Arken EP5 5-25x

[psharon97]

I suppose my point is that Arken, Athlon, Vortex are fad scopes. The internet hypes the hell out of these scopes, proclaims they're just as good as top tier quality scopes, and then I see new competitors in PRS with these scopes fail. These competitors have spent a lot of money just to shoot the local match.
Match fee: ~$100
Travel: $80
Ammo: $120

Forget the top competitors, why does nearly every shooter out there shoot with a 2k+ scope? Because we've seen these scopes fail, either on our rifles, or on a fellow competitor. We're not in a warzone, we're just in a competition. I wish someone had pointed out, that I would have been better suited just saving a few more months and buying an IOR/S&B,Nightforce/ZCO/Khales/TT than upgrading and being disappointed. Every cheap Chinese/Philippines/Japanese scopes, even the Razor Gen I has had to go back to factory to either be repaired or replaced. For $300 more I could have just bought the 6-24x56 tactical IOR over the Razor Gen I. There's simply no comparison between the two even though the scopes were priced to be equal. What's even worse...the top competitors often are sponsored by a scope brand. Barrel, action, stock/chassis, sure, but unless they're shooting a Vortex or Bushnell, the other scope manufacturers aren't sponsoring shooters.

[Dave Hoback]

Who in this thread proclaimed the Arken, Vortex, Athlon, etc., was better?? Because I’ve read every post & I certainly can’t find that posted anywhere. In fact, I never see that posted. To funny.

[J.Baker]

I have never so much as looked through an Arken, but decided to see what all the hubbub is about now that they've been around for a couple years so I ordered one yesterday - their new EP-8 LPVO. Been hee-hawing back and forth on which 1-8x LPVO to try out for my AR15's, but wanted to try to stay under $500 as if I like it I'll probably be ordering one or two more for two other AR's. Not super keen on the reticle, but liked that it was 34mm main tube and had low profile capped turrets rather than big bulky exposed ones as I just plan to zero it and leave it alone. I would have preferred a SFP reticle over FFP to make it more visible at lower magnifications, but beggars can't be choosers.

Downside is they're back-ordered with an estimated ETA of about 6 weeks so if I'm lucky I'll have it in my hands by Thanksgiving.