So I bought a new scope today...

[J.Baker]

Pulled my 10/22 that I use for shooting the occasional ABRA match here and there and decided it was in need of an optic upgrade. Was a bit surprised when I started looking around to find that Weaver no longer makes the T-series fixed power scopes, and even more surprised to find that the only fixed power Competiton series scopes Leupold still makes are the 6x and the 45x. The only fixed power option I could find that didn't cost upwards of $1,000 was a Sightron SII 36x, but given past experience with Sighron's Fine Target reticle I passed.

That got me to looking at high power variables. Unfortunately the vast majority of these are FFP and have overly busy and rather thick crosshairs - neither of which you really want for a benchrest optic. Somewhere along the way I stumbled across the Athlon Argos BTR Gen II 10-40x56mm, which is actually designed for benchrest. Unlike everything else in the Argos BTR line actually has a SFP and very thin reticle that isn't overly busy. As a bonus it also has 1/8 MOA turrets for finer adjustments. With the 56mm objective and an overall length of 16.3 inches it's massive and looks a bit out of place on a 10/22, but beggers can't be choosers when the picking's are slim.

The turrets have very solid clicks with a pronounced audible click as well. Elevation and windage both have 50 MOA of adjustment. Neither are locking, but the elevation does have a zero stop built into it. Initial impression of the glass peering out across the neighborhood is pretty good - better than expected actually. At 40x magnification it's still plenty bright with the larger objective size, but it does lose some crispness and clarity at that power. Nothing too severe, but it is noticeable though I highly doubt I'll ever crank it up past 32x for the 50 yard matches I shoot. Assuming it holds zero and tracks well I think it's going to prove to be a bargain at $430 for those just getting into any type of benchrest competition.

I haven't gotten it out to the range to sight it in yet, but did get it mounted up using an EGW rail and a set of NightForce Standard 30mm low rings which still provides plenty of clearance for the included flip-up caps.

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[Robinhood]

I really hope this turns out to be a positive for you. Not long ago you were apprehensive about Athlon. I should send you one of my Cronus BTR's and let you do a review on it too.

[jpx2rk]

Your argos link takes you to a uk.com website.

I had a SII 36x on a MPR64 and did not care for the glass myself, seemed grainy to me. I switched over to Weavers and never looked back.

[hamiltonkiler]

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20200702/31b4aa0df50857e1ad187df2db9dbb52.jpg
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20200702/de0d70661a2c079a87796ceb03506b4f.jpg
50yds
Waiting on my SWFA SS 16x to get back from SWFA. I guess Corona got the manufacturing logistics and shipping of the latest batches... [emoji58]
I’ve been down the 10/22 hole the last year.
After building a “bench” gun https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20200702/b33e82cd5e0919b32374e8785a56290c.jpg
I ended up back to a “sporting” style rifle with the same accuracy.
28” GM sporter
Volquartsen trigger guts.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[celltech]

Congratulations on your new scope! I have loved my pair of Midas TACs and find them a bargain as well. It's amazing what availability of inexpensive, high quality glass we shooters have at our disposal these days. I just ordered a Swampfox Warhawk 5-25x56 after picking up their Arrowhead 1-10 LPVO and loving it. I am hoping the Warhawk is a budget PST II, especially at the huge discount they have for MIL/LEO.

[Txhillbilly]

Pulled my 10/22 that I use for shooting the occasional ABRA match here and there and decided it was in need of an optic upgrade. Was a bit surprised when I started looking around to find that Weaver no longer makes the T-series fixed power scopes, and even more surprised to find that the only fixed power Competiton series scopes Leupold still makes are the 6x and the 45x. The only fixed power option I could find that didn't cost upwards of $1,000 was a Sightron SII 36x, but given past experience with Sighron's Fine Target reticle I passed.

That got me to looking at high power variables. Unfortunately the vast majority of these are FFP and have overly busy and rather thick crosshairs - neither of which you really want for a benchrest optic. Somewhere along the way I stumbled across the Athlon Argos BTR Gen II 10-40x56mm, which is actually designed for benchrest. Unlike everything else in the Argos BTR line actually has a SFP and very thin reticle that isn't overly busy. As a bonus it also has 1/8 MOA turrets for finer adjustments. With the 56mm objective and an overall length of 16.3 inches it's massive and looks a bit out of place on a 10/22, but beggers can't be choosers when the picking's are slim.

The turrets have very solid clicks with a pronounced audible click as well. Elevation and windage both have 50 MOA of adjustment. Neither are locking, but the elevation does have a zero stop built into it. Initial impression of the glass peering out across the neighborhood is pretty good - better than expected actually. At 40x magnification it's still plenty bright with the larger objective size, but it does lose some crispness and clarity at that power. Nothing too severe, but it is noticeable though I highly doubt I'll ever crank it up past 32x for the 50 yard matches I shoot. Assuming it holds zero and tracks well I think it's going to prove to be a bargain at $430 for those just getting into any type of benchrest competition.

