Soviet Bazaar PNS 4.6x52 Review

Overall Rating

Excellent picture. Fits pretty much any rifle. HTH-204 illuminator has awesome range.

Shots far too low, even on maximum adjustment of elevation control.

I don't have any problems with rats, I just like paper target shooting in the dark!
I bought a really cheap, second-hand PN-1 riflescope from http://www.airpistol.co.uk/ which kept me happy for almost two weeks until I got fed up with its archaic zeroing system.
Enter the Soviet Bazaar PNS 4.6x52. It arrived as promised 2 working days after ordering from Soviet Bazaar. At first I ordered a reconditioned PNS but changed my mind and amended the order by phone to a new one as it came with full 12 month warranty and wasn't that much more expensive than the reconditioned model. (the price of the recon was £199 on the advert, £219 when added to basket...?)
When I opened the package, it exceeded my expectations considerably. The advert didn't mention that the sight came with a free HTH-204 illuminator which normally sells at £78, nor did they mention that the sight itself takes cheap and common 9v PP3 batteries (the web spec only mentioned the expensive CR123 cells required by the unmentioned HTH-204 illuminator.)
When I fisrt mounted the sight on my Crosman 2260, at 20 yards (indoors,) my shots were firing wildly low and to the right. The windage controls managed to easily adjust to perfect horizontal accuracy but even when fully lowered, the elevation was about 2 feet low (at 20 yards!) The solution was to insert two credit card thickness shims between the scope and the mounts at the rear of the sight to give the correct angle for accurate sightage. Maybe I'm missing something but without these shims, the sight would have been completely useless for anything more than 10 feet away!
However, with minimal tweaking I'm able to hit 20 yard targets with groupings of about 2 inches. Pretty good for me who's not a very good shot even in daylight.

Members' Comments onwatty2000's Review

• michael thorpe on 7th Sep 2004

  Well mate, I got to tell you that most air rifle barels do shoot low, and if you fit a proper rifle scope on an air rifle most times the only way to get the hight is to jack up the rear mount
  as you found out the hard way, however, you got a gen one scope so you won't get much out of it there about 30 years old now, but new for us as the price was very hight a few years agow try lighting up your target a littel say a five watt lamp from a car will be a lot, and you will get a fair sight pitcher then but it will still trail off at the sides that's gen one for you, still good fun "A" mike.t

• thenoname on 18th Feb 2005

  Go to www.chambersgunmakers.co.uk and you can get a scope rail that elevates. I got one for my King Ratcatcher and HW97 and they work great. Although they are about £35 a peace.

• hawaiiratkiller on 3rd May 2005

  "Maybe I'm missing something but without these shims, the sight would have been completely useless for anything more than 10 feet away!"
  
  Like everyone has said...get an adjustable mount!
  
  Also, isnt a NVRS scope "useless" anyway when youre just paper punching at night? Why didnt you just get a flash light?

• michael thorpe on 4th May 2005

  Oh come on lads? Shooting rats or paper at night is fun, but with a little slopy cat food as bate the rats come out and need to stop to have a lick at the bate and when they do its good buy raty, with a little red light say 25watts at 30 yds behind you, this gen one sight works just fine and you get a realy good sight pitcher as well, better than sitting indoors watching the tv with the wife? Mind you, watch out for callers, its that red light you know!

• michael thorpe on 17th Jun 2005

  the night sight you have has an inverted V shevron as the aming point, ok for hitting a person at 50yds but not to good for a rat at 5yds also its only gen 1 so is very limited in how far it can see, its not too bad in full moon light, and can see about 100 yds just, (thats a person not a rat!) to see a rat and be able to hit it, well 15 to 20yds would be very good, if your grooping is 2ins at 20yds i would spend more time on the range as the more you shoot the better you will be, but dont be to down harted, its the scope thats letting you down not you, it realy needs a cross hair as a sighting point not a v, this sight is a very old model, one of the first to be used in battel, and a man is a far bigger target than a rat, but saying that 2ins at 20yds is a long way off at 100 yds, so im in no danger of you ever hitting me, but you could make me keep me head down?
  have fun be safe, mike t