Scope Reticle problem

1jay1

My buddy is looking to buy a second hand scope and asked me to have a look for him.
I found a suitable scope for his needs however the reticle looks a bit wrong.
If you look at the sky the reticle is dark black as you would expect but if you look in to a shaded area you can see it fade and kinda change colour on the outer thick part of the reticle. It happens in the exact same part of the reticle every time - lets say left thick post starts from the outer edge faded/off black and becomes dark black abruptly working towards the middle.

Is this a major issue? Cause to walk away?

1jay1

Well it turned out to be a major issue alright - after a play with the turrets the reticle is now detached....

Cass

Had a lad on the range one day that had a similar issue. The crosshair was faded on one side but his had the "missing bit" floating around the lens. If you shook the rifle/scope the bit would move within the lens/scope. His worked fine and tracked fine, but he took it back, rightly so, and changed it for a new one. The bit was just some debris or fouling that got into the scope and through (and i'm purely guessing here) some form of static adhered to the lens.

I think most scopes, new ones anyway, are etched onto the lens/glass. So if the crosshair is moving then it would be the lens it's etched onto that is loose in which case, as you rightly pointed out, it's knackered. Sometimes you can confirm this by turning the turrets. Either windage, elevation or adjustment. If the lens is out of alignment the turret cannot properly move the lens and it'll be stiff either all the way through the adjustment or at certain points.

One of my first scopes was the wire crosshair (still made today). I had a similar problem and from forcing the turret (moving the wire reticle lens) the wire snapped and i ended up with less than half a crosshair and the broken bits just hanging.