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Aligning Custom Compact 6x25 (2 Viewers)

BinoBoy

Well-known member
I just received a pair of Bushnell Custom Compact 6x25 that I bought on ebay for a great price. Unfortunately, the seller shipped them in a small flat rate box with no packing material what so ever. Not even a case. So, they are out of alignment vertically.

I called Bushnell Customer Service and they could not tell me over the phone what it would cost to align them. Has anyone had an alignment done by Bushnell? Any ballpark guess as to the cost? Do you know of anyone else who could do the job? I only paid $53 for them, so I hate to spend $20 to send them in just to find out that it costs too much to fix them.
 
Hope u didn't give the seller 5 stars on feedback. Shipping binos that way is inexcusable. And the Custom Compacts are not know for toughness. I've had at least 6, maybe 7, in all 3 body styles, and it only takes a fairly light jolt to give you double vision (predominatly vertical). When they're perfectly collimated, they are, to me, the best of any glass under 30mm, but ya really gotta be careful with 'em.

The Bushnell/B&L svc dept in Kansas City usta be a 1st rate operation.....they'd repair virtually any of their products for $10 (mainly for return shipping) and did excellent work. But since being bought by Ocean Partners, no longer the case.
 
The Bushnell/B&L svc dept in Kansas City usta be a 1st rate operation.....they'd repair virtually any of their products for $10 (mainly for return shipping) and did excellent work. But since being bought by Ocean Partners, no longer the case.

I had my custom compact aligned at the Kansas City facility about 3 years ago, and they didn't even charge me the $10 since I hand delivered them.

--AP
 
I called Bushnell again and talked to a different guy. He said no problem, they would repair them for free. I just have to pay the $10 return shipping. So, I'm going to keep them.

Thanks for the input.
 
Well, I lost out on this one. Bushnell says that the Custom 6x25 are not repairable. They were made in 1979 and the warranty was for 20 years. The threads are stripped and they don't have parts anymore, so they can't be collimated. The seller won't take them back, so I'm out about $75. Bushnell offered to sell me some Legend 8x26 for $70, but I have no interest in them.

It's frustrating because this would have been a great bargain if the boob had just had enough sense to use bubble wrap. Still, this is the first time I've been burned in all the buying, selling and trading of binoculars I've done.
 
Well, I lost out on this one. Bushnell says that the Custom 6x25 are not repairable. They were made in 1979 and the warranty was for 20 years. The threads are stripped and they don't have parts anymore, so they can't be collimated. The seller won't take them back, so I'm out about $75. Bushnell offered to sell me some Legend 8x26 for $70, but I have no interest in them.

It's frustrating because this would have been a great bargain if the boob had just had enough sense to use bubble wrap. Still, this is the first time I've been burned in all the buying, selling and trading of binoculars I've done.

Too bad, make sure your feedback reflects your experience from this guy.
:C
 
Well, I lost out on this one. Bushnell says that the Custom 6x25 are not repairable. They were made in 1979 and the warranty was for 20 years. The threads are stripped and they don't have parts anymore, so they can't be collimated. The seller won't take them back, so I'm out about $75. Bushnell offered to sell me some Legend 8x26 for $70, but I have no interest in them.

It's frustrating because this would have been a great bargain if the boob had just had enough sense to use bubble wrap. Still, this is the first time I've been burned in all the buying, selling and trading of binoculars I've done.

Did you ever call around to any other repair places to see what they might be able to do or charge? Sounds like there was more involved than collimation if there were stripped threads. What was stripped?

Not much of a deal on the 8x26 Legends as they don't go for much more than $70 on ebay, and they are rather ho-hum optically and FOV wise. What kind of a deal did they offer you on a 7x26 Custom Elite since the Legends don't even come close as a replacement?

Tom
 
The letter says "tampering - internal prints", so they must have been worked on before. It also says complete overhaul. They worked just fine except for the alignment.

Already have the 7x26 elite's.
 
I wonder what threads are stripped? The ones holding the prisms in place?

And I wonder how they are collimated? In most small porro prisms it is done by adjusting an eccentric ring on the objectives but I suppose these focus like the 7 x 26 does; by moving the Objective Lenses, so it might be collimated differently than normally focusing porros are.

Suggest that you contact Cory Suddarth or another binocular repair expert on this.

Bob
 
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Reading this it seems to me that these were already damaged, thats why they were on Ebay. Bad packaging being a good excuse.
I would be going down the faulty goods money back road through Ebay.
 
Bad packaging is not an excuse, it's a ground for negligence, leading to a remedy for the purchaser to justifiably require the seller to put him in the position he would have been in, but for that negligence, i.e. a choice between cost of repair, or full refund. Any fool knows a binocular mustn't be sent through the mail without proper and sufficient packing, so NO packing is indisputably negligent ("res ipsa loquitur" = it speaks for itself, or in more modern parlance, it's bloomin' obvious!). And if repair isn't feasible, for whatever reason, a refund is due. If the seller isn't honourable or the eBay dispute procedure doesn't give a satisfactory outcome, sue the seller! Words like 'no refunds' will not avail him in court, because the buyer is entitled to expect the goods to be 'reasonably suitable for purpose' unless the seller has stated otherwise in his listing particulars or description of condition.
It's cases like this which give eBay a bad name. Don't let dodgy sellers get away with it!
 
