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Looking to buy good scope that won’t break the bank

Not a fan of arken i had one when they first came out and it was junk and customer service was crap, it wouldn't track , the side focus didn't work , basically arken said oh well , haven't been there since
You just described my Vortex experience, except for the customer service. Vortex has great customer service the problem was I used it on dang near every scope. The four Arkens have tract as good as a NF with no other problems….got a couple years of hard use on three of them. Maybe I'm just lucky LOL
 
For Feenix...

People asking for opinions, and me about to hit you with some truth...
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I have the athlon Midas tac mrad. Great scope, when mirage is low I can see .22 cal (22gt) holes at 500 yards, very impressive for sub $600. My only concern is if I have issues down the road how the warranty will be.
I bought an open box Midas Tac from Doug at Cameraland.
I fell on it pretty hard. It stopped tracking.
I was transparent with Athlon that it was an "open box". They sent me a new scope.
 
Scopes usually have a huge price markup, like a $150 actual scope cost going for $400 retail. Eventually, something will breakdown & affect the scope - then the warranty will be important. Some of my scopes are over 20 years old. My Leupold 6.5-20X50 LR VXIII had been used for 2 decades on a variety of rifles and the dials/knobs became difficult to turn & adjustments erratic. It was returned to Leupold and they completely replaced all internal parts, replaced the objective lense with their latest & best glass, & refilled & resealed scope - acts like new.

Vortex customer service is equal but more often the entire scope is replaced. I was disappointed with my first two Vortex scopes because of unsatisfactory poor light performance. After that my Vortex scope selections were based on relative glass/coatings quality - looking for best glass among Vortex scopes. My latest Vortex scopes, Viper PST's are real good in poor light, almost equal to the Leupold & Burris.

Another scope problem is optical flare. When used in bright light images look washed out. In this aspect the Leupold outperforms the rest of my scopes. When used at our local range that faces towards the west and bright sun it was very difficult to see & hit black steel targets in deep shade at 300. Of 4 scopes compared in bright light, looking into dark shade and black steel, a Leupold 6.5-20X50 LR, Burris 5-25X50 Sig HD, Vortex 6-24X50 Viper PST, and Crimson Trace 6-24X50 Hardline were compared. The Leupold outperformed all, but the Burris & Vortex did OK, the Crimson Trace was last. Sun rays did not directly hit objective lens.

I am not much of a fan of 1st FP scopes because at low power the reticle features and size are tiny. Lighting up the reticle helps but be sure to have a spare battery on hand.

I have had good luck with Sightron scopes, my 8, 2nd FP, Sightron scopes are low/mid priced, like under $300 - $400 paid, STAC variety, 3-16X42 & 4-20X50. Good glass and excellent tracking. Sightron customer service is excellent & speedy. The windage dials on my STACs are sort of goofy with increments of 1, 2,3... 6,7,8,10,....,14, instead of ..., 3L, 2L, 1L, 0, 1R, 2R, 3R, ...
 
Go to a NRL 22 around here,mostly Athlons,mostly an Athlon 34mm 5-25x56 Midas tac in Unlimited.Base class users,some try the Arkens in base ,most end up running a Athlon Helos.I have a ELP-4 4-16 with a parallax wheel on pellet gun,for pocket gohpers,like it better than the SH and the Gen I EP5. I will stare at a mound for 10 min plus,waiting on a gohper to stay up.SH and EP5 have some wonky crap going on in retical.Gave me an headache.
 

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