Rifle Scopes So many Kahles for sale....whats up?

[Platinumblonde]

Because they released two new reticles with .2 mil wind holds that everyone wants.

.......because vortex sucks? Yup....mostly made is China and phillipines junk. Razor made in Japan ok. Worst quality control of any scope manufacturer I’ve encountered. Just bought a pst gen ii.....delivered to my doorstep with a broken inoperable zero stop. That company sucks. Their range finders are borderline crap too.

 

[generalzip]

.......because vortex sucks? Yup....mostly made is China and phillipines junk. Razor made in Japan ok. Worst quality control of any scope manufacturer I’ve encountered. Just bought a pst gen ii.....delivered to my doorstep with a broken inoperable zero stop. That company sucks. Their range finders are borderline crap too.

I think you’ll find yourself relatively lonely with that opinion from most of the experienced shooters here. BTW welcome to the Hide.

 

[Platinumblonde]

Oh well, not going to hurt my feelings. The razor is bad ass, I own one. Vortex is a commercial ad. Period. With poor quality control. Thanks for the welcome. Better than Afghanistan.

 

[generalzip]

Oh well, not going to hurt my feelings. The razor is bad ass, I own one. Vortex is a commercial ad. Period. With poor quality control. Thanks for the welcome. Better than Afghanistan.

Yea the Vortex scopes being discussed in This thread is the gen 2 razor and the AMG which are really awesome scopes. Might be some confusion but I don’t think anyone was referring to the cheaper models. If you spend 400 bucks on a scope and expect it to be as good as a Nightforce or Schmidt, then that person probably doesn’t live in the same reality we do haha. It is without a doubt however Vortex has some of if not the best customer service of any scope manufacturer. I used to be in the school of thought that if I spent a certain amount I should never need warranty work. The sad truth is that’s not the case. Even some very high end Japanese and German scopes I’ve had had issues. That’s when I realized how important good customer service is. And if it’s handled in the US even better.

I have not used kahles CS. Does anyone have any experience with them?

 

[blbennett1288]

.......because vortex sucks? Yup....mostly made is China and phillipines junk. Razor made in Japan ok. Worst quality control of any scope manufacturer I’ve encountered. Just bought a pst gen ii.....delivered to my doorstep with a broken inoperable zero stop. That company sucks. Their range finders are borderline crap too.

Wait, so I shouldn't buy a Razor?

 

[Gilly]

This thread: Technical Scope Question by subwrx

And just to show the back ground, so hopefully if I am off base I can be corrected, here are the formulas
View attachment 7051214

Min and Max Linear FOV are published
I converted some from meter@100m to feet@100 yards, most are published with feet and yards though. S&B 5-25 is 5.3 meters fov @ 100 meters at 5x. Thats 5.3*3.28=17.3885' at 100 meters, multiply it by .9144 to get it to yards and you end up with 15.9'@100yards. 25x is 1.5 meters, thats 4.9 feet@ 100 meters x .9144=4.48'@ 100 yards.

Angular FOV is derived from this article https://www.opticsden.com/what-is-field-of-view/ which claims that 1 angular degree is equal to 52.5'@1000 yards, a tenth of that gets you to 5.25'@100 yards.

Apparent FOV is magnification*real FOV

Apparent FOV @ 20x to get them all to the same baseline I took the a max magnification and divided it by 20 to scale all of it to the same level and then multiplied it against the apparent FOV at max magnification.

That’s a great chart! I have a question, and possible suggestion. It seems to me the apparent FOV at 20x is skewed on scopes that aren’t near the average of a 25-27x max. I want to understand your calculations better. It seems to me the 18x max and the 35x max are deflated/inflated by the calculation to compare at 20x because they are outliers on what the max mag is.

What if you indexed the “apparent max fov” by calculating the average of all the values in that column and then divide each scopes value by that average. This would compare all scopes at max and prevent penalizing a 18x scope that isn’t designed to go to 20x and inflate a 35x scope being ran just over half mag compared to others at or near full.

This way you get a rating anything below 1.0 is below average apparent max fov and likely feel like small FOV and anything above 1.0 would be above average and feel like a generous FOV. Maybe I’m thinking about it wrong what you were trying to calculate but think this rating would be a great addition either way. I do this often to compare data sets and find it very helpful.

