Plumloco,

I bought the 20x60x60 NCstar and thought it was a very good value for the money.  Its magnification begins to overtake its resolving power (at least for bullet holes at 300 yards) after about 40 power or so, but I've heard complaints on that score from shooting acquaintances about much more expensive scopes.

The only thing that kind of disappointed me was the laser aimer device.  It certainly works, but it washes out at beyond 40 yards in bright light.  At night, it goes quite a long ways, but setting up your scope with that ominous red dot might alarm the neighbors.

Bent

Plumloco,

Yes, it has one of those battery laser tubes that's like a laser sight on a pistol, with four tiny set screws to center the dot.  It takes 3 of those AG-13 button cell batteries, which, just by coincidence, seem to be dead now (the laser worked a couple of weeks ago; maybe the sliding switch was inadvertently pushed on when I put the scope away.)  Well, they've been in since January, although mostly not used; probably should have taken them out as the instructions recommended.

In theory, if you could see the dot out there you could center the scope on your target without having to look in the eyepiece and hunt around, but the zoom feature and the extra field of view at 20X allows you to pick it up fairly quickly.

My brother, the birdwatcher, says optical stuff, whether cameras, telescopes, binoculars or whatever, is pure Darwinian survival of the fittest.  If you want good stuff you pay good money, and serious birdwatchers want the best stuff and pay enormous sums for it.  I'm generally willing to make do in order to save some money; there are always other expenses in shooting to devote the bucks to.