Sig Sauer Tango6 3-18x44 FFP Scope In Depth Review

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FukoChan

FukoChan

Member
Jun 14, 2015
798
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Georgia, United States
So I was looking for a high-end scope with lots of features that breaks my bank only a little bit. My frist choice was an Athlon Argos BTR scope. While it was FFP and roughly 369$ with good optical clarity, it lacked some of the features that were found in 1000$ scopes like the Ares or Chronus. The reticle at max magnification was too bold for my taste, The illumination just was awful on the scope (with brand new battery and max power), and I could tell it could be clearer. The main feature I wanted were zero stop turrets where you could zero in your scope with alen keys or some method. Then you could adjust your scope to a further range with elevation adjustments and still be able to return back to your original zero with a resounding stop. I wanted optical clarity to the point where you were getting diminishing returns per dollar. My answer to this search came from an forum member who was sold this scope used to me: The Sig Sauer Tango6 3-18x44 with MRAD Reticle. He sold it to me for an amazing price, however, you can buy these scopes new from optics planet for about a grand. Strangely, I think i saw it on sale for 899$ but I don't see that one anymore. So basically, were reaching the area of a 1500$ scope without actually paying that much. Amazing right? 
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Some other notable features this scope has:
  • Locking turrets. Pull out to turn clicks/adjust, push in to lock it in place.
  • Lots of illumination brightness choices with exceptional clarity and evenness of the reticle (It was so amazing I was able to take game at 9:30PM night time). They call it the "HellFire Reticle."
  • Motion activated illuminated reticle. This allowed me to just set the gun down(forget about turning off the illuminator) and have an auto shutoff until i picked the gun back up, truly an amazing feature on saving battery. 
  • Professionally Scope Ring Mounted and included from the factory. No longer do I have to worry about scope cant in the realm of scope rings. Just plop on picatinny rail and twist tight
  • fogproof, waterproof, rugged
  • HDX glass(very clear glass)
  • A transferable Unlimited Lifetime Warranty
  • They can provide(one free) custom laser etched turret marks for your projectile so one can dial to specific ranges. 
  • Made in Japan! I like Japan, most of the uber high end scopes like the Chronus(probably the only one i know a lot about) are made in Japan. Even the Argos, Helos, and Ares are not made in Japan. They are made in China!
  • Reticle has a tiny dot in the middle for precision shots, provided that your rifle can supply the accuracy to match the scope.
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Now for the cons:
  • Many of the 1600+$ scopes you will see actually have ridiculously large objective lenses at 56mm and 34mm tube for maximum transference of light. The downside to this, is that you will have one big and heavy scope for let's say shooting 200 yards. It goes against my philosophy of use to buy a scope this big and heavy if you are going to be shooting lets say 50-150 yards with an airgun instead of thousands of yards with powder burners, so the Sig Sauer Tango6 kind've in a way, will not have the optical clarity that these 1600+$ scopes have. However, I can say from use that it has optical clarity outperforming the Argos(369$ Scope) which has an 50mm objective, and way better illumination. It is the clearest scope I have ever owned! 
EDIT: I actually found out from a knowledgeable memeber that objective lense size and tube diameter has little effect on optical clarity. The clarity of a scope more or less is based on optical design, lense coating, emphasis on blue light spectrum and other stuff.
  • The Newer versions of this line of scopes add a new feature which is the "antiplex anti cant system" basically it has some sort of device in the scope that shows if you are canting your gun. An arrow will point toward where you should tilt your gun in the black area of the scope. See this picture. So this version doesn't have it.However, if you want this feature, I think the newer version of the scope is around 2000$. So i am happy getting 85% of the features for less than half the price :).
  • Some people actually prefer an uncluttered simplistic scope with mil dashes. I am not  one of them and actually prefer the Athlon scopes numbered dashes as I am sometimes calculating holdover and forget the number of dashes I have counted. Then again, in this way I am not using the zero stop adjustments as I should. 
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So in conclusion:
Very good scope for the money. I think this will be the top of what I will ever want to put on an airgun and I think a scope like this is perfect for it. The scope is clear at all magnification levels(3-18), which 18 is plenty. It parallaxes down to 25 yards which is great considering airgunners sometimes take shots as close as 15 yards. It is light and also has this really smooth magnification adjustment ring with glow in the dark pins. Really great for quickly changing magnification in low light situations. I think the real selling point is that it has already been professionally mounted in the scope rings which takes away my worry of scope cant from improperly attaching a scope onto scope rings. Definitely, I recommend Sig Sauer's Tango 6 Scope for air gunners wanting a clear scope without hitting the 1500$ realm. 

If you are interested, I recommend visiting the website for the scope. They do a good job marketing its features and makes you want one even more!
https://www.sigsauer.com/store/tango6-3-18x44-mm.html
 
"JoeWayneRhea"Great review Man !!!!! Those are incredible scopes . Thanks for all the in depth info .
Click to expand...
Yeah I figured since Vortex, Hawke, Aeon, and others are very common on here. I have seen very little to no information on these scopes on here and even the rest of the internet.

