Rifle Scopes Athlon Argos BTR owners?

[TommyD11730]

Just had my first range day with my new Athlon Argos BTR Gen II. Unlike my Athlon Midas Tac it hasn't been love at first sight.
At 200 yards I found the sight picture blurry. Reduced the mag from 36 to 25 or so, messed with the parallax, focus.. nada. It's just not a clear image.
Don't get me started on the rect looks like it was drawn on with a crayon (super fat) at full mag .
I know... It's not an expensive optic but shouldn't the glass be as clear as my 15 year old Bushnell Elite?
Any other Argos owners here?

Thanks guys!

 

[excope]

I've got a Gen 1, 6x24 that is pretty hard to get a good focus with. Although I can still shoot 1/2-3/4 MOA at 100 yds with it, I wouldn't want to depend on it for impacts or points if dialing combined with parallax adjustment.

For me it's more of a decent rifle hopper range scope.

 

[Vodoun daVinci]

I have an Athlon Argos BTR 10-40X56 Gen II that is 90% of a Vortex Golden Eagle to my eyes. Tracks perfectly and looks (glass wise) as good as a $1400 optic for <1/3rd the price. I love mine especially the reticle as I bought the scope for the reticle with floating center dot and super fine cross hairs.

I think mine is awesome with the exception of a tight eye box. Where'd ya get it?

VooDoo

 

[spife7980]

Let someone else fiddle with it, maybe your eyes are dry or something, idk.
If not send it back.

 

[MojoNixon]

I’ve got a Gen I 6-24x50 and I have no issues with mine (except it doesn’t track correctly), it’s at Athlon for warranty repair or replacement currently. Out to 550 yards (the farthest I’ve taken it so far), the image is clear enough for my 20-blind eyes. No reticle issues, either.

 

[TommyD11730]

I have an Athlon Argos BTR 10-40X56 Gen II that is 90% of a Vortex Golden Eagle to my eyes. Tracks perfectly and looks (glass wise) as good as a $1400 optic for <1/3rd the price. I love mine especially the reticle as I bought the scope for the reticle with floating center dot and super fine cross hairs.

I think mine is awesome with the exception of a tight eye box. Where'd ya get it?

VooDoo

Did you really say super fine cross hairs? FFP? Ok, I did say mine look like they were drawn with a crayon. Maybe a fat sharpie. . I wish I could take a pic of the sight picture cranked all the way up. It's silly.
Got it from the same place I got my Midas from, Spartan. They did me right IMO , I'm just trying to determine if I'm expecting too much from this scope.

 

[Vodoun daVinci]

Mine is an SFP.....i suspect we are talking Apple's and oranges. My only point is that my Argos BTR rocks but I have not looked thru many other Athlon scopes in the BTR line. Athlon had an outstanding warranty and if yer not impressed maybe send it in for evaluation?

VooDoo

 

[sparky702]

I have an Argos btr gen2 , it's the third one in a series of returns that started with a gen 1 . Mine is a 6x24x 50 and I bought it for a 22lr . the new one has better turrets and a zero stop , but like the rest past 18x the reticle fall's off quick they are hard to focus with and to be honest you cant make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. .

 

[Doctorwho1138]

I have one on my 10/22. Did a box test and tracked perfectly. The glass is pretty nice and it’s clear throughout Its mag range. The turrets aren’t super audible and the tactile feel is lacking for sure. My hash marks don’t line up perfectly but I think that’s a known problem for these. Overall I think it’s a decent scope for the money. I also have a Vortex Diamondback Tactical on one of my other 22s. I think in the same price range I prefer the Vortex. It’s just a little bit better all the way around. Just my 2c.

 

[Kevins750]

I bought a gen 2 10-40 that would not focus. Sent it back got another one, it was blurry on anything above 12x got a refund.

 

[Onewolf42]

One thing I learned from SLR camera lenses is that the more magnification the cost for good glass/optics goes up exponentially.

