Has anyone had any hands on experience with the Simmons Prohunter master series scopes? What I'm reading about them indicates they've come up with a new technology for the erector tube and springs. Gone is the gimbol (sp) arrangement. It's really a one pice piece scope tube, it's lighter and strongers. Optics are claimed to be decent and the price is very competititve. I'm looking at mid-cost scopes right now for a Savage 111F, and I'm considering adding this to the list of possibles.

I have two on 8mm Rem mag rifles. A pro-hunter 50mm and a 2.8 to 10 ATEC. Both of these scopes are the older models and seem to have held up well. My personal prefference is for the ATEC. It seems brighter than the pro-50 and has an excellent field of view at low power.

I've read that since Meade bought out Simmons, Redfield and Weaver thay are doing some real improvements on all three lines. They have a long background in optics so these should be good for those brands.

For the money I think the ATEC is one of the best scopes on the Market and really like mine.

I've not owned a Simmons, but bought a new Redfield Illuminator earlier this year.

I've also 2 Leupolds and 2 old Redfields.

This new Meade improved Redfield is by far the best of the 5 for brightness, clarity & sharpness. Field of view is very crisp & clear edge to edge. Best glass I've owned yet!

Redfield is going to challange Leupolds hold on the mid to upper range of hunting/varmit scopes in 2006 from what I can see. And unless Leupold moves fast to improve the VX II & VX III lineups, Redfield is going to take them to school as my Vari-X II & III scopes can't touch this Illuminator.

If the new Simmons scopes have gained many of the new Redfields improvements it should be a very nice scope.

Years ago, I had some Simmons optics and they were pure junk. But as Bob said, they've been bought out and I think their quality has went up considerably. I hear the AETEC is a great scope for the money and though I don't believe they'll ever rival Leupold, Zeiss or the likes, if it's all you got to spend, seems like you can get a decent scope fairly inexpensive. I'm still reluctant to pay less than $100 on any optics though, regardless.

The last experience I had with a Simmons-Scope, was removing it from a rifle due to it's inability to "hold-a-zero" on a .308-Rifle. The Leupold that it was replaced with is still on the rifle....and working fine.

I have used one of the new and improved master series scopes for about 2 months now. It has great "guts" and is the best scope in it's and several other price classes. I tested it's durability first by mounting it on a .300 Win Mag T/C Encore that kicks like a mule on steroids. After a total of 50 rounds using 220 grain Sierra MatchKings at maximum velocity, it will "shoot the square" and is holding zero. I then switched it over to a .25-06, where it has resided for about 150 rounds, as I develope a on load does all for this one. Still works great. The clarity is good and will work really well for a hunter on a budget. I second the outstanding report on the "new" Redfield, it is a high class optic with great guts. The next step for the Simmons is to go on a 7.5 pound .375, where I will try to kill it with a steady diet of 300 grain Hornadys. If I can't kill it, I will mount it on something else and use it until it dies. If/when, I will report it.

Idoc