Others My First Go At A Discovery Optics Scope.

[PA_AirHead]

My first time purchasing a Discovery Optics Scope. The very compact 3-12X44 FFP arrived yesterday from Airgun Revisions. I had to wait a whole day to get it delivered to my door step. When I unpackaged it I was blown away by the feel of this little unit. In my opinion, and possible by design (unconfirmed by me) this is a direct competitor to the UTG Bug Buster. I have several UTG scopes and have decent results with them. But this Discovery, although in the same price range appears to be in a higher class of optics.

Coming in at $159.00 at the time I write this, I feel like even before shooting with this scope, it’s priced extremely well. It’s going to be a little while before I do actually sit down at the bench with it, but it is mounted on my latest budget build.

Sitting atop a Stoeger XM1 Scout in .22 caliber, this is my latest budget build. I expressed how much I liked the Scout in .25 caliber in a separate review. So I thought, I gotta have the .22 version.

This afternoon after work, I mounted the Discovery branded 30MM Med rings, and found out pretty quickly, that I was pretty limited on the positioning options. Mainly because the rotary magazine needed to clear. Not to worry, the eye relief on this little scope works just fine. I’ll admit, I do prefer the UTG QD rings, but I wanted to see how these compare at only about 1/3 the cost at $24.99. So far so good. The rings don’t have the same quality feel of the UTG, but they’ll do for now. After all, they’re mounted on a no recoil to speak of pcp. And I don’t typically drop or abuse any of my air guns.

The turrets. Elevation and windage adjustments are made by pulling up to unlock and then typical left right rotation reveals a budget feel on the “clickers”. They’re not as crisp as say, my Athlon scopes or your Night Force or Sightron etc. For the money though, they’re not bad, and the fact that they’re turrets and not caps that thread off and then use a .25 cent piece is great. Once zeroed, you can remove the caps and set them back to zero for when or if you tend to dial.

The little Discovery is mil adjust, which is a first for me. Everything else I have is MOA. It’s really a non issue. 1/10 or 1/4, I don’t personally care, as I don’t dial. Once I zero I learn my hold overs for my typical shooting distance of 10-50 yards, and 50 is rare on critters.

Where this Optic shines over my UTGs is in the optical clarity from edge to edge at 3X or 12X or anywhere in between. At 3X, your retinal display is very small or at least it is to my 53 year old eyes. It’s got an adjustable diopter to help clear things up. Focusing down to 10 yards out to infinity is a solid feeling roll of the left side knob and the red lit reticle is adjusted for brightness on the same end cap style knob. Included in the box is a sun shade and two flip up caps. The cap that fits on the diopter does not fit well at all and just wants to fall off when flipping the cap open, while the larger bell cap is quite securely mounted when slid on.

I am surely looking forward to shooting with this set up, but it’s gonna have to wait for a break in the weather.

 

[JimT66]

View attachment 18800

My first time purchasing a Discovery Optics Scope. The very compact 3-12X44 FFP arrived yesterday from Airgun Revisions. I had to wait a whole day to get it delivered to my door step. When I unpackaged it I was blown away by the feel of this little unit. In my opinion, and possible by design (unconfirmed by me) this is a direct competitor to the UTG Bug Buster. I have several UTG scopes and have decent results with them. But this Discovery, although in the same price range appears to be in a higher class of optics.

Coming in at $159.00 at the time I write this, I feel like even before shooting with this scope, it’s priced extremely well. It’s going to be a little while before I do actually sit down at the bench with it, but it is mounted on my latest budget build.
View attachment 18801
Sitting atop a Stoeger XM1 Scout in .22 caliber, this is my latest budget build. I expressed how much I liked the Scout in .25 caliber in a separate review. So I thought, I gotta have the .22 version.

This afternoon after work, I mounted the Discovery branded 30MM Med rings, and found out pretty quickly, that I was pretty limited on the positioning options. Mainly because the rotary magazine needed to clear. Not to worry, the eye relief on this little scope works just fine. I’ll admit, I do prefer the UTG QD rings, but I wanted to see how these compare at only about 1/3 the cost at $24.99. So far so good. The rings don’t have the same quality feel of the UTG, but they’ll do for now. After all, they’re mounted on a no recoil to speak of pcp. And I don’t typically drop or abuse any of my air guns.

