Vision King

As a devotee and user of quality optics some might say it gives me a blinkered view of what might be described as the more budget-orientated glass. Well I definitely know ‘wheat from chaff’ but what it also gives me a yardstick to measure these supposed lesser makes by. I speak of course of the Chinese end of the market, which over the years has continued to impress, certainly by comparison to their early stuff.

TACTICAL TREAT
What I have here is a good example of the marque and something aimed firmly at the target shooter – the Vision King 2.5-10x32 with illuminated reticule (IR). This is no hunting scope as low light performance is not a consideration but for its intended task it does the job. At the price it’s also hard to beat as an entry level optic. OK a comparable Nightforce or Leupold will doubtless kick its butt, however consider the VK costs less than a fifth of either of those and for a new shooter or those on a budget it’s looking good.

The recipe starts off with a one-piece, 30mm body tube. The saddle sports un-capped, lockable and dialable turrets and there’s a, 11-position rheostat drum on the left side, though no parallax adjuster. Moving back there’s a large eyepiece bell with a double grip magnification ring and a fast-focus eyepiece. All this screams tactical at you, which is a bit at odds with the slim, 32mm objective, the main advantage of which is ease of mounting as you can get the scope pretty close to the rifles bore line given the gun’s build.

Typically click values are ¼ MOA (minute of angle) and you get 60 per turn and 10 full rotations in windage and elevation. Visually turrets are like the Leupold M1-style with a castellated rim for dialing, where they differ is on top is a locking screw that keeps them fixed once set. The clicks feel positive and are easily audible. The drums are divided in ¼ clicks then further sub-divided into 1 MOA divisions for ease of correction. The 0 position shows a vertical line with horizontal stadia that allow you to keep count of elevation position. Typically the turrets can be slipped to 0 by undoing two Allen-headed grub screws in the rim.

The scope comes in an alloy carry case (not sure why) but does not include a battery for the rheostat, which was a bit annoying. The reticule is a 2nd generation Mil-Dot (round dots) with the standard four per arm layout. This 2nd focal plane image is crisp, well defined and errs on the side of slim. In use the view is bright though there’s a definite lack of clarity right at the edge of the sight picture. Not ideal but for general range use no big deal either.

For: Well featured and good all-round choice
Against: Time will tell on build quality
Verdict: At the money hard to beat and a good bet for a 22 rimfire or more practicaltype centrefires

PRICE: £150