Bushnell (Bausch and Lomb) Elite 4200

Product Review

By Bill Wade

In preparing for The 1999 Prairie Dog Conference, I installed a Bushnell Elite 4200 with RainGuard, in 6x24x40 with adjustable objective on my Ruger MKII in 220 Swift.

I have mentioned this scope on the web site under The 220 Swift, but now that the Conference is over, I can tell you how it performs in the field on the intended target.

In a word, Fantastic!

The clarity at which I was able to view the little critters was incredible, at any distance.

I am not going to throw a lot of smoke at you and pretend that I know all about scopes, because I don't. Rifle scope purchases only had to meet 3 criteria for me in the past and in this order:

1) It had to say Bushnell on it somewhere.
2) It had to be the power that I wanted.
3) It had to fit in my budget.

Why Bushnell?

I guess it has been sort of a personal thing. My first scope was a 4x on a rimfire and you guessed it, it was a Bushnell. Kind of strange the way it happened actually. The Glenfield rifle I found under the Christmas tree came with a damaged scope. The retailer took care of the problem by offering me a Bushnell scope in place of the Glenfield scope. Really, here twist my arm. The Bushnell scope looked much better in appearance and I figured it probably carried on to the internal workings as well.

That was nearly 30 years ago. I am usually one to leave a sleeping dog lie. I have owned and still own several Bushnell scopes and only had one defective one surface in all these years. They work, plain and simple. I have tried other brands and ended up back at Bushnell.

Now granted, the Elite, is a totally different class of scope, I like the company they keep.

OK, so what about this scope?

The adjustable objective, incremented in yards and meters, could almost be used as a rangefinder, and that is the way I used it.

During the Conference, the objective lens basically remained set at 200 yards but when the dogs were much beyond that, they became a little fuzzy. Simply cranking the objective on up towards 300-yard mark brought them into focus. The infinity setting, above 300 yards, also proved useful on dogs beyond 300 yards. Not that I killed any out there, but at least I could see them and scare heck out of them.

The windage and elevation knobs are not exposed but when uncapped, can easily be adjusted without tools. The markings are quite visible and can be returned to original positions easily. The Adjustment Scale Ring can be set to zero, also without tools. The 6x24 has 1/8 inch increments.

The Multi-x reticle is sharp and clear and is not affected by bright light. In fact the reticle takes on a different hue in bright light, keeping it sharp and clear.