I recently purchased two brand new Bushnell Elite Tactical 1-6.5X24 SMRS scopes with the FFP BTR-1 reticle. They arrived yesterday in the mail.

I was very quickly disappointed. With one scope, the reticle illumination was DOA. I tried several brands of brand new CR2032 batteries that I had, but the illumination would not turn on or otherwise function. I tried swapping the battery cap from one scope to the other with no effect.

The second scope had issues with the reticle illumination as well. It worked, but on any setting above medium, there were 15-20 little red spots that illuminated in the sight picture as well. It looks like dust or debris inside of the scope itself. Picture looking up at the stars at night, and that's what it looked like.

This thread is not to badmouth or shit talk the Bushnell Elite Tactical line. I own a couple of other Elite Tactical scopes, and they have been excellent. Based on that experience, I decided to purchase these two. I was surprised by the issues, and disappointed as well. They are made by Light Optical Works in Japan, which in my experience turns out some really great optics.

Bushnell customer service has a very spotty reputation prior to 2016. Thy now carry a warranty very similar to Vortex or Sig Sauer Optics- no receipt, no warranty card needed, fully transferable to any owner, your fault or not, etc.

I just sent both scopes back to Bushnell tonight for warranty service. It will probably be several weeks before I hear anything back. Since both scopes are new, I'm hoping Bushnell will replace both, but we'll see.

Have any of you had issues with the Elite Tactical line of scopes before? If so, how was Bushnell's warranty service?

I have used bushnell elite warranty twice.  I have a 1-6.5 that I used for about 2 years before returning because the 1x appeared much more like .85x. They repaired and returned no questions asked in about 3 weeks.  The other was a 1.25-4 that had the reticle turn inside the optic.  Also about 3 weeks it was back in hand. Both of these were over two years ago.  I wouldn't take any bushnell other than elite line if it was given to me, but I am a real fan of the elites.  I have the 1.25-4, 3 of the 1-6.5s, a 3-12, a 3.5-24, and several 3-9 hunting optics.  Good value, really good glass.

I returned an elite 10x last summer and it took about 3-4 weeks but was quite painless . Dont expect alot of communication  I got an e-mail saying they had recieved the scope and the techs would look at it and then the next day the scope showed up with a list of things repaired .

Same here, I agree completely. I found the Elite line to give you very good glass and features for the money. More so than a lot of other companies scopes. While not the very best, the Elites almost cannot be beat in terms of value. Just my opinion of course.

Good to hear that the warranty process seems to have been pretty painless and efficient.

I was really surprised with these two scopes. I could not believe that both had issues right out of the box. I wouldn't have guessed that in a million years just based solely on my experiences with my other Elite Tactical scopes. But it happens, and it sounds like Bushnell will take care of it.

This has not been my month for optics, I tell you. I had to send a pair of Steiner 10X42 R Tactical binos back. New in box, they had two black specks near the reticle. Steiner sent me a new pair and they are flawless. I just sent my Nikon spotting scope back. The eye piece retaining pin broke. Now the two Bushnell scopes are in the mail going back.

Prior to that, in the last 15 years of owning any type of optic, I've never once had to send one back.

Just wanted to update this thread. I sent both scopes back to Bushnell, and they received them on 2/2/17. As of today, the repair status on both is showing "Replacement item on order"

One thing that I did notice is that the 1-6.5X24 model I sent back is no longer listed on their website. Bushnell came out with a new 1-6.5X24 scope this year at SHOT Show, so I'm not sure if I will be getting the old model or the brand new model as replacements for the two scopes I sent in.

When I receive the replacements, I'll update again.

I just sent my 1-6.5 Tactical SFP in,  the reticle was flickering and couldn't see the reticle in daytime because it was so dim on highest setting.  

I hope they send a gen 2.  For that matter would mind if they cut me a deal on the 1-8.5.

Shipped 3/6
Arrived  3/7

we shall see .