Its a unique because its one of the very few Tango6 Sig Sauer scopes under 2 grand that still has majority of the features. If i were to upgrade I would go straight to the Chronus or Viper though. The Athlon Argos was great but I felt they cut some corners on a few features. Helos just has locking turrets without the zero stop. Ares is the next step which has most of the features that this scope has besides custom scope ring mounting and custom ballistic turrret, and then chronus is just a plain insane price point. I also didn't like the fact that all of the athlon scopes besides the chronus were made in China D:.
 
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Very good review! Thanks for sharing! The new Sig optics are an excellent value!

I feel one minor point unrelating to the review scope is worthy of mention, though. Your statement "many of the 1600+$ scopes you will see actually have ridiculously large objective lenses at 56mm and 34mm tube for maximum transference of light" is only partially correct with regards to light transfer. Larger objectives do indeed allow for more light transfer, however the size of the main tube has no correlation whatsoever to light transference. This is one of the greatest myths in optics that keeps getting repeated because of misconceptions about the way light travels through complicated focused optics, and repeated claims made by gun and other outdoor sports writers. One of the US optics brands capitalized on this belief in their marketing campaign for one of their 30mm tubed scope lines, taking advantage of US customers association of 30mm tubes with high end Euro scopes and the common belief that more of anything must always be better. Myths often die hard, especially those that seem to make logical sense.

The European scope manufacturers standardized on 30mm tubes while American scope manufacturers originally standardized on 1 inch tubes. This was based on little more than the US clinging to Imperial measurement units while most of the rest of the world uses the metric system. Since the German and Austrian scopes always had a reputation for optical excellence and outstanding low light performance, and since their expensive flagship scopes always had 30mm (and later larger) diameter tubes, it only seemed logical that the larger tube diameter was a contributing factor in these scope's superior light transmission when in fact it was just due to overall superior optical design, superior lens coatings that emphasizes light transmission in the blue spectrum, excellent internal baffling, exotic glass formulations, etc. Analogies like "a larger diameter garden hose will allow a greater volume of water flow" have been used as support for the "larger tube = more light" idea, but these two concepts aren't analogous. A larger tube diameter does not improve light transmission. Light traveling through the erector system lens groups in the center section of the scope is relatively small in diameter at its widest dispersion angle, maybe 3/8" or 10mm at the most. This is due to the fact that the objective lens system is focusing the light down to a small diameter before it passes through the erector assembly, where its lenses are likewise focusing and erecting (inverting) the light and the image so the image doesn't appear upside down when it is refocused by the ocular lens group. A larger diameter main tube often (but not always) permits greater elevation and windage travel. With equal tube wall thickness, a larger tube is slightly stronger (which is pretty much irrelevant anyway). A larger tube also permits larger diameter erector assembly lenses, which means the potential for very slightly better resolution. A larger tube diameter permits more room for a more complex erector lens arrangement for correcting optical aberrations. But that's the extent of a larger tube's advantages.

I'm not at all criticizing your excellent review, it just seemed like a good time to discuss this since you mentioned large tube diameter and light transmission.
 
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Hey guys just an update. I got messing with the zero stop lock down turrets and they are by far amazing. I can see why Ted stopped doing holdovers because of his Viper scope. I literally dope to four Mildots for 100 yard shots and start hammering right on the center, then when I have a close shot I dial it back to zero easily. There is no tape like the viper but I think I can get a custom laser etched ballistic turret for the scope. However, one problem. I recently switched to the picatinny rail on my wildcat and it does not intersect enough or give the scope much room for adjustment. Therefor I only have about one or 7/10ths of a rotation before I run out of clicks. So my maximum range I can dope for before I have to start doing holdovers is about 120-125 yards. Any of you know how I can get more intersection/angle without using my fx no limit rings? I don't want to mess with the proprietary scope rings to avoid any possible cant. Well I can say im satisfied. 125 yards is good enough for me.
 
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I recommend trying a one piece mount with built in 20 MOA. I review an example of one of these made by Bobro Engineering in a separate thread. There are also similar mounts made by Vortex and others. 

((Wildcard option....mount on different (new) rifle that has a built in 20 MOA pic rail) 😁

For thought. It is highly likely that the designers of the proprietary mounts you have didn't have our loopy shooting airguns in mind.

Regarding custom tape. Once you learn and are comfortable with mil system and using FFP, and good repeatable 1/10 mil turrets, you won't need a custom tape because it will limit you in the following ways:
  • A custom tape will only be good for that combo of specific gun, scope, mount, pellet, and velocity.
Thats a significant advantage of having FFP and matching turrets that are accurate and repeatable. You only need to know the true Mil value of various airgun distances you shoot at. Then you have two choices....use holdover using those true mil points without regard for magnification. Or dial away to your hearts content (or scope limit) without regard for magnification.

Zero stops - there's only one very minor downside to a zero stop if you like to dial. That would be those CQB short shots in between your primary and "near zero." Unless your zero stop is flexible enough to allow some negative travel......you will need to rely on hold under vice dialing turrets negative.
 
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