Simmons Spotting Scope

Simmons Spotting Scope 20-60×60 Review

I stumbled across this little beauty one day when I was walking through Cabelas looking to purchase another box of clay pigeons. For some reason I looked up at the right moment and saw and endcap (these are probably designed for this express purpose) full of them. They were running a sale for $30 off the normal price of $99.99 and I couldn’t resist.

I figured this would be something good to see whether or not I was hitting a distant target (my eyes aren’t the best) for a cheap price. I pulled it out of the box and discovered it had a camera attachment (camera was separate of course). At this point I had to try it out. I took it out in my back yard, set the thing up and snapped a few pictures.

In the picture below, you’ll see the camera attachment attached to the actual scope itself. The camera attachment is nice, but it’s a little cheaply made. The

Scope with camera attachment

threads are plastic and are extremely prone to cross-threading. After you cross-thread it, the threads are pretty much done and it gets more and more difficult to get the camera carriage attached solidly as time goes on.

I also think that there’s a possibility the screw that attaches the camera to the carriage is a little too long. Either that or the depth of the screw hole on my camera is too shallow. I had to improvise a spacer (I just cut the top hanger off of a cardboard box from another product and put it on the carriage with the screw through it) in order to get the camera to hold tight to the carriage and not move around.

Add-on I made to help the camera sit tighter

All-in-all for the price of the scope, a few inconveniences are most definitely warranted and expected. No issue that I have run into thus far has made me regret my purchase.

Back to the performance aspect, I was surprised at how well I could see distances and how well it performed for costing such a small amount of money.

I had taken it out back of my house were there is a city park and I could get a view of things at range. I paced off 50, 100, 150, and 200yds and scoped them in. I have a video at the 50 yard rifle range I go to posted after this paragraph.

The next is a picture out behind my house of a piece of paper 100 yards out. You can actually read the writing on the page… this is an 8.5×11 piece of paper. I had different objects posted at 150 and 200 yards that I was able to see but there

Picture taken of a sign at 100yds (you can read the writing on it ‘100yds’)

were a lot of other objects in the path and it would have made a terrible set of pictures to post. At 150 yards I put an empty pack of smokes that I found on the ground… I could barely read the word ‘Marlboro’ which is pretty impressive at that distance with the overall cost of this equipment… at 200 yards I could easily make out what my target was, although I am unsure that I would have been able to read the stuff on the page.

PROS:

• Great Price
• Great clarity and magnification for the price
• Easy to use
• Comes with a tripod
• Comes with a camera carriage
• Comes with lens protectors that mount securely on both ends

CONS:

• Threads for the camera carriage are cheap and cross thread easily. Once cross threaded, it gets harder and harder to securely mount the carriage to the scope.

RATING:

Because this was so cheap to pick up and it was so easy to use, the cons are far outweighed by the pros.

-NoobCritic