A bit heavy, but fantastic glass and reticle! - Athlon Optics Ares ETR UHD 3-18x50mm APRS6 Rifle Scope

Purchasing a scope without much information caused me some apprehension, but with multitude positive reviews on the Athlon Ares ETR 4.5-30x56, I was willing to take a chance on this 3-18x50. We mounted the scope on a Tikka T3x CTR SS .308 with Steiner T-Series rings. Assembly was seamless, and the fit was excellent. It's a solid, well-made scope, all dials spin cleanly, but with some friction so they won't move if bumped. Eye-relief is 3.5" plus, so easy to set up. I wish it came with a sun-shade and scope caps, or at least covers of some kind. The box itself fit like dove-tailed joints!

At almost 2lbs for a 18x scope, it's a bit on the heavy side for mountain hunting guns; but the tough 34mm tube, excellent ultra high-density glass and APRS6 reticle may be worth it. My son and I chose it because of the price, reticle, and glass-quality on the longer range scopes in this brand/family, and perfect magnification range for a .308 with a 20" barrel. These were the first shots for gun, scope, and rings. The reticle's floating dot was exactly what we were looking for, rather than straight cross-hairs that block some of the target area. The center dot is .04 mil, so it covers less about .13 MOA (almost 1/8") at 100 yards! Illumination in our desert-like environment at 5:30pm was daylight bright.

Range: after bore-sighting, the first shot with Hornady Black 155gr AMAX loads was both 3" high and left. The mil-reticle made turret dialing easy to match the bullet hole in the shoot-n-see target. A couple more shots to confirm zero, and the tracking seemed perfect. My 22 year-old son's .65" 3-shot group at 100 yards confirmed consistency of Tikka, Steiner rings, Athlon scope and Hornady ammo combination. We took shots from 100 yards to 300, 400, 600, and 700 yards. Using a shooting calculator to estimate drop and wind holds, we hit plates with the first shot out to 600 yards. Wind picked up at 700, so took 3 shots to hit steel. The turrets are incredibly crisp clicks, no wobble, and easy to read the markings. Elevation comes with a both the ability to set zero and to install a zero-stop. Windage is a locking turret with the ability to set zero. Perfect!

If you're using a flatter-shooting cartridge than .308, the elevation range will easily get you out to 1500yards. For the .308, adjustments can be made out to nearly 1300, and then there are 10 more mil of holdover dots in the reticle. We purchased this with the intention of beginner long-range precision shooting. It seems to fit that perfectly! I highly recommend this scope, but that's after only 20 rounds, so maybe a bit of confirmation bias. I'll update this if anything changes.