 

[5RWill]

Once I get my Kahles back from ILya I'll have to throw it up next to my Minox ZP5 like I did with the Schmidt Ultra Short 3-20. I'm assuming/hoping the K318i turrets are close to the K525i turrets. 5RWill, it's interesting, I have seen you and others mentioned the ZP5 turrets are meh while mine have been very decent, makes me wonder if Minox has different versions they've sent out, similar to the 2nd rev situation where early models were a lot more difficult between 1st and 2nd rev. It would take a lot to pry the ZP5 out of my hands

It's to note i've only handled one ZP5 so not an indicative sample size by any means. The video CS showed on their for sale page has notably better clicks at least audibly than what i felt on my buddies ZP5. But yeah it's hard to not want one now. Mainly just due to FOV, glass quality while better at max mag was pretty close between the two, i'd probably still give the edge to the ZP5 but below 20x they were indistinguishable for the brief time i had with them. Having been behind the K525i for months now the lack of FOV becomes apparent moving to a 5-25 with a larger FOV. Still don't really understand Kahles train of thought behind it, because they improved upon almost every other aspect coming from the K624i, had they kept the large FOV the optic would be pretty amazing. My guess is their restriction in the length of the optic to make it more compact is a lot of the issue, albeit i love the aesthetic i'd take optical performance over looks, because currently of the optics i've felt mechanically Kahles hasn't been touched, haven't come across a turret i like more.

 

[spife7980]

That’s a great chart! I have a question, and possible suggestion. It seems to me the apparent FOV at 20x is skewed on scopes that aren’t near the average of a 25-27x max. I want to understand your calculations better. It seems to me the 18x max and the 35x max are deflated/inflated by the calculation to compare at 20x because they are outliers on what the max mag is.

What if you indexed the “apparent max fov” by calculating the average of all the values in that column and then divide each scopes value by that average. This would compare all scopes at max and prevent penalizing a 18x scope that isn’t designed to go to 20x and inflate a 35x scope being ran just over half mag compared to others at or near full.

This way you get a rating anything below 1.0 is below average apparent max fov and likely feel like small FOV and anything above 1.0 would be above average and feel like a generous FOV. Maybe I’m thinking about it wrong what you were trying to calculate but think this rating would be a great addition either way. I do this often to compare data sets and find it very helpful.

I thought about that and initially didnt include any of those lower powered scopes at first because I wasnt sure how I should treat them.
But then I figured that dividing by an 18x scope by 20 scales the FOV values smaller as they would in the real world if you were to continue zooming in, the higher powered scopes scale their FOV up as they are zooming out and seeing more area.

I added the LRTSi and SWFA as budget alternatives and they do comparatively poorly in this metric but they have reputations for good visual quality glass for the price range. I assume that their designs cater towards delivering a more refined, quality, image instead of trying to deliver a larger image.

And I too noticed that the lower powered Kahles and Leupold 3-18s were lagging behind but then I figured that it was just the sacrifice one makes with an ultrashort design. But its notable that the eotech does relatively well in this regard while being the shortest. I added the S&B ultra shorts now and they are in the middle of them.


I added some nifty scale bars too

I think ideally we would find the rate that FOV is scaling from Minimum power to maximum power (with bias from tunneling complications to consider and so on) and then extrapolate the rate of that change rather than just going by the max power alone but there are so many variables. Its tough to compare.

 

[Gilly]

I thought about that and initially didnt include any of those lower powered scopes at first because I wasnt sure how I should treat them.
But then I figured that dividing by an 18x scope by 20 scales the FOV values smaller as they would in the real world if you were to continue zooming in, the higher powered scopes scale their FOV up as they are zooming out and seeing more area.

I added the LRTSi and SWFA as budget alternatives and they do comparatively poorly in this metric but they have reputations for good visual quality glass for the price range. I assume that their designs cater towards delivering a more refined, quality, image instead of trying to deliver a larger image.

And I too noticed that the lower powered Kahles and Leupold 3-18s were lagging behind but then I figured that it was just the sacrifice one makes with an ultrashort design. But its notable that the eotech does relatively well in this regard while being the shortest. I added the S&B ultra shorts now and they are in the middle of them.


I added some nifty scale bars too

View attachment 7051603




I think ideally we would find the rate that FOV is scaling from Minimum power to maximum power (with bias from tunneling complications to consider and so on) and then extrapolate the rate of that change rather than just going by the max power alone but there are so many variables. Its tough to compare.

That’s good stuff!

