BSA Essencial Scopes

[AirArmsDavid]

Chap at my club had a similar 'duffer'. It happens with all product lines occasionally. Take it back for a replacement.

[blueboy2]

ive just bought a 3-9 x 40 essencial scope and im having trouble with the focus at anything less than 45ft the instructions that came with the scope seem to be for different scopes.

[Antagonistix]

ive just bought a 3-9 x 40 essencial scope and im having trouble with the focus at anything less than 45ft the instructions that came with the scope seem to be for different scopes.

Hi,

I have the 3-9x50 Essencial, and at 9x mag, objects at close range like sub 15 yards are not very well focussed. And I dont mean blurry - you need to draw a fine line on a piece of paper to notice it big time. Some objects (say an apple) appear focussed until only 15 ft away.
Have you tried at lower magnification levels for the close range objects ?

I only began to notice this a couple of days ago when going through yet another zeroing excercise. Its all clear at 25 yards and beyond though which is my intended hunting range. In lower light conditions (like 9PM UK summertime) - fine objects can appear blurry even at 20 yards, dont know if thats my eyesight though.

Overall I would recommend the Essencial scope but alas I have not owned any other to compare it with !

BTW - My instructions are generic also - not Essencial specific !

Dan

[Hinksy]

I started off with the BSA Essencial (note spelling!) 6-24x50AO http://www.bsaguns.co.uk/?ID=53&ProductID=638 and it has bright clear optics, accurate PX, and closer 'mil' dots which are ideal, both for accurate POI calculation and for bracketing targets for rangefinding in HFT.

Just divide the kill zone diameter by the number of dots across and multiply by two and you have the yardage. This only works on 11x mag but that's ideal for HFT. (or 12x exactly if you measure distance in metres).
For instance, if you're aiming at a 40mm kill zone and, say, three dots cover its diameter, divide 40 by 3 then multiply by 2, and it's 27 yards away or if a 25mm kill zone is 2 dots across, divide by 2, multiply by 2, and it's 25 yards away.

Rather than the 6-24x50, the 4-12x44AO would be ideal for HFT as it's lighter, has better depth of field so things far and near stay more in focus as you can't adjust that in HFT, and max mag is often 12x in HFT anyway.
I tend not to adjust my 6-24 over 11x mag anyway as all my POI's would shift!

At 11x mag you can easily see where you've put a pellet in a paper target up to 40yards.

My Hawke SR6 is good too but it's unusual reticle means you either love it or hate it - I love mine but it retails at £140.

The BSA 6-24 was £80+post from BAR as part of my Pro Sport kit and two weeks ago I bought the 4-12x44AO again from BAR and LLoyd did it for £60+£5 post. Used it for the first time last Saturday and did a 58/60 with the Pro Sport!

Don't underrate them and think "that's too cheap" - they're a really excellent bit of kit!

As you can see in my sig I have an Essencial on my S200, it's the 3-9x40version, PA, 30/30 ret, bloody good scope for the £25 I paid for it second hand off my good mate Paul (Hellequin) on here!

Ben

[blueboy2]

just fitted the jaguar model 1.5-6x44ir 30mm body very nice optics

fitted the very same yesterday, quality.

[stephen280480]

Hi,

I have the 3-9x50 Essencial, and at 9x mag, objects at close range like sub 15 yards are not very well focussed. And I dont mean blurry - you need to draw a fine line on a piece of paper to notice it big time. Some objects (say an apple) appear focussed until only 15 ft away.
Have you tried at lower magnification levels for the close range objects ?

I only began to notice this a couple of days ago when going through yet another zeroing excercise. Its all clear at 25 yards and beyond though which is my intended hunting range. In lower light conditions (like 9PM UK summertime) - fine objects can appear blurry even at 20 yards, dont know if thats my eyesight though.

Overall I would recommend the Essencial scope but alas I have not owned any other to compare it with !

BTW - My instructions are generic also - not Essencial specific !

Dan

have the same scope and agree! as for the eyesight its prob a dit of both ! i did not find it so bad! better than my old bushnell and my ags 3-9x40 which i think is a good scope for dif reasons! my scope im sure has a 30mm tube! the other scopes in the range do thay have 25mm as was posted in a prev post???

