Are Russian scopes junk?

In a word - NO! At least not all of them.

I must admit that I had a bias towards Russian optics at first. This was due to a lot of opinions I've been subjected to over the years, like, "commie junk." Also, the few Russian optics I had handled were very poor examples. Very old surplus optics from decades ago, or perhaps there were seconds with defects, or they were well used. In any event, looking through them was like looking through a soda bottle. Recently, I've spent a lot of time looking through a com-bloc scope and have been pleasantly surprised.

Someone I know was in the market for a scope, and was on a tight budget. They also had demanding requirements for a budget optic. Such as being bright, clear, tough, having turrets, illumination, military style reticle and light weight. Budget was $100-$130. I thought it was impossible and figured the only choice might be an Ebay purchase of a Bushnell Elite 3200 10x Mil-Dot for around $175. Well, that someone found a scope that fit all that criteria. It's called the "PO 6x40 M2."

The PO is a fixed 6x. Made in Belarus by Zenit. A one-inch tube. It has turrets, illuminated range-finding Dragunov reticle, and a 40mm objective. It is nitrogen purged and has all the features for robustness and for being waterproof that any other quality scope has. Price? $120.

At first I was extremely skeptical. I figured that this scope is probably just some piece of junk that the former communist nations build strictly for the consumer market, and that it doesn't contain any quality. I thought it would be a gimmick. I couldn't have been more wrong.I took this optic, sat down with a Burris FullField II and began to compare. The Burris is a fine scope. A very underrated scope in my opinion. It compares very well to a Leupold VXII. After 3 hours of looking at and comparing all sorts of things, I was shocked to see that this scope was the Burris' equal for the most part. On resolution, they are virtually indistinguishable. I had to spot some tree bark far off in the distance, and compare which scope gave me a crisper view of the edges. The Burris just barely, and I mean barely, edged out the PO. On contrast, the PO edged out the Burris. I attribute that to the coatings on the PO. The scope has a tint (as many Eastern-Bloc nations have on their optics) and it is meant to bring out detail in foliage. The PO is bright, but I'd have to say the Burris is slightly brighter. The PO has a larger field of view than the Burris. It's also noticibly lighter. This is due to the magnesium tube they use. They don't use a one-piece tube design like American optics, they instead drill out the center block, then screw in separate tubes and then pin them. It's crude, it's outdated, but it works, and it's less expensive than cutting a scope tube from a single tube of aluminum using a computer controlled lathe. The scope has five illumination settings. The lower ones are barely visable even at night, which I assume are meant to be used with night vision devices. The brighter settings are perfect for the naked eye, and aren't too bright to harm your natural night vision.The Dragunov reticle is crisp. I'm partial to that reticle. It has the windage mil-marks, The chevrons. And the range-finding slope for ranging man-height targets out to 1,000 yards. Except this model has a second, smaller slope that allows you to range a prone-height target out to 400 yards. A shocker for me was the eye-relief. It is just as long, and maybe a tad bit longer than the eye relief of my Burris. Burris is known to have excellent eye relief too. The clicks are positive. I'd rate them as average. They aren't extremely precise and positive clicks found on optics costing $1,000, nor are they mushy, sluggish, barely positive clicks found on budget scopes.

There was only one negative. It should probably come with a rubber eye piece like many other Soviet optics used to. All scopes suffer from glare and reflection when hit by direct sunlight, but this scope is not usable at all as the eye piece lense glares far too much.

I haven't used the scope on a rifle yet. So the true test is yet to come. I'll be testing repeatability of the clicks, ability to retain zero, and a few other things. But for the momement, this scope is perhaps the best kept secret, the most under-rated scope I've ever seen. For its military features, and excellent optics, it could easily cost $300. If it proves accurate and repeatable, as well as robust -- I'll be buying not one, but a FEW of them for myself. For its price, I can outfit a whole collection of military pattern rifles on a budget.