The turrets. Elevation and windage adjustments are made by pulling up to unlock and then typical left right rotation reveals a budget feel on the “clickers”. They’re not as crisp as say, my Athlon scopes or your Night Force or Sightron etc. For the money though, they’re not bad, and the fact that they’re turrets and not caps that thread off and then use a .25 cent piece is great. Once zeroed, you can remove the caps and set them back to zero for when or if you tend to dial.

The little Discovery is mil adjust, which is a first for me. Everything else I have is MOA. It’s really a non issue. 1/10 or 1/4, I don’t personally care, as I don’t dial. Once I zero I learn my hold overs for my typical shooting distance of 10-50 yards, and 50 is rare on critters.

Where this Optic shines over my UTGs is in the optical clarity from edge to edge at 3X or 12X or anywhere in between. At 3X, your retinal display is very small or at least it is to my 53 year old eyes. It’s got an adjustable diopter to help clear things up. Focusing down to 10 yards out to infinity is a solid feeling roll of the left side knob and the red lit reticle is adjusted for brightness on the same end cap style knob. Included in the box is a sun shade and two flip up caps. The cap that fits on the diopter does not fit well at all and just wants to fall off when flipping the cap open, while the larger bell cap is quite securely mounted when slid on.

I am surely looking forward to shooting with this set up, but it’s gonna have to wait for a break in the weather. View attachment 18805View attachment 18804View attachment 18803View attachment 18802

I've got 5 of these Discovery optics scopes, with another on the way. 3 are the FFP models, and every one of them are just excellent! I tried the 1st one out after watching Airgun Detective extoll their virtues on one of his videos, and I definitely see why he likes them so much. I put this 1st one on my Crosman Prospect .22, and zeroed it within a magazine of shots at between 29- 30 yards. The reticle is kinda busy on it, it was my first "Christmas tree" type. So I have to take my time even now, or I will shoot low, using a line or two down from where aim point should be. I put last one I got on my Ranger .25, removing the 2-7x32 sfp scope I had on it. What a huge difference!

 

[PA_AirHead]

Update:

This weekend presented a slight challenge with this scope. Being a compact scope, it revealed itself to be less than ideal for the pic rail length on the Scout. I guess I should say pic rail length and length of pull of the Scout. However you want to look at it, the little optic isn’t going to work well for me on this gun. Getting my eye relief set, would result in an unnatural neck position and that results in uncomfortable shooting. All is not lost however!!! Because it just so happens I wanted a lower power scope for my Bulldog M357 and this scope and all the pic rail on that gun is an easy match.

So, what to do about my Scouts optic? Well, it just so happens that my .22 Akela was sitting there with a very nice Athlon Helos 2-12x42 and THAT my friends is the ticket. However… The Athlon cantilever mount was not going to work. The magazine clearly would not fit under the mount.
Not to worry. As many of us in this hobby, we tend to have spares of some accessories through gadget collecting and trial and error. Sometimes we find accessories that we know we want spares of. Well for me, it’s the QD UTG rings. Like I think I mentioned in my original post, I really like em. So I pulled em out and 30 minutes later the scope is leveled and eye relief set and now the Scout is all set.

 

[SpindleB]

I have tried 2 Discovery scopes and was less than impressed. One had clarity issues and the other the windage would not adjust.

My goto, prior to ridiculous tariffs, were the CVLife BearSwift and BearMight scopes in that same under $200 range. Recently bought a Westhunter Gen 2 HD but have not really spent a lot of time with it (much bigger 8-32x56).

I am pleased because the under $200 scopes seem to be following the same path as the under $1,000 air rifles. Quality and refinement have definitely improved. What was the domain of $500+ scopes now are available to us cheapskates.

 

[Forethought]

I've got 5 of these Discovery optics scopes, with another on the way. 3 are the FFP models, and every one of them are just excellent! I tried the 1st one out after watching Airgun Detective extoll their virtues on one of his videos, and I definitely see why he likes them so much. I put this 1st one on my Crosman Prospect .22, and zeroed it within a magazine of shots at between 29- 30 yards. The reticle is kinda busy on it, it was my first "Christmas tree" type. So I have to take my time even now, or I will shoot low, using a line or two down from where aim point should be. I put last one I got on my Ranger .25, removing the 2-7x32 sfp scope I had on it. What a huge difference!