I haven't gotten it out to the range to sight it in yet, but did get it mounted up using an EGW rail and a set of NightForce Standard 30mm low rings which still provides plenty of clearance for the included flip-up caps.

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I know guy's rave about SWFA's straight power scopes,if your not pleased with the Argos you might try one of them. I've been very happy with Athlon scopes. I have a Midas BTR, Ares BTR, and a Cronus. The Midas & Ares will compare to the Sightron SIII and Vortex Viper PST scopes. The Cronus is everything a Vortex Razor HD is except the turret feel isn't as good,and they don't lock.

[J.Baker]

Your argos link takes you to a uk.com website.

That link it put in by skimlinks, not me. They're based out of the UK I believe, so not surprising it's a UK link.

[J.Baker]

I really hope this turns out to be a positive for you. Not long ago you were apprehensive about Athlon. I should send you one of my Cronus BTR's and let you do a review on it too.

I'm apprehensive about anything new that people immediately flock to and swear is the greatest thing ever. Same scenario played out with Vortex Optics 15 or so years ago - everyone swore up and down the Crossfire's and Diamondbacks were as good as or better than anything else on the market for a lot less money. My oh my how much views have changed on them in recent years. Not saying Vortex is junk by any means, but today they're not "all that and a bag`o chips" like people thought they were back then.

I've learned to sit back and let everyone else spend their money to be the guinea pigs while I sit back and take notes. After a year or three, if whatever product (or cartridge for that matter) proves it's worth and remains popular I'll check them out. If they don't, oh well... I can happily say I didn't lose any money chasing the "Fad of the Day."

[J.Baker]

I know guy's rave about SWFA's straight power scopes,if your not pleased with the Argos you might try one of them. I've been very happy with Athlon scopes. I have a Midas BTR, Ares BTR, and a Cronus. The Midas & Ares will compare to the Sightron SIII and Vortex Viper PST scopes. The Cronus is everything a Vortex Razor HD is except the turret feel isn't as good,and they don't lock.

Biggest problem I had was finding something with the reticle on the SFP. I swear 95% of the scopes being made today are made to cater to the PRS/tactical crowd. Even a great deal of the hunting scopes can now only be had with some goofy ranging reticle with more dots and hash marks than a 1,000 page novel written in morse code.

Did get it out to the range to get it sighted in today and am very happy with it so far. As expected, once you get up past 32-36x the image gets a little milky or hazy. You can only get so much quality in glass for so much money, and the higher the magnification gets the more in magnifies all those little imperfections in it.

Turrets have a great feel to them and so far have proven to be very accurate. The 1/8 MOA per click will be nice in matches to get it perfectly dialed in, but they're definitely not something I would want to crank up and down for different distances with any regularity.

As for the reticle, I love it! The lines are very thin and don't obscure the target at all which I really like. The center dot is also tiny (1/16 MOA IIRC) which I found to both be a good thing and a bad thing. Good in that it allows you to aim very precisely even at smaller targets at longer distances. Bad in that it's so small it's easy to lose it on a black target and if you actually hit your aim point you just completely lost it as the dot is about 1/5th the size of a 22LR bullet hole at 50 yards.

My only real gripe would be in the design of the body - specifically the placement of the turret saddle. For whatever reason it's not centered on the length of the main tube, but instead offset towards the rear. This greatly limits how much room you have available for setting proper eye relief. The rings I'm using are 2-screw and about as narrow as you'll find, so I can just imagine how much more limited the eye relief adjustment would be if you were running some of the wider 4 or 6 screw tactical style rings. As it is I have to rubber neck it just a little to get a full clear image with the saddle pretty much butted up against the rear ring.

[want2ride]

I have been very happy with all of the Athalon scopes i have had, and i am sure you will be too. It is really hard not to like them, for the cost all of mine have been a pleasant surprise.

[Smokey262]

How fussy is it to position your eye and see the full image at 40x?

[jpx2rk]

I've seen some ABRA competitors have both rings on the front side of the turrets to get the eye relief/comfort factor where they want or need it. It looks a bit funny but it seems to work for them.

[J.Baker]

How fussy is it to position your eye and see the full image at 40x?

It definitely gets a little more fussy about proper eye position above 30x, but no more so than anything else with this much magnification. Scopes with magnification topping 30x are all going to get fussy on eye position, just an unavoidable side effect of so much magnification.

That said, given how milky/cloudy the sight picture gets at 40x I would really look at it more as a 10-36x scope in terms of usable magnification range.

