This rifle is my trainer and loaner for when we run courses. She a pretty run of the mill .308 Franken rifle. But shoots tight, is super reliable and predictable with 175gr match ammo. What I do want to highlight is the optic. This is the Arken Optics USA EP-4 6-24x I picked up a few weeks back. Other than zeroing the rifle I hadn’t spent much time behind it. The more time I spend behind the optic the more impressed I am. The glass is what really sets this optic apart from anything else in its class. It is clear that Arken spent the majority of their focus on the glass quality (puns intended). I am super impressed with the clarity, crispness of the reticle and color transmission. I don’t have any quantifiable evidence to bring to you on it’s performance thus far. But I can say that switching to this after spending time on other quality optics, I wasn’t disappointed. Full disclosure: the reticle picture taken with an iPhone held behind the optic, white car is at ~860yds.
With any optic the trade space you have to give up to have top of the line features all around, is price. Since Arken didn't want to compromise on price, I feel that they sacrificed some on features. While overall feel and usability of the scope is still top-notch. I did recognize a few things I think are worth stating.
1.Turrets: these track very accurately as has been demonstrated by numerous other reviews. But, they aren’t very crisp. They are almost gritty, and I would compare them to maybe a PST or 2010 era MK4. This is my personal feeling, I would like to see that cleaned up in the Gen II.
2. Zero stop: it works, is easy to set-up and needs almost no instruction. It is also unlike anything else I’ve used. There a set screw to set the zero-stop, and another set screw to hold in the zero-stop set screw. Which I promptly lost the second set screw upon firing a mag through my .308 AR-10. The recoil was enough to back the screw out and now it’s lost forever. I suppose Loctite would fix that, but I am hesitant to use such things on optics. I will be contacting customer service for a replacement screw and just holding-over for engagements in the interim.
3. Parallax: this adjustment was finicky in my opinion. I was able to properly set my parallax, it just took me much longer to find the sweet spot. Nothing dramatic, but probably 5 seconds longer than my MK5. Not a deal breaker, but worth noting
