I got one of the first bronze Ares ETRs that shipped, believe it was out of the first run of these scopes to make it stateside. I've used it on a custom 7mm-08 Improved, 40XB .22RF repeater, and it's currently sitting on a custom M70 in 6x47 Lapua. No problems of any sort with this scope; one of the first times I had it down on my range at 600yds was an overcast, rather dark & humid day, and I was shooting with it on the 7-08 Imp along side a Bighorn in 6 Dasher with a pre-BTR Cronus scope. There were times during the couple of hours of shooting these two rifles that I felt the new ETR had glass slightly better than the Cronus - it certainly didn't appear to be any worse in either resolution/clarity or brightness. As I recall, there wasn't a lot of visible mirage that day, so can't comment on how well the ETR handled mirage vs the Cronus.
Out of the box, I felt the clicks/detents on the ETR's turret knobs were almost too distinct - it took a fair amount of effort to get the knobs to break-out from one click to the next, making it a little difficult to get just one click. The Cronus felt a little mushy by comparison, but I was used to the Cronus, as I have them on several precision 22RF repeaters, and have used them all a lot. Never seem to have any problem getting one click on a Cronus if that's what I'm after, nor do I have any problem counting clicks if I don't want to raise up so I can look to confirm how many tenths of a mil I just put on or took off. However, running the ETR on the 22RF 40XB meant a lot of twirling the knobs, especially the elevation turret, and that aided in getting things worn-in a tad, to the point that, while the clicks are still very distinct, they're also smoothed out to the point that I have no problem taking one click on either windage or elevation turrets. Maybe I just got used to how distinct the clicks are, but I do feel they wore-in a bit also.
Just finished comparing the eyebox on this ETR to that of a pre-BTR Cronus & Kahles K624i, all set at max magnification - none of them seem too tight to me. The Ares ETR is very similar to the Cronus, and both seem a little less picky than the Kahles, which I've never felt was too tight to be a bother. Overall, I still like my Kahles scopes better than anything else I've shot behind, but at the same time, there's not so much difference to my eye in optical quality that I'm not happy with either of the Athlon scopes. Due to the fact that I shoot my .22s a heckuva lot more often than any of my CF rifles, I'm very much more familiar with the Cronus scopes than either the ETR or Kahles. I still love the Kahles scopes' turrets & parallax control - and also appreciate the great depth of field these scopes have, while parallax focus is quite a bit more critical on both the ETR & Cronus. This becomes very noticeable while shooting the .22s on a stage where targets are set from 50 to 200yds, with several targets at intermediate distances between the extremes. If time's tight, running the parallax knob for shots at each distance can run me out of time, which makes me wish the Cronus had as much depth of field as the Kahles. I can set the Kahles scopes parallax at 500-600 and forget it for most of the shots in a CF PRS match - but it's so easy to see & set parallax on the Kahles scopes that I often do it whether I really need to or not.
There ya go - my opinions on these scopes. Worth just what you paid for it...lol
