bushnell Legend 4-12x40ao, Intensity optics 4-12x44ao, and a Simmons Aetec 2.8-10x44. We all looked through the scopes and were testing brightness, clarity, sharpness, and the eyebox. Since we were all biased, the only result we could all agree on was the eye box and the Aetec won that hands down. So I called on some totally untrained eyes to do the test, my girlfriend who nows nothing about a scope and her 9yr old daughter. Some will say the results are bs and some would be amazed. It was a cloudy low light day, raining on and off getting close to dark. Anyways, heres what they came up with. Brightness was pretty easy to me and both girls chose the same scope, the Bushnell Legend and the Pentax were above the rest, the Aetec and the Bigsky was second, with the intensity coming in last but my the narrowest of margins. Clarity was tough because they are all clear scopes, but again the Bushnell was tops, the Pentax, Aetec, and Bigsky were all tossed in there with one person having the Intensity second. Sharpness went to the Pentax and Bushnell with me choosing the Bushnell over the Pentax one chose the Aetec (girl). The eye box was a given, everyone chose the Aetec, followed by Bigsky with the Pentax suffering last. These tests were done at all power ranges so we couldnt argue that point. I was amazed by how well the "cheap" simmons did against the rest especially the Bigsky. Then the girls were asked if they had one scope to choose to have on a gun, which would they choose? They both chose the aetec because it was silver and shiny and that made it prettier.lol. Goes to show that you dont always get what ya pay for, even in optics.

I just posted a similar test on a different thread.
One fact I remembered:
Back "in the day", when I purchased my first Varmint rifle (Model 700 Rem, heavy bbl, .243 Win), I couldn't afford a 'good' scope. I was raising a family. So, I bought a Tasco 20X40mm. My shooting buddies chided me over that scope, but it worked OK.
Fast forward 35 years. I decided to upgrade the 700 and purchased a couple of 'name brand' scopes. One day, I did a comparison in my backyard (70 yds) with a few of my 'spares'. I was absolutely astounded just how GOOD the Japanese Tasco compared to the others.
Then I remembered that the highly revered Super Sniper scopes are Tasco! Yes, I have some low-end Tascos that are low-end, but the old school Tasco was excellent.

ron