Late last year, Winchester launched a series of branded products into the shooting and outdoor space. At the top of the list was a comprehensive optics line under the Winchester Supreme Optics name. The entire line is value priced with the goal of providing shooters and hunters on a tight budget with good glass. A great example is their 6-18x50mm riflescope that allows shooters to stretch the distance without breaking the bank.
The most important aspect of any riflescope is the quality of the image itself. For the price point, this 6x18X50 riflescope from Winchester Supreme Optics really shines…quite literally. Light transmission is very good as is the overall image quality.
The image above is taken without digiscoping, just with my phone held up in front of the scope. That means quite a bit of fidelity is lost in translation, but as you can see, it’s pretty good. The road in the center is about half a mile away on a hot, hazy day.
The etched reticle is very simple. A dot surrounded by segmented crosshairs. There are no horizontal or vertical hashes so any holdovers will be a bit of guesswork. That reticle is, however, illuminated and the single center dot has 11 brightness settings (the lowest setting is still too bright for use with night vision). At the highest settings, the red illuminated dot is still very visible even in full Texas sun.
At the bench, I shot a round at 100 yards, ran the turrets every which way, to their extremes a few times, came back to zero and fired another round. The holes touched. A simplified box test at 100 yards also showed that the turrets tracked within the margin of error of the rifle platform the scope was mounted to.
The turrets themselves move well, with solid, tactile clicks with clear stops and starts. There’s aare 70 minutes of vertical adjustment and 30 minutes of windage.
Winchester Supreme Optics advertises the lens coatings are “Winchester WINcoat.” I have no idea what that means and I can’t find it on their website. What really doesn’t help is that, although the website claims WINcoat is trademarked, WinCoat is a company that provides coatings for pharmaceuticals. I’m guessing they’re not the same thing.
They also claim an IPX7 waterproof rating. Dunking the scope in a sink full of water for half an hour proved there’s still truth in advertising. Also, the water didn’t form spots on the glass and slid cleanly off. I assume that’s at least partially the result of whatever is used to coat the lenses.
This scope spent most of its time on a 6mm ARC bolt gun trainer as I was using the time to work up a load for a new barrel, but that wasn’t much of a test of recoil resistance. To better test that, I put the optic on an AR10 platform chambered in 6.5 Creedmoor, a gun I’m having consistent problems with. For some reason, rounds fired in this gun are showing pressure signs (from blown primers to bent firing pins) in rounds that are mid-pressure at most.
Although I’m still unable to diagnose the issue, the 6-18x50mm was on top of the gun for 100 or so rounds shot through it until I gave up. The rifle failed, but the scope didn’t.
There are a few features that have been left off this scope, something that should be unsurprising given its $344 price point. One of those features is a zero stop. Although it’s very easy to reset the turrets to zero with a casing rim, you’ll need to pay close attention to how many times you’ve rotated the dials in order to return back to your original zero.
It’s pretty impressive what these Chinese-made optics can deliver at a very low price. The lack of a zero stop, the very simple reticle, and the second focal plane will keep it out of what most people will want for competitive shooting, but that’s not what most people want a scope for. Clear glass, an illuminated reticle, waterproof and solid performance…the Winchester Supreme Optics 6-18x50mm gives most shooters and hunters a lot of what they want without a massive hit to the pocketbook.
Specifications: Supreme 6-18x50mm Rifle Scope
Focal Plane: Second
Length: 13.8 inches
Weight: 23 ounces
Reticle: Etched, illuminated
Tube Diameter: 30 mm
Waterproof Rating: IPX7 (1m/30min)
Windage Adjustment Range: 70 MOA
Elevation Adjustment Range: 70 MOA
Click Value: .25 MOA
Eye Relief: 3.6 to 4.3 inches
Field of View: 19.2 ft – 6.4 ft
Diopter Compensation: +2/-2.5
Battery: CR2032
Coating Type: Winchester WINcoat
Made In: China
Price: $344.99