I started out with a DiscoveryOpt 4-16x44 Gen2 and was so impressed with the fit, finish and optical quality at a budget price point that I now own 4. I'm saving my latest, the monster XED 6-36x56, for the Barra 270z!

 

[Dogowski]

View attachment 18800

My first time purchasing a Discovery Optics Scope. The very compact 3-12X44 FFP arrived yesterday from Airgun Revisions. I had to wait a whole day to get it delivered to my door step. When I unpackaged it I was blown away by the feel of this little unit. In my opinion, and possible by design (unconfirmed by me) this is a direct competitor to the UTG Bug Buster. I have several UTG scopes and have decent results with them. But this Discovery, although in the same price range appears to be in a higher class of optics.

Coming in at $159.00 at the time I write this, I feel like even before shooting with this scope, it’s priced extremely well. It’s going to be a little while before I do actually sit down at the bench with it, but it is mounted on my latest budget build.
View attachment 18801
Sitting atop a Stoeger XM1 Scout in .22 caliber, this is my latest budget build. I expressed how much I liked the Scout in .25 caliber in a separate review. So I thought, I gotta have the .22 version.

This afternoon after work, I mounted the Discovery branded 30MM Med rings, and found out pretty quickly, that I was pretty limited on the positioning options. Mainly because the rotary magazine needed to clear. Not to worry, the eye relief on this little scope works just fine. I’ll admit, I do prefer the UTG QD rings, but I wanted to see how these compare at only about 1/3 the cost at $24.99. So far so good. The rings don’t have the same quality feel of the UTG, but they’ll do for now. After all, they’re mounted on a no recoil to speak of pcp. And I don’t typically drop or abuse any of my air guns.

The turrets. Elevation and windage adjustments are made by pulling up to unlock and then typical left right rotation reveals a budget feel on the “clickers”. They’re not as crisp as say, my Athlon scopes or your Night Force or Sightron etc. For the money though, they’re not bad, and the fact that they’re turrets and not caps that thread off and then use a .25 cent piece is great. Once zeroed, you can remove the caps and set them back to zero for when or if you tend to dial.

The little Discovery is mil adjust, which is a first for me. Everything else I have is MOA. It’s really a non issue. 1/10 or 1/4, I don’t personally care, as I don’t dial. Once I zero I learn my hold overs for my typical shooting distance of 10-50 yards, and 50 is rare on critters.

Where this Optic shines over my UTGs is in the optical clarity from edge to edge at 3X or 12X or anywhere in between. At 3X, your retinal display is very small or at least it is to my 53 year old eyes. It’s got an adjustable diopter to help clear things up. Focusing down to 10 yards out to infinity is a solid feeling roll of the left side knob and the red lit reticle is adjusted for brightness on the same end cap style knob. Included in the box is a sun shade and two flip up caps. The cap that fits on the diopter does not fit well at all and just wants to fall off when flipping the cap open, while the larger bell cap is quite securely mounted when slid on.

I am surely looking forward to shooting with this set up, but it’s gonna have to wait for a break in the weather. View attachment 18805View attachment 18804View attachment 18803View attachment 18802

Great rifle! I've got the Ranger and it's amazing.

 

[Forethought]

I have tried 2 Discovery scopes and was less than impressed. One had clarity issues and the other the windage would not adjust.

My goto, prior to ridiculous tariffs, were the CVLife BearSwift and BearMight scopes in that same under $200 range. Recently bought a Westhunter Gen 2 HD but have not really spent a lot of time with it (much bigger 8-32x56).

I am pleased because the under $200 scopes seem to be following the same path as the under $1,000 air rifles. Quality and refinement have definitely improved. What was the domain of $500+ scopes now are available to us cheapskates.

Sorry to hear about the DiscoveryOpt issues. I now own 4 and all have performed admirably and far above their respective orice points. I purchased the CVLife 1-10x24 for use on the Barra 250z and both turrets froze up before the scope was sighted in. I returned it and purchased the DiscoveryOpt HD 2-12x24SF). It was less expensive than the CVLife after deducting DiscoveryOpt's direct to consumer discounts, and it's a FFP with a far better reticle.