Gentlemen,
My two cents on scopes.
I've read everywhere, that one gets the quality one pays for. And mostly its in the context of spend as much as possible.
Now I have a fundamental disagreement with that line of thought since where would I go with a Bushnell 10x or 12x scope and shoot? Hunting is illegal. Ranges don't exceed 50m. AR's don't have that kind of range. So what do I do with a scope that shows a 200m distant bird as if it were in the palm of my hand? Perhaps take it to the beach for extracurricular activities, unrelated to shooting ???
I spent months researching scopes, and also ordered a few from optics planet. Unfortunately they refused to send me the scopes to india. and even when i shipped them to acquaintances in the us, they blocked it out. so finally i went with a "cheap" scope from aliexpress.
Now this itty bitty 4x power scope turns out to be reasonably decent. the image is clear. the zero holds, the dovetail grips are tight and best part is that on the 50m range, its more than enough. i've gone through a 100 plus rounds already.
I've also ordered a variable 4-9x from the same guy as another low price. waiting for that to come before actually making up my mind on this issue.
but in summation, i think in the indian shooting context, buying a couple of hundred dollars, (or much more as these are considered "cheap" scopes in the fraternity) seems to be like buying a speedboat when all you have is a small pond a couple of hundred yards across to drive it in.
this is an entirely personal opinion and choice though, and not a very enlightened or educated one at that, but contentedly pragmatic to me.
~C