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Attn Rifle Scope Geeks! Review Sniper’s Hide: Talos BTR 4-14×44 FFP mil.
If you want to go straight to Sniper’s Hide follow this link: http://www.scout.com/military/snipers-hide/forums/5511-rifle-scopes/14581356-athlon-s-talos-btr-4-14×44-ffp-mi-mil-review
“Doesn’t everyone have rifles that they don’t want to put even medium priced scopes on/$$$$, I know I do?
It wasn’t too long ago I was running three BSA 4-14×44 riflescopes on various air rifles, a 22 rimfire and on my CZ527 in 17R. I’d change them from one gun to another as needed because I didn’t have enough scopes for my all rifles. As the years went by I decided I wanted to stick with these features, I wanted FFP, mi/mil, 10 yard minimum parallax or less. The BSA’s had those features so I was somewhat happy. What I didn’t like about the BSA’s were a few things, first the image quality in them was poor, second was the reticle although serviceable, was a plain .5 based reticle with lines that were not labeled and didn’t have any defined 5 mil marking anywhere. So for holding over there was a lot of counting to be done which was a PITA. The other thing that wasn’t that great was the turrets, kinda mushy with play in between clicks and clicks not lining up. I was buying these from Midway for $250. Some friends and friends of friends bought these and we’ve had good luck with them.
My other scope of choice became the SWFA 3-15×42. It’s a few steps up in quality from the BSA’s but it’s approaching 3 times the price at $699. This is a scope that does most everything well. I have had only a couple complaints with them. Mainly the milquad reticle is a odd one. Not bad as far as reticles go but not great either. I have two of them and for some reason???, they don’t present a perfectly clear image past about 800 yards. It’s like I want to turn the side focus knob a hair more to clear the image up but the rotation has come to a stop. Other than these things they’ve been great scopes.
Onto the subject of this review;
Like I’ve mentioned in a past post. “This a scope that shouldn’t exist but does” What do I mean buy that?
Basically it comes down to this.
1st, we can now buy a $299 MAP FFP mil/mil scope with a super .2 mil hash reticle! A reticle which is in my opinion is laid out so well it’s competitive with any reticle, in any scope, at any price. It’s that nice!
2cnd, the image quality in the Talos I have is at least good, if not even very good. Is it S&B, March or Cronus good, uh no, but it is every bit as good or better than my SWFA 3-15’s, my Nikon 3-9, a couple old Bushnell SFP’s, and various other cheapy scopes I have sitting around collecting dust. In other words I actually like the glass in the Talos!
3rd, it has a illuminated reticle. Most of the reticle is illuminated instead of just the center dot like on some more expensive scopes. Although not daylight bright, on the highest setting, the illumination is visible in dim conditions. While shooting indoors I could see the reticle very well against the black aiming bull on a 10M Olympic match target and at twilight I could see it fine.
General overview. I’ll keep this part brief because there isn’t much to comment on.
I’ve pretty much covered the reticle and the glass quality so let’s look at some specs.
No perfect scope???!!!
Okay now for some things I wish were done a little better on the Talos.
The 5 mil per turn turrets could use some more refinement. There’s some play between clicks and the clicks don’t line up perfectly with their corresponding line on the turret housing “all the time, meaning sometimes they line up”. Well this is pretty much how the BSA’s were. Maybe I’m a bit picky about this by expecting more out of inexpensive scopes?! Maybe not.
As of now the turrets don’t have revolution indicator lines on the housing to show what rev you are on. Reminds me of the NF 2.5-10×24 I used to have. Fortunately for my uses with this scope I won’t be dialing much over 5 mils and hardly ever past 10 mils. I will say that I didn’t have any problems seeing what click I was supposed to be on and I didn’t forget where my zero was. This all has been discussed with the president of Athlon. He’s on it and working for improvement.
Ending on a good note. I’ve used this scope on 4 rifles now. A Daystate PCP air rifle, a AR-15 in 6mmFatRat, a AA TX200 springer air rifle and a 10-22 rf. For the third rifle I had put it on my AA TX200 spring piston air rifle to attempt destroying it. The Talos survived fine but my AA didn’t, it broke. Kind of a funny test. On these rifles I’ve held over and dialed to 8 mils without any drama. It held zero and tracked well.
My final impression is I really enjoyed using this scope in spite of it’s small shortcomings and I’m buying more!”
