Re: Super Sniper Scopes ???
I'm going to date myself some here.......but I've been off of the grid for awhile....over the last few years I have had a ton of surgeries on my shoulder lost about 80% of use of right arm..not cool for a right handed shooter...blah blah blah.
I used to have almost daily contact with Chris Farris at SWFA via email...great guy. I got to know him and Super Sniper because I heard alot of good about them and so I went hunting for one. I found a few "outlets" selling the "REAL" SS scopes original as made by Tasco..brand new in box etc. I reported the frauds and phonies to Chris at SWFA. Got to know him some. For helping him protect his brand he sent me a box of t-shirts, cozies the whole deal....my reward. Now when I went to buy a SS for myself I found one that was a true SS new in box never mounted private party. I loved it!! Told Chris I was going to use it training future snipers and in my basic rifle training that I was volunteering to do for new recruits to the Army and the NAtional Guard..alot of people who joined would be doing their pre bootcamp PT training with their recruiter and then would come to e for firearms 101 and some current members who wanted to move up to a bolt action sniper role came for sniper 101 so to speak. I told Chris this and that I was going to do a write up(review) on the scope for a regional hunting mag..you now the old "hunters spend thounsands on hunts and hundred of hours and use a cheap rifle and $80 scope and can't range with mil dots deal" Chris told me the scope I had was about 18 months old and since then they corrected the hard turning knobs with better internals and improved the audible clicks. So I sent he sent me a knew one with all the goodies, sunshade, ARD etc etc and I shipped him mine. For $299 I thought the scope was out of this world. I thought it beat about any scope up to $800 I'd ever used or seen. The best thing was we were shooting off of a rock face..my student mule gun was a 308 LTR with the SS and a Colt Hbar that was my student starter rifle prior to the LTR. Well this well meaning young lady who had done great with the 5.56. Went to shoot the LTR........now she had seen and heard this rifle being fired from that same spot 75 times already...not to mention 500 times at my range. She squeezes the trigger....screams and drops the rifle like it was 250 degrees. It bounces just right and goes over the edge hitting every boulder on the way down and finally ends up 100 feet below in the river. Now we were way back from the edge so tossed it real good. I was at this location to teach the more advanced guys/gals how to range shooting at extreme angles up and down both. The country was so rough I had to get 100 ft of safty rope I keep in my truck and lower down a real monkey....this guy ended up making the rangers and at 5'6" about 150lbs he was tunnel rat material from day 1. Anyway he retreived the weapon it had been in the river about an hour. The girl was crying and the guys started to pack up like class was over. Wrong...we checked the muzzle for obstruction and kept working. I was going to show these guys how in battle who don't get in your truck and go home. We where going to remove scope ASAP and shoot down the barrel to save our life. I was going to have someone smash the scope on a boulder to get it off if nowbody had an allen wrench didn't) But the scope was PERFECT.......I mean no water inside, no fog nothing and nothing ever developed with it either.
I used to take my combat partner Charlie( a veteran decorated GSD) and we would go to the local cutting edge hospital and visit badly injured soldiers.......many crippled and deformed. They loved having a visitor as many were on the wrong coast from were they lived and were lonely bigtime and suffering too. They loved seeing Charlie and even though many of these guys weren't going to ever have a normal life again they all loved petting Charlie. Chris heard about this and sent boxes of T-shirts that I brought as gifts to these guys......he sent a bunch of cool posters to decorate their rooms and so forth to.
With all that being said......I don't know about an $800 SS?? Now I love the original SWFA SS at $299 and love Chris but I always thought that the price point/value of the scope made it special along with the quality. Now I watched Lowlights review and it was nice to see LL using some "regular" rifles and a "regular" scope
last time I was hanging out here it was all $4k plus shooters with S&B glass......made me feel good to see him using stock gear. I just hope he didn't have to clean out his safe like I did in order to pay medical bills or survive our economy.
I have never handled the HD SS.......but at $800....you have alot of options. as mentioned you can get a base if there is such a thing US Optics, you can get an IOR variable 1.8 or is it 2.8-10x. But maybe its because I live near them or I grew up with them but I would go to the custom shop at Leupold and get a 4.5-14.5 Mark 4........with my own reticle and I could have the reticle and the knobs set to just dial up yardage for my particular weapon and still be close to $800..not advetised but you can get them for close to that. Or with out mods you can find that scope now for with basic mil dots for $799.
Now I hope I am not so far out of touch that Leo's suck all of a sudden or US Optics are weak etc etc. Again I've been off of the grid but prior to that..(3 years or so" Leo was still the standard and guys were getting 2nd mortgages back when you could and waiting 5 months to get the US Optics of their dreams. Plus I had never heard of a Vortex anything.
I am just going to play new guy and shut up and read and use the search function.......yeah even an old guy like me knows how to get along.
I don't know if you can deal with a better outfit than SWFA and Chris is a top notch guy and so is his crew. I hope the SS line of scopes keeps selling well. I know guys contracting in the sandbox and these "old" 10 x versions really really hold up to the abuse and keep a clear picture at the same time.
Its another topic.....but I've gone from a pretty good gun safe to having to sell the safe itself. All my custom guns I made myself are gone and some guns that held alot of memories of days gone by are gone. But I am going to get back into LR shooting so I will be hunting for scraps and parts and pieces to put together a stick. Maybe it will have an SS on top.
For what its worth I would love to see a study of the SSHD clarlity versus say the other name brands under $1000. US Optics, Leo, IOR.....do Nikon and Burris still have their $800 tactical scopes? Does Nightforce have a "base" $1000 piece of glass?
Be an interesting and very technical study....need a science guy so it wouldn't all be opinion versus opinion...we know how that goes. Maybe a project for LL