I would imagine the mechanics are more similar than different between an Arken and a Vortex that is in a similar price range.
No, definitely not. Arken uses a much more robust all stainless steel erector system. Which is crazy to see on a $300 optic!
Nice.
How do you know it's stainless and not aluminum? I mean stainless would account for them being so heavy, I just assumed it was the thick tubing. One thing I love about my EP5 is if my rifle fails I can simply beat the attacker with the scope. Heck probably wouldn't even damage the scope. lol
For one, it just looks like stainless. Maintains a shiny finish and doesn’t dull like aluminum will. Plus the sound the turrets make has a slight “twang” sound like metal on metal as they click and there are extremely solid no matter how much or how fast you crank on the turrets.
Interesting, yeah I thought of magnetic test but then discounted for the same reason. I think there's a few stainless that are not magnetic. Depending which aluminum alloy it can be very hard and/or tough, but I'm not aware of any bare aluminum that wouldn't scratch given reasonable pressure like you tried.
At that price point I think people need to remember it could be other copies of that scope are just fine. However you'd have to test 10 or 100 to get an idea where it falls. Maybe they all are like that, maybe you got the 1% with issues, just no way to know. I view these low end as if you get a good copy great, if you don't, do what you did and send it back. I'm not really into exchanges because what if 80% of these have those issues, you might do a lot of exchanges to get an acceptable copy and even if shipping was free your time isn't and more importantly you're never going to get back the time you don't have it in hand.So I just initiated a return on Amazon for the Arken EP8. It’s good, but just not that great. The optics always felt a touch out of focus and when I started checking parallax at different ranges, I noticed 8x had a good amount of parallax. Of course there’s no parallax adjustment so no way to get rid of it.
Sorry guys, this one is going back to the farm.
Still really like the SH4 G2 4-16 tho!
My son was up here last weekend and we bought a Cabelas brand “AR” 1-6x24 LPVO for his AR15 which is also in 7.62x39 (and shoots great too!). We got it on sale as a demo model for $150 and honestly I am more impressed with that scope than I was with the Arken EP8.
The EP8 LPVO is actually quite lightweight compared to other 34mm tube scopes in that category. I just think having a good flat 1x is tough for Chinese optics when they are trying to stretch the max magnification to 8x
And that right there is why I avoid Chinese stuff.
Thanks for the report, I was waiting to see what you thought. That answers that, I’m still a fan of my other Arkens, maybe they will revisit the LPVO with some time.
LOL, that`s kinda hard to do when just about anything affordable is MADE IN CHYNAW!
Not really. I've had and/or personally seen 3 Chinese Vortex failures, one SIG Chinese failure, one Minox that is simply sub-par. I suppose I would have seen more if I didn't learn pretty quick. I would rather have a used scope than a new one from China.
I agree. There’s actually some real good quality optics coming out of China these days. But when talking budget Chinese optics, they can’t all be perfect. Gonna have a larger amount of lemons in the basket. Of course there’s gonna be lemons from every manufacturer no matter what the price point so just buy the best you can afford. And sometimes it’s fun to mess around with budget Chinese products. Many times you will find some really good quality and innovative designs, sometimes you get garbage. That’s why I read a lot of reviews beforehand and only purchase from vendors that offers no questions asked returns so I’m not stuck with a bad product
News flash bud…your own government uses your tax dollars against you and are a much larger threat to your way of life than China ever will be. I haven’t seen Chinese soldiers invading or attempting to ruin my life in any way, have you?
