Scope recommendations

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Cendre said:
Any return on these scopes?
Athlon Helos BTR GEN 2 4-20x50 FFP
Vector continental 4-24x56 FFP
Vector continental 3x18x56 FFP

I can’t find lot of review for these above.

Sightron, Arken, Vortex are on the list as well.
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🔸️ I have one of the Vector Continental line (5x30x56 FFP).

Excellent features, glass is bright. Some chromatic aberration. Would buy it again. The 4-24x is the best of both worlds: very wide field of view — AND high magnification. A true do-it-all scope.
Try to buy it with a discount.


🔸️ @Dairyboy had the Athlon Helos BTR GEN 2 4-20x50 FFP, I think. Liked it a lot.
And @steve123 has the inside scoop on all things Athlon. Just PM them.


Matthias
 
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One thing to keep in mind that isn't stated enough is minimum magnification on FFP scopes, especially for hunting and seeing the reticle. Some reticle's are hard to see at minimum settings, and need the magnification turned up to make it easier to see. But the trade off is now it is harder to acquire the target at the higher level because field of view goes away. To remedy this I have been trying the lower mag. scopes starting at 2-3 power versions, so when used at 4-5 power while hunting the reticle is bigger and seeing reticle hold-over marks is easier.

The Athlon Hellos BTR GEN2
2-12x42 AHMR2 FFP IR MIL is a great hunting and target scope with a thicker reticle; everyone who buys it seems to love it.
 
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Asking about scopes is the same as asking how do you clean your gun? Do I use a pre and after filter on my compressor? What pcp to buy? You’ll have a million answers. Pick a scope and use it. See what your needs are. When you use your gun in the field it will tell you what scope you actually need. Personally I use Hawke Vantage scopes for their simple reticle. My needs are different than yours I don’t shoot paper for fun I shoot pests up to 50 yards or less. My HFT scope is different than my hunting scope it’s a Hawke sidewinder with a simple reticle with 1/2 mildot holds. Every discipline requires a different scope that’ll suit you. Just start somewhere and you will know once you use it.
 
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Personal experience with FFP dictates pesting with such type of scope the reticles are waaaaay fine unless zoomed all the way in. The ground squirrel at 35 yards will be kinda difficult to find at 24 x. Chime in if you have a different experience. My scopes are all SFP because the reticle thickness stays the same from 6-24. It’s all personal experience and what works for me. I don’t dial
 
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Quality level, and quality as far as control feel, and optical prowess has a wide spread in this discussion. And a painless lifetime warranty is a top priority too. Vortex is #1 as far as warranty and I suppose Athlon is right behind it.

I'm not unbiased but I prefer Athlon turrets as well as the overall quality feel over other brands I've tried in the respective price points. I'm not picking on anyone in this thread but last year I bought a Vortex Razor LHT 4.5-22x50 scope because its very light weight for that magnification range. Razor is this Co's flagship scope so I thought I'd be plenty satisfied with it, nope I'm not. It's a $2000 retail scope which I paid $1160 for. It reminds of a $700 retail scope. This Razor falls behind my Athlon Helos G2's in a few ways, especially the turrets, but it is lighter and the glass is slightly better. Would I buy another LHT for the money I paid, no.

Last year I also bought a Meopta Optica 6 5-30x56. The standout is the image quality which is really nice. Slightly superior to Athlon ETR 3-18 but the turrets are not up to ETR or Cronus G2 and the thing I missed is that there's no way to tell what revolution I'm on with this Meopta short of dialing it all the way back to the zero stop or to make a consious effort to remember. I ran into this problem when shooting hundreds of yards away with my air rifle.

Another example, and again I'm not picking on anyone, is I bought a Vector Continental 5-30x56 a couple years ago. It's ok but once again it falls behind the Helos G2 level in some ways. I bought this scope because I love the reticle in it and still feel that way. Maybe they have come out with a G2 version but I don't know if they did.

So the trick is to find the best you can in as many positive attributes possible that a scope has compared to the other scopes in a price range that you've narrowed down. Some of that is personal preference like reticle styles or turret feel. I like very distinct and audible clicks that also having .1 mil lines lining up perfectly on the housing mark, and prefer some of the Athlon reticles over many designs.

Lately I'm liking my Cronus G2 4.5-29x56's more and more. It has daylight bright illume and the reticle can be seen with the illume on at 4.5x but it has 25Y minimum parallax. I haven't been shooting inside 25Y hardly at all lately so that's part of the reason. It feels like a $2000 plus scope though is getting a bit outdated compared to the 6-36's of the other Co's. You can find these G2's used for less than a grand.

A friend has a 3-18 ETR that seems exceptional. He and I both like it a lot. I haven't shot it much on 3x though.

