I disagree. You are buying a very good, well made rifle. Putting a cheap, low-end scope on it makes no sense. If Savage is only charging you $50 for the scope, then what do you think they paid for it? About $25 bucks wholesale, that's what. You get what you pay for.
The Stevens is inexpensive, and considered an economy weapon, yet you say it is a very good well made rifle. Do you also get what you pay for here?
Yet you call the Bushnell cheap and low end because it is $50.
Back to the $285 price on the gun itself, I wonder how much Savage has into that?
No logic here.
Find the retail price on the scope. If it is cheaper to buy the package, than do it. If not, buy the rifle and get a scope that tickles your fancy.
Stevens are good rifles. Bushnells are good scopes.
There is plenty of logic here.
The Savage 110 and variations on the theme like the Stevens 200 deliver performance that rivals anything else on the market in terms of accuracy, reliability, durability, and ergonomics. It also has features, advantages, and benefits that more expensive rifles don't have. Nicholas Brewer designed an accurate, safe, strong action that required minimal tedious hand-fitting to produce, and didn't require highly skilled labor to make. You can pretty much slap a Savage 110 together and the result from the end user's perspective will leave little to complain about.
In other words, the combination of features, advanatages, and benefits of the Savage 110 and its variations makes it an attractive choice IN SPITE of its low-ball price.
In contrast, the low-end Bushnell scopes found on "package guns" DO NOT offer performance that rivals more expensive models. They do not have any features, advantages, or benefits that make them a more attractive choice than any similar product meant to perform the same funtion. There is nothing notable or novel in their design or construction, nor do they represent any genius of engineering or design. They're just expensive "action weights," in my view.
Bushnell do make some very nice scopes. In fact, I believe that where "bang for the buck" is concerned, some of their models are very, very hard to beat. I am particularly fond of the 4 X 12 A.O. Sportsman that many Walmarts sell for about $70.00. I use them on adult spring piston air rifles that are harder on scopes, due to double-snap recoil, than most deer rifles could ever hope to be. I use them for upland game bird hunting in California, where taking quail, chukar, and turkey with air rifles is legal. And in this hunting, I use them situations that are more demanding, on average, than what I face when deer hunting. I'm picking out bluish-grey quail, hiding in the bluish-grey shadow cast by dead blueish-grey desert scrub in the grey light of the pre-dawn, and I need a certain level of light transmission and optical clarity to do that, because I need to a clear picture of the target plus anything that might divert the pellet from hitting it. I use them in the High Desert, where a hunt might start with a temp of 17 degrees in the morning and rise to 80 or more in the afternoon. It is a dusty environment, and a rugged one, with rifle and scope getting bounced to hell in the back of my Jeep for mile on end, traveling rough tracks between hunt areas. They've proven durable, I find the optical quality to be surprisingly and have no complaints. In fact, I bought a Beeman R-9 Goldfinger that came with a Bushnell Banner 4-12 A.O. that is USELESS in the field because of its optical flare and I replaced it with one of the previously mentioned WallyWorld Sportsmans, which I am totally satisfied with.
So I am not anti-Bushnell. I use many of their products and think that most provide excellent performance, which in some cases, like their Elite Series scopes, is pretty much world class and equal to anything else out there, regardless of price.
The Steven 200 is a good rifle. Most Bushnells are good scopes. Some, however, like those used on "package guns," simply aren't.
-JP
