P.L.A don't even use Chinese Scopes

I know that Chinese scopes get a bad reputation, but maybe it is deserved if even their own Army and Police force do not use Chinese made optics.

I've linked an interesting article and although it's 5 years old and things may have changed, back in 2015 the PLA and Chinese Police used Swarovski and Kahles scopes.

"The Chinese military and law enforcement agencies have been using a small number of Swarovski and Kahles scopes on their semi-auto and bolt-action precision rifles. The difference is that the Kahles they have been using were the Helica series of hunting scopes."

https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/...taiwan-strait/

Could it be the PLA are using Chinese knockoffs of those scopes? Trying real hard not to think this, but that pesky intrusive thought just stays there and makes itself at home.

Yeah you can buy ... to quote the salesman... "almost genuine" Swarovski in Beijing :)

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Originally Posted by vulcannz

Yeah you can buy ... to quote the salesman... "almost genuine" Swarovski in Beijing :)

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Hahaha, they must have gotten better over the years, used to see hilarious Leupold knock-offs where every scope had the same serial number!

That being said, the Chinese can make serious gear when they want to... supposedly their SVD's and AK's are some of the best according to Americans.

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Originally Posted by vulcannz

Yeah you can buy ... to quote the salesman... "almost genuine" Swarovski in Beijing :)

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With a slight correction to, "a genuine copy" it becomes grammatically and factually correct.

His english wasn't that good. Scored seem really decent torches off him though.

so...if Mr. Chinaman takes said kahles scope and reverse engineers it...copies it ALMOST completely perfectly but say changes the turret caps and puts hexagonal ones on for sake of being different so copywrite doesn't apply....IF build quality and glass clarity is up there.sells them as Chinabrand for $399...who is the looser again???
if the glass is nearly as good and the ruggedness is better.....doesnt someone make scopes you can use as a hammer without killing them??? again who is looser???
once upon a time folks bagged Japanese built items.....then they were considered up there with the best quality wise...now some of the brands once considered reliable are chinese /korean made and quality is dropping.....one of these days we will get a 1.5-12x scope with good glass that wont die and hunters will be happy...BUT manufacturers wont sell many as it wont die so last a lifetime.

For the most part we generally know the quality range of scopes coming from different countries ie there is an actual difference between these countries in terms of quality.

Don't expect a Chinese made scope to hold up as well as a Japanese, American or European made scope, nor will the glass be as clear and it's not going to track as well either...I think the PLA realized this after testing the local Chinese optics.

However these days it's very difficult to call an optic 'European', 'American', 'Japanese' etc, after knowing that many optics companies are nothing more than a design firm or marketing firm in Europe or USA which gets what they want made in Asia to their specs. It can be said that even with top-end brands, there is not one European or USA scope manufacturer that does not outsource some part of their scope.. heck even Leupold use Japanese lens.

You never know you might be lucky.
Dad brought a rolex watch for $2 in Bancock. 25 years later its still working perfectly. Some of the gold has worn off though.

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Originally Posted by Brian

You never know you might be lucky.
Dad brought a rolex watch for $2 in Bancock. 25 years later its still working perfectly. Some of the gold has worn off though.

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Reminds me of a mate who named his pig dog 'Rolex'...

Cuz when he wasn't out in the bush being a pig dog, he was at home being a 'watchdog' :thumbsup:

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Originally Posted by Micky Duck

so...if Mr. Chinaman takes said kahles scope and reverse engineers it...copies it ALMOST completely perfectly but say changes the turret caps and puts hexagonal ones on for sake of being different so copywrite doesn't apply....IF build quality and glass clarity is up there.sells them as Chinabrand for $399...who is the looser again???
if the glass is nearly as good and the ruggedness is better.....doesnt someone make scopes you can use as a hammer without killing them??? again who is looser???
once upon a time folks bagged Japanese built items.....then they were considered up there with the best quality wise...now some of the brands once considered reliable are chinese /korean made and quality is dropping.....one of these days we will get a 1.5-12x scope with good glass that wont die and hunters will be happy...BUT manufacturers wont sell many as it wont die so last a lifetime.