 

[Glassaholic]

It's to note i've only handled one ZP5 so not an indicative sample size by any means. The video CS showed on their for sale page has notably better clicks at least audibly than what i felt on my buddies ZP5. But yeah it's hard to not want one now. Mainly just due to FOV, glass quality while better at max mag was pretty close between the two, i'd probably still give the edge to the ZP5 but below 20x they were indistinguishable for the brief time i had with them. Having been behind the K525i for months now the lack of FOV becomes apparent moving to a 5-25 with a larger FOV. Still don't really understand Kahles train of thought behind it, because they improved upon almost every other aspect coming from the K624i, had they kept the large FOV the optic would be pretty amazing. My guess is their restriction in the length of the optic to make it more compact is a lot of the issue, albeit i love the aesthetic i'd take optical performance over looks, because currently of the optics i've felt mechanically Kahles hasn't been touched, haven't come across a turret i like more.

I'm with you Will, I absolutely love everything about my Kahles K318i for an ultra short except for it's low FOV, I compared it to the Schmidt Ultra Short 3-20 and similar to Spife's results above found the Kahles lacking quite a bit in FOV, but dang if that scope doesn't have the best glass I've seen in an Ultra Short, at least to my eyes. Here's a pic showing through the scope what Spife shows in the chart (my FOV estimate is based on the spec from Schmidt, not from field measurement)

 

[bjay]

I'm with you Will, I absolutely love everything about my Kahles K318i for an ultra short except for it's low FOV, I compared it to the Schmidt Ultra Short 3-20 and similar to Spife's results above found the Kahles lacking quite a bit in FOV, but dang if that scope doesn't have the best glass I've seen in an Ultra Short, at least to my eyes. Here's a pic showing through the scope what Spife shows in the chart (my FOV estimate is based on the spec from Schmidt, not from field measurement)
View attachment 7051692

That zcomp 4-20 will fix all this
I just wish they'll offer more reticle options

 

[spife7980]

That zcomp 4-20 will fix all this
I just wish they'll offer more reticle options

Added it in, heres the shorts

 

[Glassaholic]

Here's the thing with the Kahles, at least with regard to the K318i - I keep trying to find a better scope for all the features it offers and I can't find it. Turrets, reticle, ergonomics and glass. Until the MSR2 reticle Schmidt really did not have anything compelling, but I bought the Schmidt once the MSR2 was available, everything about it was amazing... but... the turrets, ugh, not sure what Schmidt did with the 18mil DT turrets but I did not like them at all, I've had the 14 mil versions and could live with those, but the 18 mil were too close together, too quiet, not very distinct and much to my dismay I decided to sell the Schmidt. Last year I had the Leupold Mark 5 3.6-18x44 and really liked that optic for it's turrets and ergonomics but don't like the reticle options and the glass was subpar for the price I felt, not horrible but better optics are out there for less, albeit not as short and light. The only scope I see on the horizon with the potential to unseat the Kahles K318i as king of ultra shorts (my opinion of course) is the Burris XTR III 3.3-18x50 with it's crazy FOV and early reports of great glass we'll have to wait and see, unfortunately it's taking Burris longer to get these to market than first anticipated, but that is no surprise in our industry and the SCR2 reticle is delayed even further, until summer at the earliest. Right now, I don't "need" an ultra short because I'm selling my rifles that would use it, so my Kahles may be another victim on the market soon, not because it's not a great scope but I have other needs at this time.

 

[Glassaholic]

Added it in, heres the shorts
View attachment 7051700

What about the Burris XTR III 3.3-18x50, can you throw that in there

 

[Glassaholic]

Added it in, heres the shorts
View attachment 7051700

So can you explain "Apparent FOV" again as these numbers are much larger than "actual" FOV at 100yards provided in the specs and I can't seem to wrap my head around what those numbers are showing at 20x.

 

[Glassaholic]

That zcomp 4-20 will fix all this
I just wish they'll offer more reticle options

Oh, you mean the scope I had a down payment on for months and then cancelled I saw enough of the 527 to make me a little nervous so decided to wait, I may regret it...

 

[bjay]

Oh, you mean the scope I had a down payment on for months and then cancelled I saw enough of the 527 to make me a little nervous so decided to wait, I may regret it...

What is on the 5-27 that make you nervous? You dont like them?

 

[spife7980]

What about the Burris XTR III 3.3-18x50, can you throw that in there

Sure

So can you explain "Apparent FOV" again as these numbers are much larger than "actual" FOV at 100yards provided in the specs and I can't seem to wrap my head around what those numbers are showing at 20x.

