Athlon Argos first impressions

Received my Athlon Argos BTR 8x34x56 with APMR FFP IR MIL Reticle the other day. Seems to be boxed well. Sits in foam on 3 side, but only the box on the top. Overall build quality looks good. Mounted it on a FX Wildcat 25 with Fx no limit rings. Took off a 8x32x56 Hawke Sidewinder. Ocular fast focus lens adjusted smooth and brought the reticle into sharp focus. What a GREAT RETICLE. Reminds me of the H-58 reticle in another scope that I feel is the best target reticle made. After getting everything adjusted, I set up side by side guns with the Argos 8x34x56, Hawke Sidewinder 8x32x56 and Vortex 6x24x50 PST. Looking through each one for clarity, there is no clear winner. They are so close to each other. MAYBE the vortex is a slight winner, but then it cost 3 times as much. The parallax adjust markings are not even close, but parallax adjust works smooth and well. With parallax set as close as possible anything closer them my 15M target goes out of focus. When I sighted in it only took 3 clicks of windage and elevation to be dead on at 50Y. Windage and elevation adjustments work well. Adjustment clicks are sharp and clean. As good as I've seen. I shot a box twice and it came right back to original 0. The manual is lacking, but maybe it's all online. Did not come with a battery and there is no reference to what is needed. My first impressions are this is a great FFP scope for the money. But, there are a couple of things that concern me. The first is the ocular fast focus has no locking ring and with a small side to side pressure it clearly moves. Also the parallax, windage and elevation knobs also clearly move side to side with light pressure. I took the elevation knob off to see if it was in the knob or the shaft. It's defiantly in the shaft. I noticed the same movement in the Hawke, but much less and the Vortex is just rock solid. This may be by design. It concerns me less with the lifetime warranty they offer. At this point I would say this scope is well worth the cost. Did I mention that I LOVE this reticle. Will be interesting as others chime in. 
 
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Got my Athon today. So far it's just like you said. I also wish that there was some way to lock the turrets. The zoom ring moves smoothly and I like that they incorporated a bump for moving it easier. The focus knob works VERY smooth! In fact, I probably like it best of all of my scopes. The reticle gets fat at 24x but, that's to be expected with an FFP. I like that it comes with flip up caps. I've bought Butler Creek caps for all of my scopes and I won't have to do that with this one. :)
Mine came with a CR2032 battery. If you want, PM me your address and I'll stick it in an envelope for you. I don't use the illumination on any of my scopes. 
Tom
 
Thanks for the offer Tom. But I'm like you. Have not installed on any of my other scopes. Just wondered if it should be there and was wanting to see the lighted reticle to pass on observations to others. Spent a lot of time behind this scope yesterday, and it's a nice scope. Well worth the cost I believe. With a few minor improvements it could be a home run. 
 
"Jayman07770"The light on mine is very light. Even at the max setting I can barely see it. How does your look like when turned on.
It's almost unnoticeable on the first couple of settings. I tried it during full darkness and it's ok at higher intensities, but I never use the light function and I only do paper punching. I noticed that the numbers on my (Mil) reticle are bit out of focus around the edges with the red light on, but do not know if it's the light or the glass. Did not get a chance yet to hit the indoor range and see if the edges are blurred a bit at 100 yards in normal indoor lighting. The switch does get stuck at times between two settings.
 
I really like my Athlon , mine is a 3-12 Talos ...I sent my first one back because of the bad fit of the eyepiece . I guess it wouldn't have been a big deal but if you fix the gun in a vise as you move it just slightly the crosshairs move on the target . Mines on a springer so I just couldn't imagine the eyepiece settling in at the exact same spot each time . The scope they replaced it with was fine ...And gotta say , they were VERY professional and nice to deal with . Mine is SFP
 
Just go to YouTube and Jason from Athlon Optic will walk you through the process. I had to use two washers for the elevation and only one for the windage turrets.

This should also work for the Athlon Talos btr ffp scope too. They use the same size turret knobs. Had to send my Talos back the Athlon because the turret markings didn't line up. I can confirm the that the washers do fit. 


Here's the link below: