Hawke disappointment

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Keyman62421

Keyman62421

Member
Feb 24, 2017
2,425
639
Claremont, Illinois, 62421 United States
I was needing a mid range scope for squirreling. to be used on my Wildcat (Thor). so after reading all the lauds I decided to try Hawke.
​Logged in on Pyramyd and ordered 4-16x44 Vantage Hawke. after 10 days or so I have decided it has to go back.
​1. in the woods it is dark and hazy. this scope needs DAYLIGHT to be visible. 
​2. If you don't look dead center thru the scope it has an opaque fog.
​3. now I've had to rezero the scope.(Went Left and High)
​I realize this isn't the high dollar unit but I have Bushnell's and Tasco's that are clearer and a lot less expensive.
​I have a Athlon Argos FFP 6-24x50 that I use for long range critter and bench rest shooting.
​I'll see what kind of trade up they'll offer.
 
I have the same scope as the OP and I just put it on my 500 Royale, I'm only shooting off bench and it's fine for that, I had no problems seeing out to 109 yards the glass was clear, 8" gong was crisp and it seems to be fine but now with that said I can see where a person could have issues with it out in the woods, walking along and drawing up on a squirrel in a tree or on the ground, I have noticed that if you try to get a fast sight picture you can get a dull or foggy type of view, you really need to get it set just right, so for the bench no problem,woods walking drawing not very good....I have a couple Vortex Vipers that I'm going to try out on my HMx when it gets here one is a HST 1-4x24 that I will just try off the bench out to 100 yards and the other is a 6-24x50 that I'll use off bench and in the woods, I took both these off of a couple PB's I have in the safe just to try. I'm also thinking of trying out a SWFA 10-42 just to see how it is, they are on sale with free shipping so it comes out to 269.99 total.
 
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for example in HFT actually you want such a scope. Like the MTC mamba 10x44. Will force you to align the eye/head position properly.
sure you can have long eye relief scopes, with great image but you will be a victim of parallax error I can tell you that.
by the sound of it you need to work on your technic.

having high magnification will also narrow down the sweetspot where you can place your eyeball. all scopes behave like that.
milky foggy image is usually low light transmission though. is it off optical center, did you have to adjust your turrets to zero a lot? That would put the beam closer to the side, also not helping light transmission. Plus a moving POI is not necessary a scope issue dont forget that.
 
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 This Hawke Frontier 2.5-15x50 TMX IR is overkill for squirreling:

88e0ee6941ff36299da61c4738ac3bf4.jpg
 
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A while back I bought a 4-12x50 Hawke Vantage for my HW95 because the 4-12x50 Hawke AirMax AO with AMX reticle didn't have an "illuminated reticle feature". Without an illumination the thin etched AirMax reticle would get "washed out" in shade if aiming at a dark colored target.

The 4-12x50 Vantage with illuminated etched mildot reticle did have OK glass (the AirMax was a bit crisper) but during my first field target match with that scope I noticed that the poi was shifting around with my HW95 which was tuned to only 12.5fpe. A trip to Hawke customer service found that the scope was suffering from a "shifted lens". I new replacement Vantage was sent and for some reason the scope focusing (needed for field target rangefinding) didn't seem to be functioning properly at a later field target match and my score was rather disappointing. The low score certainly could be due to the shooter having a bad day, however there were quite a few unexplained misses at easy difficulty targets.

I called Hawke as was told that if the Vantage was used on it springer the fpe output should be no more than 12fps. I mentioned that I had a 4-12x50 AirMax AO that works well, however the thin unilluminated AMX reticle was an issue for dark lanes and targets. The "Hawke guy" recommended the AirMax for springers that have a stiffer tune than 12fpe and that the Hawke Panorama was the same scope as the AirMax AO with the addition of an illuminated reticle. Searching the web sites I found a 5-15x50 Panorama with "10x Half Mil Dot" reticle and I performed well at the NC state field target championship where the reticle illumination was used for a few shots. By the term "performed well" I'm simply referring to the fact that there were no "surprise misses" and the misses were solely due to the shooter! There is a strange oddity (to me) about the 5-15x50 Panorama in the sense that the power ring has no 12x etching going straight from 11x to 13x. Still, even at 11x the scope snapped in and out of focus nicely and worked well for the "hunter class" where the scope power setting was limited to 12x anyway.

5-15x50 Hawke Panorama mounted to my HW95..........
TP7YJDHl.jpg

 
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Michael ... I was looking at Matt Dubber's video on the Aztec Emerald 5-25x50 and was impressed with what he said but the video itself showed a lot of chromatic aberration starting at about 18 power. I was wondering if you are having the same experience with your Aztec as I am in the market for a new scope. My Sidewinder 8-32x56 is going into the shop soon for inability to hold zero and lack of tracking ability. Any info you can give me would be appreciated. I absolutely love the clarity that I am getting with glass on the Sidewinder and would not really want to go back to the bleached out fogginess like I had with several UTG scopes that I have owned in the past.
 
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