On The Subject Of See Thrus

Dating from a bygone era when affordable telescopic sights could not be trusted under all conditions, see thru mounts should have died when scopes became watertight, nitrogen filled, and reliable...

"See Thru" mounts are a miserable compromise that create more problems than they solve, a handicap the box or two a year rifleman inflicts upon himself.  Their high sight line make it hard to shoot comfortably and quickly with the primary sight - the scope. They prevent a proper cheek weld which slows things down and introduces parallax error by the bucketful. The further from the bore line the greater the leverage recoil applies to the base screws, mount screws, and scope which tends to loosen everything, actually increasing your chances of having a "scope problem". When a fella goes to re-tighten the screws he finds the steel screws tend to strip threads of the see thru's soft alloy extrusions.  For some reason see thrus are routinely used to hold $50 3-9x no name scopes, which introduce another set of undesirable and unpredictable variables.  Ironically, all these flaws merge to create a nasty stew thant serves to reinforce the 50 year old notion that scopes are both slow and unreliable, so a fella needs see thru mounts to have immediate access to his backup sights.


The hunter who thinks old school see thrus are the hot setup really ought to try a moderately priced scope mounted as low on the action as possible in basic Weaver bases and rings.  These days there is no variable power rifle scope worth owning that costs less than $129, the Redfield Revolution 2-7x, designed, manufactured, and serviced (if necessary) by Leupold.  He'll become much happier very quickly.