Author: koshkinSubject: CAST YOUR VOTE: What's the best long-range scope?
Posted: March/21/2014 at 13:07
![Originally posted by mark21901]( "Originally posted by mark21901") mark21901 wrote:
Just a brief personal thought. There are scopes in your list that are built to survive extreme temperature, altitude, vibration, salt fog corrosion testing and immersion just to name a few. Then there are other far suggestions similar to the SS HD scope mentioned. I do not mean to offend anyone who has an SS HD scope but for myself I prefer to purchase a product from Leupold or S&B. If one desired he could visit either of their factory's and of course over time witness the development of their product. Take Zeiss for example, they are not a scope company, nor are they an optics but they have the full spectrum of metrology, observatories and cellular microscopes. In my opinion, a real solid company. I do wish they would consider making less of their 400k CMM machines and worry more about a 1k scope but that will not happen anytime soon. Which brings me to my conclusion, when companies like SWFA and Counter sniper Optics whom are incapable of 100% in house manufacturing ask astronomical amounts for an unproven product I tend to be a teensy bit skeptical. But most online communities are now being dominated by individuals whom tend to purchase anything with the word tactical in the company name. Perhaps you could consider separating the groups into what the manufacturer considered the target market thus isolating S&B, LP MK8 and the beast from the rest. As an engineer you could look into National Instruments Image analysis software to analyze picture quality. For light transmission you could start with some photometric sensors (10-18k). This would be the low budget testing.. a N.I.S.T. quality setup will easily set you back 300k.
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I will ignore the insanity of comparing SWFA to Counter Sniper. That shows rather remarkable ignorance, but I think that has been addressed already.
I do have a question: what would you consider to be a NIST quality setup that you think would set you back $300k?
I will also comment on the whole "do everything in house" theory since that comes up every once in a while.
Insisting that everyone who makes a product does everything in house is profoundly stupid. What makes you think that the only way to control your manufacturing process is to own your own factory? That is, at best, both ignorant and incompetent.
I work for a company that makes electro-optical test equipment. We make custom and standardized test sets for testing cameras, lasers, weapon sights, etc. Many of our customers who specialize in making various optical systems are perfectly capable of making the test equipment themselves. However, they still buy it from us. Why do you think that is? Do you think they are incapable of making it themselves? Of course, they are capable. They have the expertise and the capacity to make everything we make for them, but they still buy it from us. Why do you think that is the case?
I'll help you with that one. Because we can make these test systems to the same or better standards than that they can for 30% to 50% of the cost. We specialize in doing these exact things and we are much more efficient in making test sets than just about anyone else out there. That is ALL we do. When we deliver a product it comes with detailed test reports and QC documentation. If our product does not stack up, we do not get paid. That is the best motivator in the world.
Why do you think virtually no company does everything in house? It is expensive and not efficient. It is also not necessarily good from a quality standpoint. If your expertise is in mechanical design and system integration, you do not want to be grinding your own lenses even if you know how (and most don't). Examples of this are too many to name.
In the riflescope world, virtually no one does everything in house simply because it makes no sense to do so.
The exceptions are either very high end brands (and even their I am not convinced they are telling the whole truth) or companies who are OEM manufacturers and make optical devices for others. Meopta is one such example. They are a contract manufacturer for other companies and they also happen to make their own house brand of optics under their own name. Still, technically, they do not do everything in house since they buy the raw glass from glass manufacturers.
There are a couple of other companies that either own their own small factories or are house brands of large OEM manufacturers. They usually do not go public with that information, so I will not out them either.
The vast majority of riflescope manufacturers out there use one of several dominant OEMs in this business and you should be happy that they do. If they did not, you would be paying alot more for your scopes.
ILya
mark21901 wrote: