Re: Best Place To Buy Optics
Here's my top three.
Keep in mind that I have moved up to top tier optics by horsetrading alone and I have not once been able to spend as much money with any of the great vendors here as I'd like (and I'm sure they would like too). That being said, each of my top three have treated me with the best customer service I have ever experienced in any section of the retail market (not just optics, shooting related or such, I mean of ANY section of the retail market!) The order they are in is chronological by my experience with them, the only way I could think of to fairly place them.
SWFA: Chris has an outstanding company, has a trade in program, carries good stuff and stands behind what he sells 100%. SWFA is no newcomer and continues to care about us. They've kept what I consider the BEST basic precision scope available around for years, and the SWFA SS has been the same price all that time too. I finally let go of my old MK416X, but will be keeping a SS16X if that tells you anything... Chris has gone WAY above and beyond for me more than once, and I am one happy customer.
Liberty Optics: Scott is amazing with CS, and has been a joy to deal with. In addition to personally taking care of me more than once, I personally feel Scott was instrumental in getting IOR (old country) and Valdada (stateside) in step with what precision shooters want. What IOR offer currently shows they've paid attention. Scott not the only input they've listened to, the "Flea scope" was a market-driven optic, but the SH 3-18 was a giant leap forward in their thinking.
Speaking of giant leaps, I think Scott showed Val by example what CS can be, and if anyone has dealt with IOR Valdada say 5+ years ago and recently you can attest to the transformation for the better there!
Chris and Scott have both helped this shooter get into way better glass than I could have imagined. Its great that they still do horsetrading in Texas and Montana!
And rounding out my top 3 would be USO themselves. JBW#3's company builds my favorite scope. I once naively asked John if he'd stand behind a scope I was trading for and if I recall correctly, the response was "it say's USO on it right? Of course I will!" You guys can have your japanese sterile labs with the surgical garb, and the Duetsche engineering industrial complex-I'll take folks in flipflops twisting together bombproof products myself.
Whenever I have needed something the boys in Brea have come through.
Other than the fact they're building scopes one at a time to order, when one considers USO's wait time a factor that isn't brought up alot is that in addition to paying customers, they are busy building scopes to match each of all those gift certificates I've seen at almost every bigger match I've been to!
If you're east of the Mighty Miss, I hear doc76251 is a great guy to get ahold of for all things USO too.
I'm sure I've typed less than I wanted to, but more than I should have......
My opinion-if you don't like it I'll glady refund what you paid me for it