Apparent Field of View = Actual Field of view * Magnification

When I do it for the column at 20x I am taking whatever the maximum magnification level the Apparent max FOV is calculated for and scaling it up or down to where it would be at on 20x. (assuming its a linear relation ship)

The burris 3-18 would see 6.8 linear feet at 18x.
6.8'@100 yards/5.2= 1.2952°
1.2952°*18= 23.3143 AFOV
23.3143x(18/20)= 23.3143*.9= 21 AFOV@20x

Now, what unit of measurement does that number describes? No idea. I guess it is unitless or more of a factor really but if I had to assign it a unit I guess it would have to be "degrees per scaled mag power"?


Like I said first: someone please tell me if I am doing something wrong here or not. Im just trying to figure it out myself.

 

[POGPride]

I'm not even in the market for one.

but without actually counting - i wouldn't be surprised if ive seen more Kahles in the PX than the recent Razor G2 massive offload.

what's the dealio?

Seeing 318, 624, and 525

reticle options and I have also heard people complaining about the 14 mil turrets.

 

[Glassaholic]

What is on the 5-27 that make you nervous? You dont like them?

Didn't sound like the glass was as good as I hoped (sounds like its great but I deceived myself to thinking it would be better than Minox ZP5), a few had some turret issues but sounds like ZCO has resolved that, just general nervousness about being an early adopter with a brand new startup company for the most part.

 

[5RWill]

reticle options and I have also heard people complaining about the 14 mil turrets.

They're 16 mil turrets on the K318i/K525i but both of mine have phenomenal turrets as i said before i'd have a hard time changing in that regard.

I just checked the PX to see what K525i were going for and only found one maybe two. Lots of K624i which is expected, but little to no K525i and only one K318i.

 

[Glassaholic]

They're 16 mil turrets on the K318i/K525i but both of mine have phenomenal turrets as i said before i'd have a hard time changing in that regard.

I just checked the PX to see what K525i were going for and only found one maybe two. Lots of K624i which is expected, but little to no K525i and only one K318i.

Maybe Pogpride was talking about the Schmidt? Most people love the Kahles turrets (myself included, I think they are the best 14/15/16 mil turrets I've experienced - sounds like the new Steiner M7Xi has some good turrets as well) I've only heard complaints about the windage turret and not the elevation, the windage on my K318i is definitely not as distinct as the elevation, but I can't remember the last time I dialed for wind (I hold for wind) so that doesn't bother me as much as it might others.

 

[POGPride]

Maybe Pogpride was talking about the Schmidt? Most people love the Kahles turrets (myself included, I think they are the best 14/15/16 mil turrets I've experienced - sounds like the new Steiner M7Xi has some good turrets as well) I've only heard complaints about the windage turret and not the elevation, the windage on my K318i is definitely not as distinct as the elevation, but I can't remember the last time I dialed for wind (I hold for wind) so that doesn't bother me as much as it might others.

I was mistaken... I am not sure what they didn't like about the turrets being 16 mils per rev but they mentioned not liking that feature. I have a 14 mil S&B and it never bothered me.

 

[Dthomas3523]

You guys could just buy a Zcomp or a Tangent and be done with all this shit.

@CSTactical

 

[BallisticPrimate]

I thought about that and initially didnt include any of those lower powered scopes at first because I wasnt sure how I should treat them.
But then I figured that dividing by an 18x scope by 20 scales the FOV values smaller as they would in the real world if you were to continue zooming in, the higher powered scopes scale their FOV up as they are zooming out and seeing more area.

I added the LRTSi and SWFA as budget alternatives and they do comparatively poorly in this metric but they have reputations for good visual quality glass for the price range. I assume that their designs cater towards delivering a more refined, quality, image instead of trying to deliver a larger image.

And I too noticed that the lower powered Kahles and Leupold 3-18s were lagging behind but then I figured that it was just the sacrifice one makes with an ultrashort design. But its notable that the eotech does relatively well in this regard while being the shortest. I added the S&B ultra shorts now and they are in the middle of them.


I added some nifty scale bars too

View attachment 7051701




I think ideally we would find the rate that FOV is scaling from Minimum power to maximum power (with bias from tunneling complications to consider and so on) and then extrapolate the rate of that change rather than just going by the max power alone but there are so many variables. Its tough to compare.

This is why you've got to love the Hide. People will go out of their way to produce resources (and give them away for free) that can't be found anywhere else. Outstanding work @spife7980

 

[CSTactical]

You guys could just buy a Zcomp or a Tangent and be done with all this shit.

@CSTactical

 

[762by51]

just wanna say like many others, thank you for those who are contributing to the chart. it definitely helps folks like myself who are in search of a new scope.