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I have sent that Cory Suddarth and Suddarthoptical 2 emails requesting a quote and have gotten no response. Guess they don't need any business, and it also doesn't say much about their customer service.

Tom
 
I certainly agree that the seller is an idiot. I'm astonished that anyone would ship binoculars without any packing material. Even someone completely ignorant of optics can see that there is glass in them.

I'm just not sure how hard I want to fight this. I did agree to keep them. It didn't occur to me that Bushnell might not be able to collimate them. They told me on the phone that it would be covered by warranty. I'm not sure what ebay would do, if anything.

I may just use them as a monocular. More likely, they'll just sit in the drawer.
 
New plot twist

When I talked to Bushnell on the phone, I told them to just return the Customs. It was taking so long, I was starting to wonder if something was wrong. The bins finally arrived earlier this week.

They're aligned! Well, almost. When I sent them in, the right side was shifted down about 1/4 of the diameter of the AFOV. Now, I see a single image, but when I put them down, my right eye feels really, really weird. So, they are almost in alignment.

The frustrating part of this is that they returned them to me in a tiny cardboard box with just a single thin sheet of bubble wrap. So, it looks like they may have figured out how to align them despite the stripped screws, etc and then they got damaged again in shipment.

If that's what happened, I'm thrilled that someone at Bushnell was conscientious enough to do the repair for free even after they had told me that they were out of warranty and that they could not be repaired at any cost. Still, I'm flabbergasted that they shipped them back this way. Of all the people in the world, a binocular repair station should know the importance of packing binoculars well.

The only thing I can think is that maybe the person who shipped them didn't know that someone had repaired them. There was nothing in the paperwork to indicate that they had been repaired.

The only other possibility is that they got knocked back into alignment on the way back. That would be pretty much a miracle.

Now I'm not sure what to do next. I could call them and say "Did you guys fix these out of warranty for free? ... Would you like to do that again?" They are usable as is, but they're definitely not pleasant to use. If only they had returned them in the box I shipped them in.

Oh, well.
 
Bino-boy - For what it is worth. I believe I have had enough experience with the Bushnell 6x25 & 7x26 to understand your dilemma. IMO the factory doesn't want to take the time to adjust the prisms in their seats to bring about alignment. Unlike most Japanese binoculars, yours lacks the double eccentric rings to properly align the objective lens, so alignment must take place with the prisms. That means major disassembly.

The design of the reverse porro Customs makes the objectives move in and out. Some tolerance is necessary for the focusing to occur. Bushnell once made after market rubber covers to protect your binocular. But these caused the objectives to really be out of alignment. Whether the prism seats accommodate minute adjustments, I not really sure. The time spent trying to "fix" what you have is probably too expensive for the factory to handle. Sorry, but perhaps someone out there in binocular land has already torn into one and can give you some advice. John
 
Lilcrazy2:

Be patient with Cory. Working for me in the Navy, AND 7 years as a civilian, I can attest that so many who some believe are SO great aren’t qualified to tie his shoes—either in repair OR customer service! This includes many who work for manufactures—read, “IMPORTERS.” You may verify this with the many happy customers over on the Cloudy Nights bino forum.

Not only would it be good to realize that in this stupid economy, “I done got me a GREAT binocular . . . for $39.95,” Cory has to deal with the needs of a family and a REAL job—one that will actually pay some bills—at Christmas. Call him.

BinoBoy:

You wrote:

“I'm astonished that anyone would ship binoculars without any packing material.”

A year before I left Captain’s, I received two MK1 120mm Big Eyes from a Navy office in Virginia. They were in the same 30-inch cube of a box, they were FREE-FLOATING on the inside, and had only PART of a newspaper scattered around them—there was no cushion or restraint on them . . . ANYWHERE!

I could tell that several additional parts had been broken in shipment. SO? I closed the lid, called UPS for a call number, and sent them back to the IDIOT ENSIGN who sent them in. No, I didn’t WANT the work. Working with such stupid people usually ends up costing a tech BIG TIME, in the long run.

Finally, this kindly old Chief Opticalman sent a little “love note” to his commanding officer; I hope he had asbestos gloves!

If you dealt with this kind of stuff everyday for decades, I assure you, you wouldn’t be “astonished!” If it is true that ignorance is bliss, then some people are BLISTERS!

Cheers, and Merry Christmas,

WJC
 
I just returned from the local Goodwill store, ran a search and landed on this thread. It's nice to know these bins are decent, for what they are, but I need to be careful with bumping it - throwing the alignment off.
 

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