If you can suffer 12x top magnification the Athlon DMR 2-12x42 FFP is the most unique scope I've come across so far. It crosses into/over a lot of types of shooting but especially hunting and fast plinking on steel. Gotta see the reticle on low power and have FFP this is by far my favorite.

I haven't tried the HG2 4-20 yet, (or for that matter a bunch of scopes out there) so I couldn't say one way or another about them but people seem to like that 4-20.
I know I do like my SFP Heras 4-20 and also the SFP Heras 2-12 but prefer this 4-20 more. Sometimes I forget to put them on max mag where the mils are correct but the reticles are a normal size at all magnifications.

Athlon is not perfect by any stretch but I've had the best luck with them, much more so the G2's of all the tiers. G3's will probably come out this year which will likely be my next scope.
BTW my guess is that the Ares ETR 15-60x56 is a G3 scope and its a killer of a scope.
 
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WNYBill said:
With scopes you get what you pay for. Glass quality is China, Philippines Japan and Germany, the best. Chinese glass has improved, look at Athlon. If you can find German Shott glass for under $1500 let me know. I like FFP(first focal point) and 30mm tubes. You have to decide on the reticle, some are very "busy". Look at Burris signature Zee rings with inserts, they won't damage your scope. 34mm tubes get you more vertical adjustment, not better glass are heavy and huge.
Click to expand...
Some of the Tract scopes use Schott glass and come in under $1500
 
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Cendre said:
● Athlon Helos BTR GEN 2 4-20x50 FFP
● Vector Continental 4-24x56 FFP
Click to expand...


Cendre, 😊

The differences between the two scopes you selected are not huge:

● Weight and length comparable.

● Field of view (FoV)
Athlon 4-20x50 = 28ft (at 100y)
Vector 4-24x56 = 30.6ft

● Magnification
24x will get you a better view at your holes in paper at 100y than the 20x.
For the manufacturing date of my eyes (late 1960's), there is a significant difference right there between 20x and 24x.
For your eyes maybe not!

● Warranty
Athlon is top notch.
Vector — that can go either way, I don't have much trust in it.


● Reticle vs. Turrets
Many are commenting on reticles, because they are holder-overs. 😉
➠ If you are a turret dialer, you could care less....
In that case I strongly suspect the Athlon turrets are better than the Vector turrets.

➠ If you want to use the reticle for hold-offs — with an FFP scope — then the reticle line thickness and the magnification ratio becomes important.
The 4-20x has a 5-fold ratio.
The 4-24x has a 6-fold ratio — so the reticle thickness will change a bit more (but not that much; a 4-32x would be much more).



🔸The comments from steve123 are great — he knows his stuff!


Cheers,

Matthias
 
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I own three first focal plane scopes. My two popular models are an Athlon Argos BTR Gen II 6-24x50 which is on my AEA Challenger Bullpup .357, and an Arken SH-4 4-16x50 which is on my .22 cal Air Venturi Avenge X.

Both of these scopes have been excellent and I really can't decide which one I like better. The Athlon has really nice glass, turrets, and overall build quality but the eye box is fairly tight. Athlon also has legendary customer service, and a no BS lifetime warranty.

The Arken also has really nice build quality, the turrets are the best in the game, and the glass is just as nice as the Athlon as far as I can tell. It's also quite heavy though and Arken doesn't quite have the reputation of Athlon for warranty and customer service.

If I were to recommend one of these 6 months ago, I would say the Arken SH-4 hands down since it was one of the best deals in optics at only $224.
That being said, Arken has jacked up their prices and now wants over $300 for the SH-4 where you can pick up an Athlon Argos BTR Gen 2 6-24x50 for well under $300 making it a far better deal in my opinion.

I am really interested in the higher end Discovery scopes. I have a cheap $89 4-16x40 VT-R SFP that is far better than it has any right to be, so I'd imagine the higher end stuff is very impressive. Id love to try out their TOTL 5-25x56 ED -PRS since it looks pretty damn good, but it's also more expensive than my Arken and Athlon.

Believe it or not, I also have a CVLife Bear Power 3-18x50 FFP on my Notos that is surprisingly good. I got this one for free and wasn't expecting much since CV Life tends to be bottom tier in optics. The Bear Power lineup is their entry into the mid range optics category and they really have done a good job with it. I am not sure if they actually make these scopes or if they're just rebadging another brand's product, but they're actually quite good.
 
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I bought a couple Discovery HT 4-16x44 FFP scopes and was pleasantly surprised how clear the glass is for the price $103. I wanted to go with a higher end model but all the reticles were too busy imo.

The lit reticle is very useful since the crosshairs can be thin at lower magnification. Also like how it has an off position between all of the 6 settings, I use the highest setting during daytime and with one click can turn it off.

I will definitely be buying more of their scopes in the future hopefully they come out with more “normal” reticle models. Supposedly their ED scopes have Nikon glass I would also check those out.
 
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