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Yes, I remember the smirk when people referred to "Made in Japan", not so any more. I do wonder if that derision was deserved considering the build quality of my 1932 Arisaka. Some of it surely was racism, in a time period when Japanese were caricatured as slant eyed, short sighted, little people with bucked teeth. Such erroneous thinking lead to spectacular mistakes, cf. the ends of the battleship HMS Prince of Wales and the cruiser HMS Repulse.

"Made in Hong Kong" later took over the derision niche, since then "Made in HK" has become "Made in China". The quality is the entire spectrum.

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Originally Posted by Micky Duck

so...if Mr. Chinaman takes said kahles scope and reverse engineers it...copies it ALMOST completely perfectly but say changes the turret caps and puts hexagonal ones on for sake of being different so copywrite doesn't apply....IF build quality and glass clarity is up there.sells them as Chinabrand for $399...who is the looser again???
if the glass is nearly as good and the ruggedness is better.....doesnt someone make scopes you can use as a hammer without killing them??? again who is looser???
once upon a time folks bagged Japanese built items.....then they were considered up there with the best quality wise...now some of the brands once considered reliable are chinese /korean made and quality is dropping.....one of these days we will get a 1.5-12x scope with good glass that wont die and hunters will be happy...BUT manufacturers wont sell many as it wont die so last a lifetime.

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Trouble is though, there is now a pervasive mindset within China that if you cheat someone for a profit, so long as they remain naive, you were the smart one who came out good.

The Chinese people love Donald Trump to bits, I thought his mindset was very Cantonese (openly fleece everyone you can,but deny all wrongdoing).

Unlike the Japanese there is no 'fall on your sword and rip your own guts out before dishonour' mentality left among the Chinese.

In the 70's and 80's many of the successful bushiness people in China got their start by being absolutely ruthless to their fellow countrymen and women (basically wage slavery) and are no enjoying their big houses overseas with Swiss bank accounts and Western University educated children. There is no real religion left in China as it has been replaced by success and money.

If they are making a commercial product and can cut corners to make a cost saving, it will be done unless the customer specs prevent it.

There is a reason why 'Chinesium' is a recognised term! The stuff tends to be passed off as metal/aluminium and is used in everything from scope mounts to car wheels/rims!

Many firms operating in China employ Western looking people who can secretly speak Mandarin + dialects in order to pick up on if there is any dodgy stuff going on behind the scenes.

Scandals such as recycling old/waste oil and using it for cooking, the melamine in milk, etc. all massive cons.

Does not help when SARS,Bird and Swine Flu and now CV19 have come out of China too!

And this a rant is coming from someone who is partly of Chinese ethnicity :ORLY:

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Originally Posted by caberslash

If they are making a commercial product and can cut corners to make a cost saving, it will be done unless the customer specs prevent it.

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Isn't that called capitalism?

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Originally Posted by eamars

Isn't that called capitalism?

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The technical term for that is "shrinkflation" and while someone is temporarily attaining capital in terms of dollars, they are simultaneously destroying capital (the brand)

Which has been business 101 for decades, though we appear to have run out of value to strip and have borrowed against brands while gutting them.

Not capitalism to speak of. Capitalism will be along shortly to clean up the mess.

A free trade agreement with cleptomaniac communist reverse engineers is flat out the nuttiest piece of foreign policy anyone ever came up with.

The quality in a scope can't be copied. You need to be able to run a company of artisans and that is a cultural issue. NZ could not make them either. Think Remlin.

I have wondered for years why China,Russia etc have not reversed engineered Trijicon type sights & Red dots for use in their Military after all these years of them falling into the other sides hands,even the Russian special forces use American sights .

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Originally Posted by bunji

I have wondered for years why China,Russia etc have not reversed engineered Trijicon type sights & Red dots for use in their Military after all these years of them falling into the other sides hands,even the Russian special forces use American sights .

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They probably just buy them online like everyone else.

They just know quality when they see it, and know the Capitalists will sell it to them, even if it has to go through an intermediary, to cleanse it so to speak.

