I purchased several low end Simmons rifle scopes in the late 1990's up til around 2003 to use on my small bores, and was impressed by the lens quality and function. I had bought a bunch of rifles at the time and wanted something temporary until I could get upper level scopes, but these older Simmons work so well I am leaving things be. I also used Nikons on my harder kicking rifles.
Decided to put a scope on my Ruger 10/22 sporter model and got another Simmons, it is the whitetail classic version. Looking outside it seemed fine as I was using distant items to check for clarity etc. Went to the range to site it in last week, brought along my CZ with an older Simmons and what a difference at 50 yards in clarity!
The new Simmons is very disappointing in clarity for seeing .22 rimfire sized bullets. I had read somewhere that Simmons was bought out and is now part of a bigger corporate family, I will need to look at getting another Nikon for this rifle, and suspect that Simmons has gone down the tubes. They even have greater limits on the so-called lifetime warranty. They say now that depreciation due to normal wear and tear are not valid. I guess that means that if you install it on your rifle and carry it in the field, then the warranty is no good.
I will need to be careful with the Simmons on my other guns, and move up to more expensive optics from now on.
