Old Jap Tasco 3x9-50ag

[nice one]

did the gloss finish date them ??

[anthony]

AG scopes are the best scope tasco made

[Muskett]

I've had a good few over the years.
I'd like someone to do a definitive breakdown of the best of Tasco. Anything before 1984 ish was brilliant; before 1993 great; after: load of rubbish. Even then some models seem to be better than others. I'd pay top £ for a mint TR. I have a crisp 3-9x40 Prohorn and a 6x40 ? with a Stag's head, absolutely lovely and wouldn't part with them.

The earliest Optimas Moonlighters were very very good but not later. I also have a Tasco 4x40 European 30mm tube which is superb. The Titans started good but not for long and they didn't look that great. Same problem with Simmons WTC; the early ones were a bargain.

Edger Brothers Optimates, jap made, are great at the moment. Older Bauch & Lomb are very nice too. To get great glass now its £400 plus and then you need to be selective; Zeiss Conquests and top end Bushnel (?).

[Nemesis]

As I said in an earlier post on this thread, the early black-anodised Tascos were in my view the best of the bunch. The later Lumina jobs were of similar appearance but optically inferior. My AG models with their faux-Parkerised finish were of variable quality but the 4-16x40 TR was a great all-round performer.

These days, with seemingly a billion different scopes on the market, we're spoilt for choice and even relatively cheap scopes have all the trimmings such as sidewheel parallax with cartwheel, target turrets, illuminated reticles, etc. I'm currently using an old Leupold 4-12x40 for springer HFT, which works fine set on 7x with a 25 yards parallax. My collection of oldies are fitted with the retired 626V 2-7x32 scopes and a 615W 1.75-5x40. I still have a Bausch & Lomb 6-24x40 target scope from around 1989 but it's ridiculously long for most applications.

The Hawke range offer good value for money but I've noticed that the finish on some scopes is very easily marked.