I have an Athlon Talos BTR 4-14 and the optics are excellent for a $300 scope. I have 3 Athlon Midas TAC scopes (6-24 and 5-25) and the optics are great. I would not get a 30X plus scope that costs less than $500 with expectations that the optics are going to be 'good'.

 

[MojoNixon]

I’ve got a Gen I 6-24x50 and I have no issues with mine (except it doesn’t track correctly), it’s at Athlon for warranty repair or replacement currently. Out to 550 yards (the farthest I’ve taken it so far), the image is clear enough for my 20-blind eyes. No reticle issues, either.

So I got my warranty taken care of from Athlon. They basically confirmed my contention that it didn’t track correctly. They sent out a Gen 2 as a replacement with the APLR2 reticle and zero stop. 14 days from the date I sent it out to receipt of the replacement. That’s pretty damn good in my book. Now depending on how this one works out I can take my time saving my pennies for a 4-20 Tract Toric, or possibly a Cronus.

 

[TommyD11730]

Had my Argos out again this weekend. I spent a lot of time making sure the rect was adjusted correctly for my eyes. As the rect is huge at max mag I did so at a much lower mag.
Shooting a standard sight in target at 200 yards I find anything over 16x unusable. Again the rect is just too fat and will obscure the 1 inch target.
I did find the target clearer this go around, perhaps my parallax is more closely adjusted.
The eyebox is definitely tight, glad my rifle is only a 223.
This is probably a case of you get what you pay for. Having not fired any other scope in this price range I have nothing to compare it with.

 

[MakeSawdust]

My father-in-law has one on his .22. It is good enough for that for a starter scope. I could not win a .22 lr prs match with it. It doesn't track well enough to hit small targets past 200 yes and the glass is not impressive. It also has some weird number of mils per rev, I thing 6 or 7.

 

[IanMc]

I bought a 6-24 for my Tikka T1X 22LR which I shoot out to 400 yards on steel plates. It has barely enough travel to do it with a 30 MOA scope base, and I get into pretty severe edge distortion due to using about 8-9 mil of holdover. I also cannot actually see where I hit on a white painted steel plate past about 230 yards.

It tracks reasonably consistently for the amount of vertical dispersion of my ammunition (SK STD+) which is about 1 mil at 400 yards. The zero stop is kind of crap. Mine does 5mil per revolution which is also annoying when shooting 22LR at longish ranges.

I have used it to spot for people at 1000 yards, and it annoys me compared with my 1st gen Cronus. It works, but the glass kind of blows for that.

I wish that the reticle was one of the newer center-dot types. I only run it above 16X a fraction of the time. At my range in Texas, the mirage gets too brutal, and the optical clarity really isn't there.

 

[addertooth]

I will agree with much of the sentiments above. At high magnification, the eyebox is super small, to the point where it verges on useless. The glass is mid-vortex okay (I own Vortex in the same price range too, and compared it side by side at the same mag, and the same target. The images were very comparable.). It is just a case of where the price range places constraints. The Argos is a "feature rich" scope, and as such, that didn't leave cash on the table to put in HD glass. If you have just put a bucket of money into a gun, and you need a "starter optic" to play with your gun while you save up for a top-tier scope, it is a decent starter point. At least it will get you familiar with side parallax, First Focal Plane, zero stop, etc... The lack of audible clicks can be remedied by replacing the axle grease they use on the turrets, with a better grade lubricant. I would throw in that the illuminated reticle is a bit dim for anything other than twilight and nighttime use. But then, that is when you are most likely to use it.

Right now, it is resting on a 2 MOA (at 100 yards), .357 caliber air rifle. As the rifle is not terribly accurate, the scope is more than adequate for that application. I would think long and hard before putting it on a 1/4 to 1/2 MOA long distance rifle.

 

[Cary Cheshire]

My Ares ETR does well at least out to 1300 yds. That's as far as I have taken my 6.5-284 Norma.