Many years ago was helping pull mines out of the ground in places like Cambodia and Mozambique. One nasty little Chinese mine was a A pers mine known as a type 72b. It had an anti disturbance circuit built into it. You would open the mine up and what was staring back at you? a silicone chip with the 'M' of Motorola stamped on it. They would sell their grandmother if there was a buck to be made:pissed off:

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Originally Posted by bunji

I have wondered for years why China,Russia etc have not reversed engineered Trijicon type sights & Red dots for use in their Military after all these years of them falling into the other sides hands,even the Russian special forces use American sights .

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Well they did try and produce a local rifle scope. Going off the article linked:

"The Chinese Army's QBU-88 rifle did use a Chinese made scope (Chinese copy based on a Swarovski optical design from the 1990s), but it's no longer being made since its manufacturer, Pearl River Optronic, went out of business a couple years back."

Makes you wonder how a company can go out of business with a government contract to supply close to 2 million scopes! (PLA's total manpower around 2 million).

Maybe the Chinese company's marketing department shouldn't have offered their 'no questions asked lifetime scope warranty' to the military :D

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Originally Posted by Hermitage

I know that Chinese scopes get a bad reputation, but maybe it is deserved if even their own Army and Police force do not use Chinese made optics.

I've linked an interesting article and although it's 5 years old and things may have changed, back in 2015 the PLA and Chinese Police used Swarovski and Kahles scopes.

"The Chinese military and law enforcement agencies have been using a small number of Swarovski and Kahles scopes on their semi-auto and bolt-action precision rifles. The difference is that the Kahles they have been using were the Helica series of hunting scopes."

https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/...taiwan-strait/

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if they buy "a small number of Swarovski and Kahles scopes", and knowing they have the largest army and police force by head count in the whole world, wouldn't that necessitate the implication that the rest, which is the vast majority of their army and police, do not use Khale and Swarovski?

The same argument in your title can be applied to Americans too. Some American police force and special forces use S&B and maybe Khales. recently the US Marine is looking at using The SMASH scope, an Israeli outfit. Does this mean the US army does not even trust US scopes?

New Zealand too makes various firearm parts. Am I right in saying that no New Zealand firearm part marker has a current contract with New Zealand military or police? does that may what we produce are sub-standard and not worth using? surely it would not mean that.

Different applications demand different grade of gear. There is no denial that Khales is better than any Chinese brand so where there is critical application, using important superior gear is warranted. But it does not mean for less critical applications lesser gear cannot or is not used.

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Originally Posted by Ultimitsu

if they buy "a small number of Swarovski and Kahles scopes", and knowing they have the largest army and police force by head count in the whole world, wouldn't that necessitate the implication that the rest, which is the vast majority of their army and police, do not use Khale and Swarovski?

The same argument in your title can be applied to Americans too. Some American police force and special forces use S&B and maybe Khales. recently the US Marine is looking at using The SMASH scope, an Israeli outfit. Does this mean the US army does not even trust US scopes?

New Zealand too makes various firearm parts. Am I right in saying that no New Zealand firearm part marker has a current contract with New Zealand military or police? does that may what we produce are sub-standard and not worth using? surely it would not mean that.

Different applications demand different grade of gear. There is no denial that Khales is better than any Chinese brand so where there is critical application, using important superior gear is warranted. But it does not mean for less critical applications lesser gear cannot or is not used.

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Plus the simple reality China specialises in reverse engineering and bulk production.

They make junk, in vast, subsidised quantities. Culturally, high quality production is something they have no tradition of.

^^ Eh?? You serious?? They don't make Nukes, Fighter jets (even the Israeli's stole the plans to theirs), have a space programme, invented gun powder (admittedly a coupla thousand years ago) etc etc. Cultural blindness (thats the polite term, some might be a bit blunt and call it racism) makes for dangerous under-estimation of adversaries . . . .

The Chinese are famous for making inferior rubbish items

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Originally Posted by Ultimitsu

if they buy "a small number of Swarovski and Kahles scopes", and knowing they have the largest army and police force by head count in the whole world, wouldn't that necessitate the implication that the rest, which is the vast majority of their army and police, do not use Khale and Swarovski?

