I just got one of each model yesterday. I was happy to see that they came with a side focus wheel and zoom lever. I didn't see any mention of them on the Athlon website. I found it very difficult to tell the difference between the Ares and the Heras on my 15 yard indoor range other than the Ares seems to have a slightly flatter field of sharp focus than the Heras. When I focused on some fine printed text with the Heras, the outer edges tended to be a bit softer and when I focused for the outer text, the center went a bit soft. For the price difference - pretty tough decision based on my short evaluation. I am looking forward to trying both of them at 1K yards with my 6.5 CM and 338 LM.
I compared them to my Sightron SIII 10-50x60mm which this scope seems built to compete with. Having all three set at 50x it was a tossup on clarity and brightness for my old eyes. The Athlons were much more "snappy" on the parallax focus point than the Sightron. The extra 10x was nice on the Athlons. I also like the design of the Athlon quite a bit better. With similar MSRP values I would probably choose the Athlon but I need to use it more before I am set on that choice.
My only complaint so far is the side focus wheel does not extend far enough away from the scope and rubs on my front ring. Every large diameter side focus wheel I have ever owned that reached out to the rings, rubbed on one or both of the rings. It makes me wonder what rings they used when designing them. They were obviously much more narrow from left to right than any rings I own.
I compared them to my Sightron SIII 10-50x60mm which this scope seems built to compete with. Having all three set at 50x it was a tossup on clarity and brightness for my old eyes. The Athlons were much more "snappy" on the parallax focus point than the Sightron. The extra 10x was nice on the Athlons. I also like the design of the Athlon quite a bit better. With similar MSRP values I would probably choose the Athlon but I need to use it more before I am set on that choice.
My only complaint so far is the side focus wheel does not extend far enough away from the scope and rubs on my front ring. Every large diameter side focus wheel I have ever owned that reached out to the rings, rubbed on one or both of the rings. It makes me wonder what rings they used when designing them. They were obviously much more narrow from left to right than any rings I own.
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I have the Sightron SIII 10-50x60 and I guess I'm looking for something similar though I'm not sure exactly what yet.