Well it finally got the better of me. I wanted to see what the quality was like so I ordered some counterfeit "Spuhr" mounts from China.
I would like to support the OEM's of the products I buy, but Spuhr haven't done themselves any favours.
Yes their product is superb. Flawless. In the factory, the machines are loaded up with barstock, the lights are turned off and everyone goes home for the night and comes back in the morning to a bin full of shiny new scope mounts. This is probably an oversimplification.
There's no labour intensive skilled operators at work here, it's about buying good machinery, having capable operators and programmers and using good materials. Ordinarily this type of production results in savings to the buyers, especially when mass produced in the numbers Shuhr makes. Not so with Spuhr. I have been buying Spuhr mounts for years, Model 3002 - 30mm ring, 1.5" high, 0 moa cant. At $525 on the Spuhr Aust website. they are barely cheaper than the newer low volume mounts, so the economies of scale and amortisation of development costs don't exist . IMO, Spuhr are taking the piss and my money.
So the Chinese make a copy of the model SP3002. It's available on Alibaba for about Aud $72 delivered and it's got to be crap right.
There are YouTube videos out there that disparage them as useless junk. One luminary found that the colour of the mount and screws were not an exact match, the spirit level was green, not clear, the metal was inferior (he could tell by the feel, despite the fact that he was feeling the paint), and the font in the engraving was slightly different. Convincing stuff that must lead to disaster. Nobody has actually bothered to do any meaningful research that I could find.
I have had two versions of the mount for a few weeks. SP 3002 and SP3004 (the 2" high version) Also $525 v's $89 delivered for the Chinese version.
Both mounts come in a plain box, with a levelling wedge and a full set of replacement screws. There are no visible tool marks of any kind, the paint is flawless. The are some minor machining differences, e.g. bolt holes recessed differently, different chamfers, less distinct font engraving, no instructions, but almost identical. You won't know without a genuine one beside to compare against.
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In the photos above, the genuine mount is on left
I purchased these from SKW Optics.
https://www.aliexpress.com/store/1100570257.
I don't know whether they are better or worse than any other Chinese company or even if they actually make the mount, but they do exhibit at defence trade shows which gives me some reassurance that their products are not total junk. Conversations with the store owner have been good and he continually contacted me with delivery updates.
Freight is a bit tricky. The mount is a firearm part in China so they cannot be exported. but they can, there are just a few tricky work arounds. I used PayPal because of the money back guarantee. Delivery was a couple of weeks.
I have not fitted them yet as I wanted to be sure the rings were aligned and they were not going to stress my scope. So my latest toy is a Scope Ring Alignment Verification Tool from Armaments by Design
https://armamentsbydesign.com.au/store/ ... ol-type-a/
Using this tool I can confirm the genuine Spuhr is aligned perfectly, as are the Chinese copies. Shown below is the SP3004 Chinese copy and the collar slides easily between the two bars.
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This is not a recommendation, it is just what I have found.
Pete