The same argument in your title can be applied to Americans too. Some American police force and special forces use S&B and maybe Khales. recently the US Marine is looking at using The SMASH scope, an Israeli outfit. Does this mean the US army does not even trust US scopes?

New Zealand too makes various firearm parts. Am I right in saying that no New Zealand firearm part marker has a current contract with New Zealand military or police? does that may what we produce are sub-standard and not worth using? surely it would not mean that.

Different applications demand different grade of gear. There is no denial that Khales is better than any Chinese brand so where there is critical application, using important superior gear is warranted. But it does not mean for less critical applications lesser gear cannot or is not used.

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Looks like you didn't read the article or my post above yours that outlines how the PLA did use a Chinese made 3-9x but the company went out of business (quality control issues?).

The fact is that for every one Chinese company that is slowing improving it's product quality, there are probably 10 out there that are still cutting corners and there are probably another 10 new companies coming into the market by cutting even more corners.

China has not been able to shake off the shackles of low-quality manufacturing because they do have embarrassingly poor quality control issues.

The biggest problem I see with most Chinese scopes is a high return rate/high defect rate, and to achieve low return rates usually requires the optics company to self-manage quality control on site at the Chinese factory. And the on site quality control team have to work 24/7, as even good quality on one model scope line doesn't guarantee good quality on another line.

The image below can be used for rifle scopes as well....

Attachment 155020

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Originally Posted by Paddy79

The Chinese are famous for making inferior rubbish items

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The chinese will make whatever you want. You can spec your goods high or spec them low.

A lot of "high quality stuff" is made in China and has a brand sticker slapped on it.

before we rubbish chines goods, most of you are viewing you on a chinese made product. bets its more reliable than the kiwi made tv's etc we had in the 70-80's. pay good money from the chinese and you get good product

now i think the CCP is an evil empire, but the chinese people are a damn good bunch. the issue lays that most people choose price over quality. you want a cctv system for $400 then go for it. a security system for $200 go for it.
they will be crap

and my last lines of text disappeared !


you get what you pay for, from china and from a reputable dealer you can get great stuff. my BSA scope is bloody awesome, a wristwatch i bought from ali lasted 5 years and kept great time

its all a case of caveat emptor

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Originally Posted by gonetropo

and my last lines of text disappeared !


you get what you pay for, from china and from a reputable dealer you can get great stuff. my BSA scope is bloody awesome, a wristwatch i bought from ali lasted 5 years and kept great time

its all a case of caveat emptor

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But that's the problem...China is the kingdom of "caveat emptor".
The buyer who doesn't beware faces a daily gamut of frustration and disappointment with substandard purchases — clothes unraveling in the first wash, lids not fitting pots and pans, and kitchen gadgets exploding as soon as they're switched on are as frequent as the scandals involving substandard and often toxic milk powder, food and medicines.

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Originally Posted by gonetropo

pay good money from the chinese and you get good product

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No you don't...you still need your own quality control on site.
You can call it one of the paradoxes of modern industry: there are many multinational companies that have built global empires by contracting out manufacturing to companies in China. And these multinationals are selling the Chinese made consumer goods generally without cutting corners or letting quality standards slip because they have their own quality control teams in the factory. Yet Chinese firms aren't replicating that success in China itself....there the quality control is substandard and the products are poor....just ask any avg Chinese consumer.

My sis has a factory in China cranking out product. They bent over backwards to ensure QC was up to par, went as far as bringing the Factory manager over here, and his 2IC's, showing them around, arranging for their only son to get an entire Western secondary school education here in NZ at a top end school...the list goes on. After five years the manager did the dirty on them, quality slipped and he did them in the eye for 2 mil. It took going over there and bribing the already bribed with bigger money, and hiring nastier thugs than he had, to get it all sorted.

As lots have already said: Caveat emptor

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Originally Posted by Tussock

A free trade agreement with kleptomaniac communist reverse engineers is flat out the nuttiest piece of foreign policy anyone ever came up with.

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This.

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Originally Posted by Paddy79

The Chinese are famous for making inferior rubbish items

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Yeah they do, but they also play the long game. Something we need to start doing. Our society is too hooked on short term gain.

