An FYI on the Discovery 2-12x 24mm

[PumaCarl]

discovery

www.discovery-sports.com

This is a 'heads up' post on the owner experience using this scope. I wouldn't have posted this on just my singular experience but I have now seen two examples that have the same flaw. First, I want to say that I love the stats on this scope. This scope covered all my bases for small, light, reticle, everything. It is a perfectly usable scope in good lighting, although I did find it very finicky to focus the reticle for some reason. The main problem is with the illumination. Now, at this point in my life, I have looked at a lot of illuminated reticles, and this was the first one, that I looked at, that the turned on and lighted reticle will actually "smear" (for lack of a better word) if you are not perfectly, and I mean perfectly, centered behind it. It's the weirdest damn thing! This isn't because the parallax wasn't set properly either. This is something different about the optical system in this scope. The other owner confirmed that he saw it too, so it wasn't a problem with my vision either. If you are never going to use the illuminated reticle this won't be an issue and there are not many scopes at this size and power, so you still might want to consider it, but if illumination matters to you, I would suggest skipping it. I am going to keep it, it still works fine for daytime shooting, I just thought people should be made aware of the issue.

 

[wamf]

discovery

www.discovery-sports.com

This is a 'heads up' post on the owner experience using this scope. I wouldn't have posted this on just my singular experience but I have now seen two examples that have the same flaw. First, I want to say that I love the stats on this scope. This scope covered all my bases for small, light, reticle, everything. It is a perfectly usable scope in good lighting, although I did find it very finicky to focus the reticle for some reason. The main problem is with the illumination. Now, at this point in my life, I have looked at a lot of illuminated reticles, and this was the first one, that I looked at, that the turned on and lighted reticle will actually "smear" (for lack of a better word) if you are not perfectly, and I mean perfectly, centered behind it. It's the weirdest damn thing! This isn't because the parallax wasn't set properly either. This is something different about the optical system in this scope. The other owner confirmed that he saw it too, so it wasn't a problem with my vision either. If you are never going to use the illuminated reticle this won't be an issue and there are not many scopes at this size and power, so you still might want to consider it, but if illumination matters to you, I would suggest skipping it. I am going to keep it, it still works fine for daytime shooting, I just thought people should be made aware of the issue.

I have one and noticed the "smear" but when I reduced the brightness it went away. I find the optics to be very good but am disappointed in the unnecessarily busy sight picture. Way too much for me.

 

[Ezana4CE]

Is this an eye box issue or an illuminated reticle brightness issue? Seems like a brightness issue. If so, is it an issue on the lowest setting?

 

[PumaCarl]

It is not a brightness issue. I don't know what is actually causing it either. I have never seen any other illuminated reticle that even hinted at doing what this does, and I find that stranger than the smearing itself.

I still like the scope, and I put it back on my airgun. This one thing is annoying but not a deal breaker for me. I am surprised no one else mentioned it.

 

[kkarmical]

Haven't noticed anything different outside of the reticle being very bright.
It's the first FFP I have with lumination, so I have nothing else to compare it with.
I've been using it on the lowest setting only for short hold overs though, haven't seen anything out of the ordinary.

Where on the reticle is this smear?

 

[Ezana4CE]

It is not a brightness issue. I don't know what is actually causing it either. I have never seen any other illuminated reticle that even hinted at doing what this does, and I find that stranger than the smearing itself.

I still like the scope, and I put it back on my airgun. This one thing is annoying but not a deal breaker for me. I am surprised no one else mentioned it.

@PumaCarl That’s strange sounding. I can’t say I quite understand. Have you contacted the manufacturer about this phenomenon?

I’ve experienced some reticle distortion from and insanely bright IR in the past. That was so long ago I can’t recall which scope it was. It was almost as if the brightness made the reticle look fatter and fuzzy. They way it’s described in this post reminds me of how it’s tough to look through a scope with a tight eye box on higher or the highest magnification. If my head is not in a specific position it’s tough to view my target properly and line up the reticle.

 

[PumaCarl]

The reticle always looks fine, no problems, it's only with the illumination turned on, even on the lowest setting. I'm not contacting anybody, because I'm keeping it. I like that it works in every other way and tracks correctly. I just wanted to give a heads up to other buyers and not really looking for a solution. I have seen two scopes do this so it is not a one-off. The optical eye-box through all powers isn't unusally tight but the illuminated reticle itself is a super-tight eyebox view all in itself. It's like it is separate component. On my Athlon scope, when I turn on the IR the reticle just becomes illuminated and it is very clean, no light spillage, this scope is not like that at all, and you do have to be perfectly centered behind it. I don't understand it either.

 

[PumaCarl]

Haven't noticed anything different outside of the reticle being very bright.
It's the first FFP I have with lumination, so I have nothing else to compare it with.
I've been using it on the lowest setting only for short hold overs though, haven't seen anything out of the ordinary.

Where on the reticle is this smear?

View attachment 466413

The illuminated portion is a cloud about 10x thicker than the reticle and if you are not perfectly centered behind it, it increases in the direction you are off. If you are perfectly centered it is not unusable, just annoying. Again all powers, reticle is focused, parralax is set correctly, not my first rodeo, happening in two scopes, two people seeing it. Not a big enough issue not to use it, but definately to mention. I have never seen any model scope do what it is doing and I have been looking through scopes for over fifty years.

 

[Airgun Al]

When your eye is perfectly centered with the scope, is this "SMEAR", directly in the center of the reticle?

 

[PumaCarl]

The smear is light splatter from the illumination ON the reticle, NOT the reticle itself. Look people, I'm done talking about this. I mentioned it mostly because I saw it twice and no one else has said anything about it. To all the sticklers out there for a perfect illumination experience, you've been advised, good luck.

 

[GunshipGuy]

Could someone comment on thickness of the reticle? Thanks.

 

[PumaCarl]

I would say that it appears to be a medium thickness. I would call a first generation Vector Veyron SFP to be be thin(it's certainly thinner), and an old German No. 1 about the thickest. It is not bad at all. The scope works fine as a scope, it is just not tolerant of not being set perfectly to me, and the IR is annoying. I just think that a lot of compromise happened to make a scope this small and still work. If you really want or need the small, there really isn't any other choice I know of. The other person hunting where I'm at has continued to use his all summer and has shot many woodchucks with it mounted on his BRK Sahara XR.

 

[GunshipGuy]

I would say that it appears to be a medium thickness. I would call a first generation Vector Veyron SFP to be be thin(it's certainly thinner), and an old German No. 1 about the thickest. It is not bad at all. The scope works fine as a scope, it is just not tolerant of not being set perfectly to me, and the IR is annoying. I just think that a lot of compromise happened to make a scope this small and still work. If you really want or need the small, there really isn't any other choice I know of. The other person hunting where I'm at has continued to use his all summer and has shot many woodchucks with it mounted on his BRK Sahara XR.

Thank you. That's exactly the info I was looking for.