Hawke Airmax

I used athlon talos base 3-12 mildot scope for a few years now and use it as a throw around scope on hw, gamo, hatsan springers far exceeding 2000 shots .lol.. far exceeding.. lol

Easy no questions asked lifetime and in Kansas .
Only issue I got with it is it's weight. On tall rings or light gun can make it feel a little too heavy..
 
Im a huge fan of Airmax scopes, i have several. Are they thee best? Probably not, but they're darn good. I've never had one fail, but i bought a used 4-12 that had debris inside. It worked fine but was hard to look thru. I called Hawke and told them and they replaced it. That scope, today, has been on almost every gun i've owned in the last 5 years or so and never let me down.

You do know that the Vantage are only rated for something like 12 fpe, so that might be your problem there.

I'd go Airmax and don't look back.
 
I had a Hawke Vantage 4-12x50 illuminated Mildot go bad (reticle rotated counter-clockwise) and I upgraded to the Airmax 4-12x40.

I had a Vortek HO tune kit installed by Tom thinking it would smooth it out, but the Airmax went bad in the exact same way less than 11 months later (reticle rotated counter-clockwise).

I only have about 700 shots on the replacement Airmax, but so far so good.

I have only used these scopes on a .177 Diana 34P. It puts out 14 ft. lbs. with the Vortek kit (used with both Airmax scopes). It was a 12 ft. lb. gun when it had the Vantage.

I installed the Vantage with an RWS droop-compensating one piece mount. The Airmax's were/are mounted with Hawke Match rings.

Hawke service was great both times I had to use them, but if I have to use them again I will put the replacement on a PCP.
 
Mount them in Burris Signature Rings with the inserts. Use the inserts to zero as close as possible to minimize knob turning. The plastic inserts relieve the vibration from the spring which is what harms the scopes.
While I think this will help, it is not the vibration from the spring that is hard on scopes. It is the forward recoil subjected to the scope internals that were designed to resist rearward recoil only.

Case in point I had a Hawke Airmax fail on my Gamo 33mm gas piston, no spring or vibration.
 
While I think this will help, it is not the vibration from the spring that is hard on scopes. It is the forward recoil subjected to the scope internals that were designed to resist rearward recoil only.

Case in point I had a Hawke Airmax fail on my Gamo 33mm gas piston, no spring or vibration.
Was it near optical center or hanging near the end of travel. Not disagreeing just trying to learn. Plus scopes fail for other reasons. A big one is rings being installed with out a torque wrench and being over tightened. My info came from an engineer within the industry who told me number one culprit was vibration. Plus other reasons a svope might fail.
 
Was it near optical center or hanging near the end of travel. Not disagreeing just trying to learn. Plus scopes fail for other reasons. A big one is rings being installed with out a torque wrench and being over tightened. My info came from an engineer within the industry who told me number one culprit was vibration. Plus other reasons a svope might fail.
Yessir it was still factory centered, I check all my scopes out of the box a couple turret revolutions to make sure they arent maxed out. Rings are always torqued to spec using my Wheeler Fatwrench according to both ring and scope manufacturer. I also use feeler gauges to make sure I am torqueing the caps evenly. I was able to zero the new scope within 4-5 pellets, tracking perfect according to turret specs. Shot one group of 5 for accuracy, was really excited my new Gamo was looking great. Second group for accuracy wondered several inches with each shot. The recoil actually broke the windage erector assembly, and was returned for store credit. Right now I have an SWFA fixed 10x on it and have shot almost a whole tin through it with no loss of zero. That is after a handful of other scopes fell apart on top of this thing. And the reality is I am not special, springers have been dismantling scopes for longer than I have been alive. My theory is the magnum spring/piston guns will break pretty much any scope with enough use cycles.

The most common failure is the wire style reticles in a break barrel pellet rifle. A lot of them are glued in place up against a reinforcement that is designed to push the reticle against the stop under recoil. The glue is just to keep it in one position while the physical stop takes all the force. Now introduce recoil in the opposite direction and the glue is the thing taking all the force of inertia under recoil. Etched reticles are a much better option, but the rest of the delicate internals are all subject to the same issue. Recoil in the direction opposite of a powder burner. There is a reason virtually all scope manufactures that used to be springer rated are no longer. Leupold being the classic example. They used to market their scopes as springer rated and lifetime warranty, now mounting on a spring/piston pellet rifle will technically void your warranty. And if you read the fine print to most manufactures scopes that are "Airgun Rated" they explicitly state not for use in spring/piston guns.

If vibration is tough on scopes no AR would be able to keep one together. There is a pogo-stick in the buffer tube lol. If you have the time you should check out some slow-mo video of powder burners flexing/vibrating during discharge. They are far more violent and extreme than your average airgun, but all the inertia from recoil is effectively in a single direction.
 
I have 4 AMX,s on my springers for 5? years now . No problems. The reticle really works for me. They are a bit thin and can get lost in dark foilage. But I got use to that. I even have one on my PCP. I like the reticle that much. I use the 3-7x32 mostly. ( works for me out 65yds ) I put a 10 X 44 on the 97K, it's pretty nice tho I have no experience with higher end scopes. I use BKL double strap rings. My one springer ( a magnum I guess ) I had to use BKL triple strap rings.
 
Yessir it was still factory centered, I check all my scopes out of the box a couple turret revolutions to make sure they arent maxed out. Rings are always torqued to spec using my Wheeler Fatwrench according to both ring and scope manufacturer. I also use feeler gauges to make sure I am torqueing the caps evenly. I was able to zero the new scope within 4-5 pellets, tracking perfect according to turret specs. Shot one group of 5 for accuracy, was really excited my new Gamo was looking great. Second group for accuracy wondered several inches with each shot. The recoil actually broke the windage erector assembly, and was returned for store credit. Right now I have an SWFA fixed 10x on it and have shot almost a whole tin through it with no loss of zero. That is after a handful of other scopes fell apart on top of this thing. And the reality is I am not special, springers have been dismantling scopes for longer than I have been alive. My theory is the magnum spring/piston guns will break pretty much any scope with enough use cycles.

The most common failure is the wire style reticles in a break barrel pellet rifle. A lot of them are glued in place up against a reinforcement that is designed to push the reticle against the stop under recoil. The glue is just to keep it in one position while the physical stop takes all the force. Now introduce recoil in the opposite direction and the glue is the thing taking all the force of inertia under recoil. Etched reticles are a much better option, but the rest of the delicate internals are all subject to the same issue. Recoil in the direction opposite of a powder burner. There is a reason virtually all scope manufactures that used to be springer rated are no longer. Leupold being the classic example. They used to market their scopes as springer rated and lifetime warranty, now mounting on a spring/piston pellet rifle will technically void your warranty. And if you read the fine print to most manufactures scopes that are "Airgun Rated" they explicitly state not for use in spring/piston guns.

If vibration is tough on scopes no AR would be able to keep one together. There is a pogo-stick in the buffer tube lol. If you have the time you should check out some slow-mo video of powder burners flexing/vibrating during discharge. They are far more violent and extreme than your average airgun, but all the inertia from recoil is effectively in a single direction.
The double recoil is a problem but in our groups of a dozen shooters, half who shoot 500 plus pellets a week, over three years there has been one scope failure. It was an Element. They replaced it in less than a week for the fellow. A certain percentage of all and everything will fail. As long as the warranty coverage is good, not a big deal. I Have had 3000.00 scopes with problems, it happens.