I have a couple of hours of layover on my way to Orlando, so I figured I'll fire up the computer and see what's happening.
There is an interesting discussion on The Hide where everyone is wildly disappointed that SWFA's re-emergence did not incorporate all of the changes they are looking for. The most common sentiment there is "this is not enough and I'll just go get an Arken".
In principle that is a perfectly reasonable argument if you the following two assumptions are correct:
1) you are willing to take extra features at the expense of the fundamentals
2) you are comfortable buying from China
Now, on the 2nd point, I do not really get into the debate of whether we should be buying chinese manufactured riflescopes or not. It is a decision everyone makes for themselves.
I own, use and recommend plenty of Chinese manufactured riflescopes, thermals, binoculars and LRFs. I point out where different products are made so that you could make their own decisions.
Personally, I sorta draw the line with companies that blatantly use the US market to develop products they supply to PLA (i.e. Holosun), but to each his own. China has built an incredibly manufacturing infrastructure and avoiding is difficult. I barely even try. Besides, I know plenty of Chinese people in this business and they have as much lover for the CCP as you and I do.
As far as I am concerned, each product stands on its own merit regardless of where it is made.
If you are looking for a very feature rich scope (illumination, variable mag, FFP reticle, side focus, zero stop, etc) SWFA's fixed power designs are not going to do be up your alley. It is a $350 scope with exposed turrets and zero stop. It has a 30 year history of being durable and tracking precisely. It is as simple as that.
There is a reason why you will not find a $350 FFP full featured riflescope in my recommendations. I have looked at many that are configured in this way and I am yet to see one that I am comfortable recommending. I have seen several very nice ones. Except when I went and got my hands on a few more samples, the variation was so significant that I could not make the recommendation. I had this same discussion with Slavguns on a livestream a while back. He was making an argument that there are plenty of people out there who want all the bells and whistles and are only willing to spend $400 or less. He was essentially saying, they are willing to risk the odds in order to get all those features. I disagreed because in my view, if the fundamentals are compromised, I do not care how wonderful the feature set is. A scope is there to let you aim, not to give you bragging rights.
Well, it is their money and they can spend it in whichever way they want. That's why we have such a variety of products out there. If there is a buyer, the market will supply a product.
Some want a full feature set for $350 failure rates and country of origin be damned. That's an Arken customer.
Some want the most robust fundamentals they can get for $350 feature set be damned. That's an SWFA customer.
Some want robust fundamentals AND the feature set. That's a customer who is going to be spending more money.
Before I wrap up...
I do have a soft spot for SWFA because I have so much history with those scopes. I still own several: two 3-9x42HD, two 2.5-10x32 Ultralights, one defunct 3-15x42SFP and one 10x42 side focus. I had many more over the years that have all moved on, mostly when I was putting together shooting platforms for other people. Using an SWFA scope, back then, was a good way to minimize the probability of extensive troubleshooting. In all of these years and with the number of SWFA scopes that passed through my hands being easily in high double digits, I am bound to have strong opinions on the subject.
Not bad, but a little more width would help. The tripod is Field Optics Research's Dome Top Hunter 32.
Rather amazingly, the balance on this thing is just right as is.