[redrooster]

I've had three Bsa scopes, one essential.
Not my cup of tea
Prefer a Hawke or Ags for the money

[tezzyclayt]

Hi, I have just reluctantly sold one to Ericb on here to fund another scope to use with NV. I could not believe how crisp and clear the optics were and how easy the mil-dot ret is to get on with. I also have a mamba and as far as Im concerned the bsa is as good if you can live with the px on the objective. I stated all these facts in my advertisment but people are still afraid of commiting themselves. What really makes me laugh is that they may even be made in the same factory as some of the so called top names, such is life, Enjoy Ericb you have a quality cheap scope. Cheers Terry

[Hawkstone]

Totally agree with Tezzyclayt on the above post, the BSA Essencial scopes are excellent value for money, I have the 6-24x50 and a friend has the 4-12x44 both are very good to use being bright, clear and with very useful mildot markings. Buy one with confidence.

[maxtich]

Hi I have had the obove new scope mounted on a new sako hmr 17 a couple of months and i am having a major problem the point of impact changing considerably if i change the parallax correction and change the power setting to maximum power(zoom).The mounts are new and are on solid and gun/mod are also fine has been checked by GMK.
The scope is currently set at about 60 metres and the gun groups within one inch i am happy with that.
The moment i adjust it to 100 meters the pont of impact changes considerably almost 4 inches totally missing the target.
I have sent the scope back to Debens who at first said they could find nothing wrong with it until i insisted they test fire it with a live rounds at which point they e-mailed me back a little later admiting yes the point of impact did change and posted me another scope.
I am not sure if they have sent me my old scope back as i am having the same problem again.Any one else had a similar problem.

[Hinksy]

I started off with the BSA Essencial (note spelling!) 6-24x50AO http://www.bsaguns.co.uk/?ID=53&ProductID=638 and it has bright clear optics, accurate PX, and closer 'mil' dots which are ideal, both for accurate POI calculation and for bracketing targets for rangefinding in HFT.

Just divide the kill zone diameter by the number of dots across and multiply by two and you have the yardage. This only works on 11x mag but that's ideal for HFT. (or 12x exactly if you measure distance in metres).
For instance, if you're aiming at a 40mm kill zone and, say, three dots cover its diameter, divide 40 by 3 then multiply by 2, and it's 27 yards away or if a 25mm kill zone is 2 dots across, divide by 2, multiply by 2, and it's 25 yards away.

Rather than the 6-24x50, the 4-12x44AO would be ideal for HFT as it's lighter, has better depth of field so things far and near stay more in focus as you can't adjust that in HFT, and max mag is often 12x in HFT anyway.
I tend not to adjust my 6-24 over 11x mag anyway as all my POI's would shift!

At 11x mag you can easily see where you've put a pellet in a paper target up to 40yards.

My Hawke SR6 is good too but it's unusual reticle means you either love it or hate it - I love mine but it retails at £140.

The BSA 6-24 was £80+post from BAR as part of my Pro Sport kit and two weeks ago I bought the 4-12x44AO again from BAR and LLoyd did it for £60+£5 post. Used it for the first time last Saturday and did a 58/60 with the Pro Sport!

Don't underrate them and think "that's too cheap" - they're a really excellent bit of kit!

Totally agree David,

Great little review David!

On my main rifle I've got a Nighteater but on my S200 I've got a 3-9x40 mini mil-dot BSA Essencial and what a great bit of kit it is all round

When I first bought the S200 it came with a BSA Essencial 3-9x40 but that had a standard 30/30 reticle, I liked it so much I decided that I'd like another Essencial but it would need to be a mil-dot to aid with targeting. I've still got the original one, it's in the gun cupboard (The mil-dot one is EXACTLY the same as the one my S200 came with-the only difference is the ret), and what value at a tad under £50 c/w medium mounts!!!

Great scopes and I highly recommend them.

ATVB

Ben

[bigglesworth]

I`ve got a BSA Essential 4x32,A.O. ,30/30 ret and it`s crystal clear .I got it second hand and although I`ve tried to get another,I`ve never seen one,I can`t find it in BSA`s brochures either.

It`s living on my Theoben,just now and I love it!!

[Milligan100]

Hi,

Has anyone had any experience of the BSA Platinums?

[magicniner]

Thanks Guys,
I picked up a second hand 9 - 24 X 50 Essencial based on the feedback here, I'm very pleased with it, it does seems good with clear optics even at 24X, a lot of scope for the money, more so second hand
Cheers,
Nick

[Kyoto]

My personal preference from the BSA range is the wee Jaguar 1.5-6x44mm AO price is now around £85 new.....great for HFT

For a basic 3-9x42 AO, the MTC Cobra..... unbelievable for around £50, optics better than many 'scopes at twice the price. Nothing basic about this wee beauty!

ATB

PS Both are mil-dot