Midas Tac 6x24 and Arken EPL-4 6x24 (30mm tubes) side by side

[whyzee]

Arken sent me the scope with it optically zeroed (middle of adjustments). They set the zero stop at this optical zero.

I am far from an expert, but doesn’t ‘optical zero’ mean something totally different than turrets being in the middle/center of their adjustment range?

If I am jumping to conclusions by the assumption of your statement (middle of adjustments), I stand corrected.

 

[Blake1521]

I am far from an expert, but doesn’t ‘optical zero’ mean something totally different than turrets being in the middle/center of their adjustment range?

If I am jumping to conclusions by the assumption of your statement (middle of adjustments), I stand corrected.

Just depends on how each individual manufacturer designs the scope. My Hawke frontier comes optically centered with about 80% of the elevation left to use.

 

[peaceful_ruler]

I am far from an expert, but doesn’t ‘optical zero’ mean something totally different than turrets being in the middle/center of their adjustment range?

If I am jumping to conclusions by the assumption of your statement (middle of adjustments), I stand corrected.

That’s what I understand ‘optical center’ to mean. What else could it mean?

 

[whyzee]

That’s what I understand ‘optical center’ to mean. What else could it mean?

I thought optical center (optically centered) was when/after you perform the bathroom mirror exercise?

Scope objective placed flat against the bathroom mirror-helper shines a bright flashlight from/to the side so that some light can enter the objective via the ‘thickness’ of the glass of the bathroom mirror- you, holding the scope in one hand, look into scope and turn turrets till you see one (not double) vertical crosshair- then do the same for the horizontal crosshair.

End result, you may or may not have the turrets centered within their click range. But you will have your scope optically centered.

If I am incorrect, forgive me as I am far from any kind of expert. Actually just a spurt.

 

[RM.510bigbore]

As far as tube size and objectives diameters to glass clarity don't buy into it. Scopes need good glass period. Leupold and Sightron target scopes one inch tubes 36x 40 mm bells. Had amazing clarity for there size. My Nightforce benchrest were amazing but also had good glass. Had millett scope 35mm tube 56 bell 24 power. Glass cheap not clear past 20 power. Glass not to good if not clear at only 24x. My 2 cents

 

[peaceful_ruler]

Are the EPL4’s springer rated?

 

[peaceful_ruler]

I spent some time with the Arken EPL-4 on my backyard “range” today.

Some things I noted:

Arken sent me the scope with it optically zeroed (middle of adjustments). They set the zero stop at this optical zero. You just loosen the “zero” screw on top of the turret to allow you to move past the zero stop.

I mounted on my HW110 .22 and went to zero the scope at 15 yards - first shot hit my target dot - 1/2 size of dime. Nice job Weihrauch with rail and Arken with optical zero, lol.

Today I primarily tested ranging and parallax and minimum focus distance. I was able achieve a sharp focus (using up to 24x) at 35.52 feet from the front of the scope - I measure with a green laser supposedly accurate to 2mm at 100 yards. So, it’s pretty close to Arken’s specification of 10 yard minimum focus distance.

I had targets set at 30 (30.08), 35 (35.12) and 40 (39.98) yards. I had some very small text on the targets and focused till the text was very sharp. The distances on the parallax adjuster were pretty close, but were a couple yards short of actual distance… i.e. para scale showed 28 yards when actual distance was 30 yards. Parallax adjustment knob turned very smoothly.

Early thoughts on the glass quality… very nice at my distances today (out to 50 yards). Noticeably sharper than the Athlon Argos Gen 2 6x24 that I was also shooting with today. I did not get a chance to compare to my Midas Tac today - promise to do that soon. The Arken showed no CA fringing on the black text on white background targets. The Athlon Argos did show some slight CA on the same targets.

Final thought, the Arken definitely seems an excellent value at the $380 price point. Had that thought as soon as I achieved focus at a few distances today.

Have you had the opportunity to compare it with the Midas Tac? Particularly, I'm interested in how the IQ stacks up between the two at 20-24X.