Sent from my SM-G390Y using Tapatalk

Wow; this is scary stuff, like something out of a dystopian novel.... Imagine if the SS, Gestapo, Stasi, KGB had been able to do this........... And the report is from France 24 a legit, reliable news source. and to think how much we rely on China. They have certainly played the "long game" to gain control. No; I'm not a conspiracy theorist!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXyzpMDtpSE

China plans to rule the world one way or another and the may well just if countries continue to rely on them for trade as heavily as we ourselves do.

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Originally Posted by bumblefoot

Wow; this is scary stuff, like something out of a dystopian novel.... Imagine if the SS, Gestapo, Stasi, KGB had been able to do this........... And the report is from France 24 a legit, reliable news source. and to think how much we rely on China. They have certainly played the "long game" to gain control. No; I'm not a conspiracy theorist!

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Actually that's kind of old news, it kicked off about 6 years ago.

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Originally Posted by Tentman

^^ Eh?? You serious?? They don't make Nukes, Fighter jets (even the Israeli's stole the plans to theirs), have a space programme, invented gun powder (admittedly a coupla thousand years ago) etc etc. Cultural blindness (thats the polite term, some might be a bit blunt and call it racism) makes for dangerous under-estimation of adversaries . . . .

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Are you suggesting that China does not have a unique culture?

OLD POST I KNOW BUT IT PISSED IN MY GRAVY JUG SO I REPLIED...

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Originally Posted by Brian

You never know you might be lucky.
Dad brought a rolex watch for $2 in Bancock. 25 years later its still working perfectly. Some of the gold has worn off though.

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Originally Posted by Steve123

Yeah they do, but they also play the long game. Something we need to start doing. Our society is too hooked on short term gain.

Sent from my SM-G390Y using Tapatalk

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Bingo!!!! On the button son.... China don't have elections.... they're in the middle of a western Consumer colonization program.. They knew that if they made shoes, clothes, and high volume parts and strategically important items cheaper than what the west could for 30 to 40 years. That the skills and knowledge of the western world would be lost!!! Now that the western societies no longer have Taylor's and Cobblers factories or the people with real tradesmen skills and real life transferable knowledge....
I know how to rebuild starters and Alternators, machine, test,and assembl
them to last and give great service.... But I can't buy the repair kits anymore. A new genuine CAT Delco starter is $5k and will last for 8000 hrs.
A Chinese copy lasts??? HRS and costs thousands less..... The real kick in ya Principles is that the NZ taxpayers paid for my Trade training in government built polytechnics full of English lathes vices welders and books full of information and amazing knowledge. We sharpened drill bits made drill gauges and lathe tools. Learnt about electricity and let me tell you something!!!! Electricity hasn't changed since!!! Just how much deception can be designed into making impossible to repair the items that use it... Our biggest problem and downfall is that we have no desire to protect ourselves from the desires of other countries....

that was discussed on Telly last night...about TV sets getting sunspots, the glue lets go ad drops spots on light bits...... seen it in car that gets too hot and glue melts,actually got pair of earmuffs so hot the hot glue gun repair melted off...so can believe it is the reason....
so long game plan......now we dont make cloths or shoes ourselves,whats the plan???? bump the price back up,just make shitty so needs replaced often,or just pull the plug so we are barefoot and nudie???

Being Chinese myself, I doubt that the PLA is willing to share information on brand and model of their weapons with the rest of the internet.

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Originally Posted by Tussock

Culturally, high quality production is something they have no tradition of.

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Eh?

The people of China have made some great things over the years.

Take a look at their pottery.

Or all the ornaments the Brits nicked from China during the Opium wars, half that shit is probably sitting in the V&A in London.

https://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/china

The question is not what's their long game.? BELT AND ROAD! anyone?
We need to get OUR long game sorted! We've seen what happens when you take away the time, you take away the opportunity to build prepare and educate yourself to be ready for any and all situations that may arise!!!

Instead of gazing outwards in hope of seeing the answers. Look inwardly for solutions to any of your weaknesses and get busy with robust solutions that will help not hinder your foundations....