Here is some info that was recently posted on USNM on this scope option:
For those of you that are members there her is the thread link
http://www.usrifleteams.com/forums/...pe-option/&page=2&tab=comments#comment-434920
There are some good pictures of the newest model that the tester took themselves as well. It looks pretty nice from the pic's regarding nice / well marked turrets.
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Hey everybody,
Some of you might remember me as having been around a few years ago but I disappeared. A combination of work taking over my life, and then I decided to take some quality me-time to recover from an auto accident.
I actually approached Athlon about creating this scope back when SR scopes were just coming to market prior to the rules being official. The owner of Athlon had made a name for himself in the PRS market for being open to new ideas and was bringing scopes to market with, among other things, adjustable parallax that is adj waaaay up close. So I contacted him and he was open to the idea. Bear in mind this was in the early stages of scope development for SR and a) there was no experience in the market as there is now and b) there was a different thinking about the size of the surrounding circle on a reticle. That explains the 12 MOA ID circle.... it comes from 2015 thinking.
Development first centered around a prism scope and I got hold of the prototype of this scope.
https://athlonoptics.com/product/rifle-scopes-btr-pr41-prismscope/
In short... tracking didn't cut it. to their credit Athlon took the data and went back to the drawing board with that scope. Myself, I moved on to others, eventually settling on Weaver/ISTs, of which I have a matched pair.
Time marches on, and several months back, just as I was physically able to get back to the sport, I get an email from Athlon telling me they have a 1-4.5 optic planned, and are looking at the reticle again. They can only go so far on redesign given a need to keep the thing marketable elsewhere, but they want input before its finalized. I roped in a couple of other community members after Athlon OK'd it, and we spitballed. Basically the only thing anyone will see is whats in the middle of that circle so thats all we looked at changing. After some dialogue and a couple of iterations, we were given three choices and you see the one that got picked. In a perfect world I would have reduced that circle, but that wasn't an option at the time.
More time passed, and I got another email saying the single production prototype was in Athlon's hands, and they wanted to send it to me for test/eval. I have had it on my rifle since October although my health and schedule have limited my ability to shoot to only a half dozen outings. 2 weekends ago I shot a short match in abominable weather (rain, swirling wind) and scored a personal best. And I forgot my spotting scope that day. Very short assessment is I like it and I plan to give up my Weavers permanently for one of these.
Some personal observations
- Nice clear glass. All of my shooting with it has been in weather ranging from bad to ridiculous and I have been very pleased with the view on target.
- Adjustable parallax down to 22 feet (note pics below the prototype goes to 10). Its graduated for use on a SR course. so far as I can tell the parallax works fine, and the 22 ft minimum means its good for hallway practice.
- Big Freaking Turrets. Like em a lot. Firm clicks. Not $2,000 scope clicks but firm and clicky without slop. I really like the fact that elevation has only one 25 MOA revolution, so no getting lost. Production scopes are advertised as 23 MOA on a single turn but prototype is 25 as you can see below. Windage dial is just as big and clearly marked with big 1R-2R etc. markings.
- 1/4 MOA increments. I didn't realize how much I missed this until I got it back.
- It has reticle illumination which is of course useless. However I tried the old trick of using two CR2016's instead of a CR2032 to double the voltage and it works just fine. On a cloudy day (thats all I have had so far) its visibly red. When I did that with another Athlon scope a few years back and asked Athlon about warranty, they thought it was a neat trick and had no problem with it.
- Its *heavy*. Not so great for any other sport but good for us. The overall impression is of a solid tank and not a delicate instrument.
- So far as I can tell, and we all know this can change over time, tracking is accurate.
- Its a second focal plane reticle but I don't care. I never use anything but 4.5x.
I don't have much in the way of pics as I did not plan to do a writeup when I stopped by this evening. I dug a few up from when I got the scope. One is it sitting side by side with my IST/Weaver on the rifle. Remember this is a prototype so possibly a production unit will look different
On Friday I got another email from Athlon's owner telling me they had production stock on hand.
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Maybe I should give the longer version. The kind of graduations / increments on the scope were coarse metric and completely unsuitable for SR. The elevation turret's direction was also reversed from what we expect in a USA scope. European scopes often have an elevation turret that goes in the opposite direction. Its normal for them. Not so much for us.
Again remember this was 2015. SR optics considered as possible choices were ACOGs because ... they were service optics. So a parallax-free prism scope sounded like a good idea at the time.
EDIT: I found my post on it. At the time I made this I hadn't yet figured out the directional difference. Which reminds me the turrets were also unmarked and fingertip-sized. What you'd expect for a prism or red dot but a bad choice for SR. Looking at Athlon's imagery this morning for that scope, it now has much bigger turrets, they are marked and 0.5 moa instead of metric ... elevation is still clockwise but at least its marked clearly. So they did work it over based on my feedback, which was pretty candid.
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My take,
This scope is new and unproven but given the suppliers example of good customer service in the text above if I were in the market now and adjustable parallax was important to me ( hopefully that horse is dead at least in this thread...
)
I would give one of these a try.
It may or not turn out to be good quality with repeatable clicks. Time will tell...
It will take the better part of at least a season of people using them before we will know how good they are.
George
