Fake scope

[olduser]

Saw my first fake Leupold scope in a pawn shop today. At first glance it looks good but look at it in detail you can see that it is fake.
Be careful what you buy.

[veprdude]

These have been around for a long time, especially "Mark 4" knockoffs.

You can fake the tube, the lettering, the logo. You can't fake the clarity. I usually put a business card or some other small font across the store and view it through the scope. If you can read a business card from 40 feet away it's probably the real deal.

There are fake EOTECHs, ACOGs, and basically anything else you can think of.

[4V50 Gary]

Ditto with optic mounts. Classmate bought something that was "airsoft" quality.

[Hawg]

You have to be wary of anything you buy off of Amazon. You pays your money and you takes your chances.

[MarkCO]

Fake Optics, mounts have been around for a while. The data collectors roam the halls of SHOT every year.

But someone has actually been knocking off Thunderbeast suppressors. That is bold as the trace back can't be that hard.

[rc]

And streamlight weapons lights too. I think on ebay the country of origin is a big clue when you are bidding on optics.

[veprdude]

Mounts and small accessories I think are harder to ID for fakes unless you are really knowledgeable about them. Although for something like LaRue or other ultra high-end manufacturer, anything less than perfection on fit and finish would give it away.

I bought a counterfeit Benchmade Infidel from a reputable reseller years back. Functioned just the the real deal. Someone pointed out it was a fake and then thinking they were FOS, I examined another. Now comparing them, I see the feel of the action and small details like lettering I had glossed over.

Counterfeits of anything from China are getting worse. And by worse I mean that the counterfeit items are getting closer to the real deal unless you really know what to look for. The government doesn't step in to prevent anything, especially when it comes to exported goods. Check out the "Gutter Oil" industry over there. Really fascinating how depraved the population can get when poverty is rampant and there is no government oversight. It really puts into perspective on how government regulation can be a good thing.

[WmMunny]

Originally Posted by Hawg

You have to be wary of anything you buy off of Amazon. You pays your money and you takes your chances.

You got that right!

I bought a low-priced map update SD card for my car's NAV system from Amazon. It looked OK when it arrived and installed easily.

But the driving directions were often wrong and it frequently didn't know what road I was on. For example, on a recent trip the NAV announced "A half mile ahead at the traffic light, make a right turn onto US 41 north"

Problem was I was already driving north on US 41 in a very rural area a good 20 miles from the next traffic light.....and US 41 ran straight north with no turns for those same 20 miles.

The good news is when I pulled the Amazon SD card, my original card reinstalled and worked properly. And Amazon took theirs back, paid for the return shipping and refunded my full purchase price...and no, I'm not a Prime member.

[FrankenMauser]

Local shop had a fake Nightforce a few years ago. Look really, really good, until you looked through it.
Another local shop bought a lot of "contract over-run" thread adapters for SilencerCo suppressors. I took one look and ruined that poor guy's week. They were butter-soft aluminum and fake.


It is a sad state of affairs, but....
A fair amount of the "airsoft" stuff is higher quality than the low end "shooting accessories" of the same type. Cheap sights, scope mounts, bases, rings, levels, accessory mounts, etc. are a cesspool. But, somehow, a lot of the 'airsoft' market versions are better than the walmart-grade garbage that so many people buy. They are often out of spec in some way, but made with better materials and machining. (Or better injection molding and cleanup, when plastic is suitable.)

In the airsoft world, these things are upgrades and meant to dress up a rifle. They are not the bottom-of-the-barrel garbage meant to make a quick buck at a cheapskate's expense, like the firearms world.
So the airsoft things are at least meant to look good, and are often high quality for the job that they need to do. That is, unfortunately, just enough quality to be better than the walmart-grade firearms garbage.

I was speaking in general, but just realized that I have a perfect example in my possession right now.
I bought my son an airsoft "Sniper" Rem 700-ish rifle for Christmas. It is a "low end" airsoft gun, nothing fancy or spendy.
It has a nicely machined and finished aluminum picatinny rail as a scope base, and is attached well with quality screws into an aluminum cradle inside the plastic receiver shell. Not bad.
Yet, UTG, one of the most popular low end "firearms accessories" (not 'airsoft') suppliers, is making many of their rails now with injection molded plastic.

I'm not saying that you should start buying airsoft accessories. But I am saying that low end is low end. When you buy "cheap", you get what you pay for. And if they're marketed as firearms accessories, they might actually be worse than airsoft 'toys'.