Please keep us posted on your outcome.

I've owned both the FFP and SFP Bushnell 1-6x scopes.  I was generally dissatisfied with the FFP.  The brightness was not...bright., and the reticle all but disappeared at 1x.  I found that if I was far enough away to hold over, I was far enough away to be on 6.5x.  I shot one match with it and bought a SFP.  It's been great, and the illumination is much better.

Yeah, the FFP wasn't my first choice, but I got these for $500 each new. That made the choice to go FFP easier

I figured I'd try them out and if I absolutely didn't like the FFP version, I could easily get my money back out of them.

From what I can tell, the Gen II 1-6.5 only comes with the BTR-2 reticle in SPF only. That seems to have been the most popular combo that people chose with the first gen. The Gen II looks like a great scope.

Bushnell received my scopes on 2/2, and I got confirmation of receipt on 2/10. On 2/24, I received notification that replacements were on order. That's were they are still at on 3/9.

UPDATE 3/27

I called Bushnell customer service last Monday to check on the status of my two warranty claims. The status online for both just showed "replacement item on order", but gave no ETA. The guy I spoke with said that he would try to figure out what was going on and call me later that day. I never heard back from him.

So that Friday, I called again. I spoke with a different person that time, and they said that they would check with the original guy that assisted me and call me later that day. Again, I never heard back from them. Just to be sure, we verified that they had the correct phone number both times before hanging up.

I was a little irritated with Bushnell for the lack of communication, as they have had my scopes for almost two months at this point.

I called them again this morning and spoke with a woman this time, and she totally kicked ass! I wish that I had dealt with her from the get go, because she was super helpful.

So this is the story I got: The tech that inspected my returned scopes recommended that both be replaced, and he recommended that Bushnell send me two ET18524 scopes, which are the 1-8.5X24 scopes. The issue was that they are on backorder until mid September 2017! While that would have been an awesome upgrade, there were two problems with that- first, the 6 month wait time and secondly the 1-8.5X24 has a 34mm tube, and I would have had to purchase two new scope mounts.

I kindly told her thanks, but I couldn't wait that long; so she told me to bring up the Bushnell catalog on my computer and we would find a suitable replacement for my two scopes that were in stock. I asked her if the ET1626 was available, and it was, so she changed the order and both of the new scopes shipped out today.

The ET1626 is the brand new 1-6.5X24 SMRS scope that Bushnell introduced at SHOT Show earlier this year. It features the BTR2 reticle in SPF, has the larger adjustment knobs like the 1-8.5, and has a built in throw lever on the magnification ring.

Needless to say, I am very happy with the whole deal. I will definitely like the BTR2 reticle in SFP over the BTR1 in FFP that my original scopes had. Given that I paid $500 each for them, and received brand new scopes with all of the current updates that sell for $1200-$1400 each, I feel that I came out ahead by a lot.

Here is a stock photo of the new ET1626. I'll post some actual pics once the scopes arrive Friday and I get them mounted up.

Attached File

My new scopes arrived earlier today, and are excellent! Here are some pics-











I mounted one on my Tavor X95, and the other on my POF P415

Sucks you had to go through that, but that is some customer service !

Yeah, it wasn't too bad. I expected a 6-8 week turn around. I am definitely happy with the new scopes though.

maybe I missed it, but did Bushnell update the illumination on these?

They seem feature packed, just lacking daylight bright illum. Glad to see they took care of you

I would say that the reticle illumination on the new ones is bright enough for daylight use. I took some pics of the reticle just a few minutes ago. It's 10:30am where I'm at, bright and sunny outside.

I took these pics off of my back porch, with the illumination set to the brightest setting. I had to hold a rifle with one hand, and my cell phone with the other, so the quality of the photos isn't the greatest. But you can clearly see the level of illumination.

I tried to get some different lighting scenarios pictured- bright are looking into dark area, and vice versa.