Hunting optic….strict $300 and 28 ox weight limits

[koja]

I agree. The tracking thing is weird. Scopes used to not hold zero well or move in the correct increments. That was often just accepted.

I remember being taught to adjust, bang on turret, repeat until zero's! If you hit close to your aim point ….good enough.

Maintaining zero and adjusting by the correct increments should not be open for interpretation, but as you see, even that seems to pull in many opinions. This is truly the pain in the but part. If you feel like your optic is a pita at all and cannot put your finger on it, this is it. If your zero moves without a change in ammo, or drastic weather change, there's your sign!

Glass is another thing. Honestly, when comparing $300 optics I like to $2000 optics I like, I don't see a night & day difference. There is a difference, but no where near the change from $100 to $300. Let's say you want the best glass, why? Are you aiming or spotting with it?

Turrets are odd too. There are many turrets that adjust well enough to zero, but way fewer that can drive the reticle around reliably enough to shoot 500+ yards. I find some makers offerings odd in that they put features on a turret like you can drive it all over, but then the turret is not reliable enough to actually do that!

Reticle is funny too. Often folks don't think about this enough. A reticle is fixed, meaning if the scale has a 4 mil line, it will always be the same. Meaning, even if it is 3.9 mil actually, it won't vary day to day! Why don't more 3-500yd shooters use the reticle? Fast, yep. Reliable, yep. All you need is a scope that holds zero! Still many/most refuse to shoot off the reticle!

All this said, in all my time shooting, I rarely see scopes over $500 at the range. Have seen a few. Once saw an ATACR(higher magnification) on an 8" 300 blackout at the 100yd line!

I was close to that,"scope overbore",I put off the Chicom scopes as long as I could buttttt.My first outing to our club's 22lr Long range precision silhouettte,50m NRL swingers or hostage target, 100m chickens,150m pig,200m turkey ,300m ram ,NRA 1/5's smallbore targets,400m is a 14" disc.I showed up with my Savage MKII with a NF NX8,majority of shooters ran bergaras,CZ's,couple of Rim x's,and a Vodoo/athlon cronus rig, etc with 3/4"s of them having Athlons mounted on them ,mostly Helos and Argos,lots of turret twisting,soundesd like crickets between stages.2nd outing my Vortex Viper wouldn' t go back to it's 50m zero after being maxed out at 400m.Next outing,I had a new Cz 457 with a Athlon Helos awesome.later in the summer I bought the Arken elp5,more awsome,,could see hits at 400m disc now. My EP5 ,Sightron III,Helos mostly equal in glass clarity.The ep5 retical is not as thick as the Helos.The EP5 just works for me old cateract eyes ,easier to see turrents,work better in the paralax and rear foucus area.NX8 rear foucus is locked.Nx8 glass is better,but not $15-1600 more.Illumination on EP5 and the El4 only light up the dot and the first hash marks next to dot.NX8 and Helos light up whole tree.I'm waiting on the EL4.
Btw, after match season I mounted the EP5 on my rear grip SP 16" 7wsm and now an SP 17" 28 nosler since late October working up loads on both,the eye relief on the EP5 works great for SP's.I shoot from my shop,10 yds to 450 yds,the EP5 been riding in my side by side on my gopher mounded pastures ,dropped a few of times,SP's don't ride to well ,stalk hunting or store to well,couple of thousand of 22lr shot from 50-400,lots of turrent movement with 22lr,100 plus rds from the 7mm handguns,so far ,so good, hasn't ever lost zero.Still hard to believe the price.The EL4 is going on wsm for hunting and winter entertainmet.

 

[Holycity73]

Isn't s-tac chaeper than arkens? With more middle men? Let see, Arken/China to Texas,Texas to me.
OK......S-tac/China parts to Phillepinoland to USA distributor to say your favorite shopping place,then to you, at a cheaper price than Arken,I'll use good math and take the Arken,Arken ansewrs a phone and email ,Sightron doesn't,been there.I do use sightron sII and sII.

Lack of distributorships and more shiny parts does not make a better product. Read it again. A simpler design in that price point means less moving parts and hence less potential problems. No offense to athlon, I mean Arken, but supportering over a cheap anything is pretty lame. I prefer to buy a tool that will help me in the best way possible. If saving for a few more months helps me get a better tool for the job, well call me patient pete. To each his own I guess.