[yobuck]

So is the lesser quality image on the higher power settings due to the quality of the glass, or the quality of the air?

[Dave Hoback]

I completely agree about not jumping onboard the bandwagon, LOL. I watched Vortex for years. They seemed solid. But I wasn’t ready at the time. Then Athlon emerged, and I studied them for a couple years. Finally the time came(and a sale I had to take advantage of). I would love to be a “Glass Snob”. I would sincerely love to have Schmidt & Bender PMII’s on everything. Unfortunately, top tier scopes are just SO far out of my budget. As are 2nd & 3rd tier. hahaha... I can afford something in the 4-4.5 tier optic, lol. The great thing I learned long ago is the optic only needs to hold true. Ultra high clarity is a wonderful thing...but as I’ve said before... one need not be able to read the writing on a TARGET’S shirt, in order to hit the CENTER of it. Snipers in history were engaging targets at extreme distances with much lower quality optics than what we have today. Even the bargain basement scopes of today have better clarity than the options used in the World Wars, Korea & even Vietnam. So I felt lucky to find the deal on the Athlon Midas BTR that I have. I like it very much. Is it even close to something like a PMII? Nope! Is it clear enough to engage targets at any distance I’ll ever use it..even up to a mile? Yup! And luckily, Athlon has been used long enough now that we know they are fairly rugged....and hey, ya gotta love their warranty. It really does kick butt. I hope you enjoy yours as much as I do mine.

[Fuj']

How fussy is it to position your eye and see the full image at 40x?

At 40 power even the supposedly great scopes can have you moving
around. The worst is my NF 42x44 Comp. Great glass but move your
head a little too much and it's a struggle. Playing with the Burris 8-40x50
SFP F-class scope for my testing rifle. One of the best eye boxes I have
sat behind for the money. I just wish Bushnell would have gone to a higher
power range on their elite line, but still my number one choice over all.
I used that Burris for last weekends informal match out to 500. At 40x I was
picking up targets quickly.

[yobuck]

I completely agree about not jumping onboard the bandwagon, LOL. I watched Vortex for years. They seemed solid. But I wasn’t ready at the time. Then Athlon emerged, and I studied them for a couple years. Finally the time came(and a sale I had to take advantage of). I would love to be a “Glass Snob”. I would sincerely love to have Schmidt & Bender PMII’s on everything. Unfortunately, top tier scopes are just SO far out of my budget. As are 2nd & 3rd tier. hahaha... I can afford something in the 4-4.5 tier optic, lol. The great thing I learned long ago is the optic only needs to hold true. Ultra high clarity is a wonderful thing...but as I’ve said before... one need not be able to read the writing on a TARGET’S shirt, in order to hit the CENTER of it. Snipers in history were engaging targets at extreme distances with much lower quality optics than what we have today. Even the bargain basement scopes of today have better clarity than the options used in the World Wars, Korea & even Vietnam. So I felt lucky to find the deal on the Athlon Midas BTR that I have. I like it very much. Is it even close to something like a PMII? Nope! Is it clear enough to engage targets at any distance I’ll ever use it..even up to a mile? Yup! And luckily, Athlon has been used long enough now that we know they are fairly rugged....and hey, ya gotta love their warranty. It really does kick butt. I hope you enjoy yours as much as I do mine.
Actually Dave those snipers werent hampered by the quality of the optics. But if you choose to feel they were thats fine with me.
We have never produced better quality optics than those used in WW2 as for overall quality, including the glass quality.
What we didnt have in that era was the coatings on the glass we have today. It wasent really till after WW2 that advancement in coatings happened.
Also realize that rifle scope development didnt really even start seriously at least untill the 50s.
Snipers like Whitefeather used Unertle scopes in Vietnam because ones like Nightforce didnt yet exist. Ditto with L/R hunters untill the 80s.
Coatings allow more light to enter the optic rather than being reflected away from it as non coated ones do regardless of the glass quality.
So that was the big breakthru in optics, not glass quality.
Problem with rifle scopes relating to higher power is the objective size not being large enough to handle it.
A 60 mm spotting scope regardless of brand, wont perform well with a 40 power eyepiece or even a 30x if the mirage factor is high.
Yet one having an 80 mm objective might be managable to use with 40 x depending upon conditions.
I recently sold a very large set of binoculars having both 25x and 40x eyepieces on a rotating turret, and the 40x was very usable for scanning at longer distances, thanks to the light gathering of the 100 mm objective.
Realize that during WW2, many of the large binoculars used on Jap Naval vessels had objective lenses up to 180 mm in diameter.
They also had multiple eyepieces with high power.
So the reality is poor glass quality isnt the issue with rifle scopes used on higher power to the degree many think it is.
But rather design issues based on the objective lens size.