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Posted: 1/27/2007 4:54:40 PM EDT
| I am building a little 6.8 and need a scope. Anybody using a Mueller? I would like to know what you think! |
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I've got a Mueller 4-16x50 AO Sport Dot that I bought used. I don't have a lot of time on it yet, as I've just finished up the build I got it for, but here's my limited feedback. - It's fine at the lower magnifications. At high mags, it's getting pretty dark, and eye relief gets tight. It's definitely not as bright as a Leupold VXII, and the eye relief isn't as forgiving, but that's no surprise. - The dot on mine isn't very bright, even with new batteries. It's nearly invisible at the low settings, and is pretty dim at the higher settings. Since it's really not a tactical dot, but a low-light hunting/varmint dot, that may be normal, but it may be something wrong too. Someone who's bought one new could tell you more. - The AO adjust and the target knobs work smoothly and appear to be repeatable, based on boresighting tests. I'll know more when I've got some range time. - Because of the red dot built in, the eyepiece section is pretty large, and prevents me from mounting it as far forward as I'd like in the mount, but a different mount could help that. So far, it seems to be pretty good for the price. There must be more people with more experience out there! Here's a low-zoom pic I made while boresighting. I should have made some high-zoom pics at the same time... Maybe later.  And the scope mounted in an Armalite 1 piece: 
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OK, here's a couple of pics of the Mueller 4-16x50 AO Sport Dot at different magnifications. Distance is about 25 yards (sorry, that's as far as my back yard goes), and the garden ball is about 9" across. As I said, at 16x, it's really tight to line up the eye relief and centering, especially on a camera. All pics were taken on manual, so the exposure didn't change between pics. It was a pretty bright day. There appears to be a bit of chromatic aberration, showing as the color fringing on one side of the garden ball, that I hadn't really noticed while setting up the scope and testing. That's not unusual in inexpensive optics, but I'd want to do a bit more testing to see how it looks in different situations. 4X:  10X:  16X:  |
| I don't personally own one (and never will) but I have a friend that has one that I do a lot of coyote hunting with. First impression is like stated above the lower powers are fine but the higher ones are dark and grainy, his scope has been sent back twice now because when you touch the fast focus eye peice the cross hairs move on the target. First time they sent it back with a note saying there was nothing wrong with the scope. Second time they said they fixed it. He hasn't got it back yet but I think his plan is to send it down the road ASAP. Optics are one area its hard to skimp on you usually get what you pay for. |
I'm pretty skeptical of made in china optics. On some other boards some people seem quite pleased with muellers. The bushnell 3200 "elite" scopes are pretty good in my experience (for all I know they are chinese also) |
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I do not own one but just got done researching them and almost bought a Mueller Tac II 3-10x44. It's their best one, gets good reviews, and is made AND assembled in Japan. I'm sure I would have been happy with it. Their others have the glass made in Japan but are assembled in China. With all that said, I ended up getting a Nikon Monarch UCC 3.3-10x44 AO. From what I've read it sounds like the Nikon has slightly better optics and since several places have them deeply discounted right now the price was the same as the Mueller Tac II. If you want a Mueller, get it. I've only heard good things about them. |
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