Bushnell Scopes

[reynolds357]

What's going on with them? Their stuff is selling for half its normal price and now they have a 30% rebate on top of that. Are they changing product lines or are they in financial trouble?

[T. O'Heir]

Bushnell is just a brand name now owned by Vista Outdoors. Same holding company that owns a swarm of manufacturers like RCBS, Uncle Mike's, Weaver, Simmons, Tasco, Federal, CCI, Alliant and a bunch of others.
Any "sales" are very likely just an inventory reduction thing. Mind you, Bushnell's QC has gone down.

[jmr40]

Quite often when a company is about to introduce something new they heavily discount current products to move them out before introducing the new product. Leupold did this several years ago. That is just my guess.

Bushnell, like everyone else offers varying levels of quality at appropriate price levels. I had a bad experience with Bushnell several years ago and have not given them a fair chance since. But by all accounts some of their better quality scopes seem to be good values anymore.

[NoSecondBest]

Right now I currently don't own any Bushnell scopes....but I've owned a lot of them over the years. I'm simply more attracted to Leupolds and some other higher end brands and it's not for quality reasons. Let me share a story about Bushnell and the experience I had just a couple of years back: I purchased a Bushnell Elite 6500 scope with mil dots for a new varmint gun I bought. It was fairly expensive and the clarity was outstanding...even comparing it to my better Leupolds. What I didn't know when I bought it was that I had begun developing cataracts in both eyes. I soon realized that I couldn't see the mil dots when the target was in the shade. Nothing wrong with the scope, there was something wrong with my eyes. At that time I couldn't find an eye doctor who'd perform an operation simply to help with my shooting. Bushnell has a NO BS warranty on their scopes (I think they still do) and I called them up to see if I could exchange the scope for another model or get a refund. Now understand, I did not buy the scope from Bushnell, I bought it on-line from a discount seller in another state. Bushnell asked me to send the scope to them along with a copy of the original receipt. Within ten days I received a full refund from Bushnell including the postage I paid to ship it to them....simple as that. I don't know how they worked it out with the place I bought the scope, but there is simply no way they could have done more to take care of me with a problem that had nothing to do with their scope. They could have simple told me that there was noting wrong with it and left it at that, or told me to work it out with the company I bought if from. That truly is a NO BS warranty. Anyone who says their quality is "going down" should provide some data to support that. That's simply a statement with no substance.

[BBarn]

Perhaps Vista is revamping the Bushnell line since they are ceasing production of the line of Weaver scopes.

[mikejonestkd]

Like others have mentioned above- most likely they are revamping the product line and clearing oout the soon to be discontinued models.
i have had great success with older bushnell 4200 elite scopes- with none of them ever having a lick of probelms in 15-20 years. I think I still have 4-5 of them on various rifles.

[ms6852]

I bought 2 of the Bushnell Forge 3-18X50 for $349.99 from Midway in December. They were on sale regularly priced at $799.00 to $899.00 now they are out of the same scopes or some of them are now at regular price. Checked in other websites and they are also out of stock or on sale for full price. But the Forge model was going to be a discontinued item. I'm glad my wife convinced me to buy the second one, they are fantastic scopes.

[reynolds357]

I bought a First focal plane Nitro. Is it worth normal $700 sticker price? Heck no! For after rebate $195ish is a steal. Glass is actually good. I put it in class with Leupold vxiii. Definitely not in Meopta class.

[Txhillbilly]

I just bought one of the Nitro 5-20x44 SFP scopes from Cameraland for $199 plus it came with a $58 rebate from Bushnell. It was marked down from $499.
I usually don't buy lower end optics,but this was too good to pass up. I put it on my Target 10/22,so it should last a long time.

There are some great deals right now on all tiers of scopes. I also just bought a Steiner T5xi 5-25x56 FFP SCR illuminated reticle scope from Amazon for $1409. That scope is on sale at most other places for $2000 - $2300.

[berettaprofessor]

Truthfully, I almost wish they'd go out of business (not! ). I discovered a Bushnell outlet near me a year or so back and the prices in the "warehouse" area have been like this all the time and I'm going broke. I've now got extra TRS-25's (the last one at $40 with the AR riser), extra AR-Optics 4-18 scopes (some demos are marked at $55 for $250 scopes), and a bunch of 4X32 fixed power Bushnell's and Simmon's at $10 apiece...so many that every rimfire plinker I have is bearing one and I've got extras. I'm spending more in QD Warne rings than in scopes (although did I mention the outlet sells Weaver steel ring sets for $5 apiece?). And then there were the Leatherman Tool sets for $50 around Christmastime...and the optical boresights for $40...

Those Bushnell optical boresighters, BTW, are the cat's meow...just sighted three newly mounted scopes with it in my basement and upon trying them at the range, all three were right on bullseye at 25 yards. Just a simple move "up" to longer ranges and no left or right adjustment needed.

[Bill Daniel]

I am also happy with Bushnell. Recently bought the Forge 2.5x15 FFP with MOA on sale at 399.99 from MidWay, 849.99 regular price (1019.95 list price) with a 29% Bushnell rebate for a total cost of 312.99 tax included