I see a kinda ironic common thread here...
Myself is also included as I have a old cheapo Simmons scope in the cabinet that I use to test scopes in question... I also had one of my favorite Leupold's fail me once. I bought it that way, but it was broken just the same.
The irony is we all know and have our own higher priced scopes. We all use at least a couple of them. yet we all seem to have a cheapo on the shelf or on another gun or in some way avalible to us that we know or that we have relied upon when the "high end" scope fails.
Kinda funny...
My eyes are "going" heading toward 50 has done it to me.
But I can still see and use open sites, I just wont use them for big game... I have done it three times. All three times I could not shoot accurately so I passed on the shot... TWICE it was the biggest rack buck I havent yet shot...
The first was a 169" 10 pointer. He was thru a screen of prickers, at about 75 yards walking away form me. I had a Ruger 77-44 with open sites. I scoped it the next day... Later that next year one of my students showed me a picture of the big buck he shot the season before. He even described the area and one of my stands. He said he had the rack scored too, one hundred seventy something points. After deductions 169". Very nice deer for Connecticut.
The next was opening day of muzzle loader season, it was drizzly so I left the scope off the rifle and headed into the woods after work. Looking thru binoculars I see this tree that resembled a deers horns, only larger...then the "tree" moved... I was looking at a bedded buck, about 60-70 yards out!! It was THE largest horns I had seen on a deer. I tried to see the deer without the binoculars, no dice. He was invisible, I watched him for 10-15 minutes all the while trying to change position to be able to see him for a shot... no dice. The the wind shifted and he slipped away without a sound or unnecessary movement. I had no shot cause I could not see him... This isn't gonna happen again, I'll stick with a scope for a hunting at least deer hunting rifle!
CW