@ steve123 -
The 10 x 40 Argos scopes that Athlon replaced for new were way better than the ones I sent in.
When I originally told the story what I failed to clarify was the original Athlon Argos scopes I bought were both second hand, barely used, but new to me, lol!
They had smaller parallax knobs in diameter, and went down to 15 yards on the parallax. The parallax knobs I remember were really loose, and seemed to have excessive gear lash to them. While testing pellets and liners, the thing that frustrated me the most with both of them was I’d start a group of three on one area, a really nice group, then get two fliers to the right about an 1 1/2” away. I adjusted the turrets to those areas, then they grouped, then all of a sudden fliers back to the left and down low. I found myself chasing my zero constantly- with sorted Ammo! This didn’t happen right away. It started happening about two months after I started using them.
I emailed Athlon snd they requested pics of my scope install along with my fastener torque specs. All was good there, then I sent pics of my targets. That’s when they told me to send the scopes in for evaluation.
Meanwhile Rangur1 Marc had kindly sent me his Delta Stryker to keep practicing with for RMAC. So it ended up perfect timing, as I didn’t loose any practice time.
Two weeks go by and I received an email saying new scopes were getting sent back to me, from the tech dept. I emailed my original Athlon contact person to find out what they found in their testing, and I was told they did not pass the recoil test. The scope wouldn’t hold zero.
Upon unboxing the new ones, first thing I noticed was the larger parallax knob. It was also much tighter to turn. Then I saw the knob had markings down to 10 yards on the parallax focus. The larger wheel needed me to order two new parallax knobs from MK Machining. What’s funny about all that, is MK had no idea of the changes made to that scope on their end. They still had the first run of the Gen 2’s like mine were, with the smaller parallax knob that went down to 15 yards. Luckily, the version 2’s had just arrived in their stock so they were able to whip me out two new adjustment wheels.
Bottom line, Athlon has a great warranty program on their products. It truly was a no fuss, no questions asked ordeal.
I would’ve gladly settled on those scopes as the glass was very clear to me, the target center for was perfect in that it would fit perfectly inside the bullseye of an official target, and the click values worked great(when they first worked), and just like the Delta, the reticle was easy to work with. I’m a big Athlon fan, but after having a taste of the Stryker, I knew I just had to get those for my target guns. Most benchrest folks probably don’t care for locking and resettable turrets in both elevation and windage, but I do. Also, illuminated reticle which is a feature I hardly use but like having it, wasn’t a feature of the athlon Argos benchrest scopes, and neither were the locking turrets(resettable to zero they were).
I’ve never owned a zero stop scope till I got those Athlon benchrest scopes, and it truly is a nice feature. At 40 power I had no trouble seeing 22 cal pellet holes at a 100 yards for corrections. In fact, on my Stryker, I shoot mainly using 40x, and leave 50x to be used as a spotting scope if need be. I think for someone starting out in air rifle target shooting these Athlon Argos scopes in the 10-40 is a great starter scope, especially now that version 2 is out.
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