As you may well know I have just returned to shooting an Air Arms after some time with a Daystate but as we all know how reliable the S400 series is I’m not going to waste my time talking about the rifle but instead would like to give a review on the scope that I have on it which I think may be of some interest for anyone looking for a cheap scope that really does fit the bill for anything that you use it for, a BSA 8-32X44 swf.
It came under recommendation from an A grade FT shooter who uses one for both FT and HFT to good effect which is something that I wanted to try without the need for changing scopes over so after selling my EB Sniper I decided to buy one .
Firstly let me say that this one is not the same as advertised by BSA for the UK market as it has a 30mm tube with target turrets and not caps and it was purchased from a well known auction site via Hong Kong which firstly made me think that it may be a cheap copy for the bargain price of £69. I’m glad that this didn’t put me off though as on arrival it came in the genuine BSA box and has the BSA bubble on the underside of the scope so I’m guessing that it was developed for the over seas market without the expensive price tag that we seem to pay for everything in the UK and with it’s matt black finish and robust looks you get the idea right from the off that it is a quality piece of kit.
Apparently BSA never made a larger side wheel for these but I managed to find someone who made me one up with a 37mm internal diameter to fit nicely over the swf. The only other thing I now need to source for it is a sunshade which I intend to do as the objective is screw threaded to accept one.
On setting up the quick focus eye bell to suit my eye I found that it does alter the milldot ret and so the scope is not true milldot when set for my eyes and so a new bracketing chart needed to be made up but on x8 the optics are more magnified than my EB was on its fixed x10. Set at this magnification and with the side parallax set at 20 yrds the scope has a very good depth of field for HFT use and is very bright and clear for me from 12yrds through to 45 though the closer 8yrd and 10yrd targets are slightly blurred as with many scopes but the BSA is still very useable at these ranges and my aim points fall very nicely on the 1st and 2nd milldot for these.
I was a little bit worried that with it being a cheaper end scope it wouldn’t however perform as well with FT requirements of range finding and dialling in but to my surprise on x32 it snaps in and out of focus beautifully and dials up and down the required ranges with no trouble at all.
The turrets are ¼ turn and with a bit of effort can be lifted off and reset to zero once the retaining screw has been removed. Everything was a little bit stiff at first but now with use, it’s starting to loosen up nicely.
The only down side I can see is that when shooting on a fixed parallax you have to make sure that your eye is in correct alignment as it does suffer from parallax error otherwise but this is something that you just get used to.
For anyone thinking of purchasing one of these there are both milldot and duplex reticles so be careful on ordering to make sure that you receive the right one but for anybody on a budget looking for a new scope that they can have a go at anything from HFT to hunting and FT with then I would recommend that you take a good look at the BSA 8-32x44 swf.....I’m glad I did.
Dave