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New Kahles K328i

Just a heads up guys in regards to mounts. The issue with the 328i in general is the tube section in front of the center saddle is so short a Spuhr for example will take up pretty much all of it. So you’ll have to set eye relief almost entirely based on moving the whole scope forwards or backwards on the action rail. You won’t have any forgiveness moving the optic inside the rings. But most beefier rings will end up the same way not just spuhr.
Problem 2 is that any ring setup with a top rail won’t allow you to use the parallax throw lever. So it gets a little tricky on how you want to mount and setup the 328i.
 
Just a heads up guys in regards to mounts. The issue with the 328i in general is the tube section in front of the center saddle is so short a Spuhr for example will take up pretty much all of it. So you’ll have to set eye relief almost entirely based on moving the whole scope forwards or backwards on the action rail. You won’t have any forgiveness moving the optic inside the rings. But most beefier rings will end up the same way not just spuhr.
Problem 2 is that any ring setup with a top rail won’t allow you to use the parallax throw lever. So it gets a little tricky on how you want to mount and setup the 328i.

Thanks for the heads up, good to know!
 
I was able to compare this scope side by side to a Gen 3 razor at my LGS yesterday. I’m by no means an expert and I was just handholding the scopes and looking through a dirty window into the city so this is far from technical but I’m going to attempt to summarize my observations.


Scope Body: Before even looking through it I was immediately struck by just how massive the eyepiece on the 328 is. It’s literally bigger than the objective bell. As others have said the turrets are so far forward on the body that mounting is going to be more challenging especially with standard one piece mounts. Construction and feel was typical Kahles.


Controls: The DLR 10 mil elevation turret felt fantastic. Very positive clicks with the perfect level of resistance. Only thing I would have liked is a little bit more aggressive knurling to help me spin it. A serious step up from the Vortex turret. Although not locking the windage turret was extremely stiff in a good way, I would never worry about accidentally bumping it. The zoom control felt perfectly damped with a nice level of resistance, felt no need for a throw lever. Parallax was great, perfect level of resistance and no need for the massive clamp on throw wheels. Illumination and diopter were typical Kahles nothing noteworthy.


Image/First Impression: The thing that immediately stood out to me when bringing the scope up to my eye was the size of the image. It was huge. I’ve heard a similar phenomenon described when looking through a ZCO. The razor felt like watching a tv and the 328 felt like looking at a big screen in the movie theater. If I had to put a number to it I’d say the Kahles image felt at least 30% larger. Very immersive. One thing that was odd to me though was the image at 3 power looked like it was off center. The other thing that immediately stood out to me was just how much distortion was visible at low power. Major fish eye especially towards the edges. Like I’m talking 2000s skateboard video levels of fish eye distortion. I suppose the only time you’d be shooting this on low power would be for hunting and at the point who cares about the distortion but still. No tunneling noticeable at all. Practically edge to edge image at the lowest power setting, almost no scope body visible. The reticle was a little challenging to make out at lower power, but that’s to be expected with an 8 power FFP scope.


FOV: Looking at the specs it’s pretty clear this thing has a monster FOV. It seemed to beat the razor at any equivalent magnification range and I think the big FOV also contributed to the immersive feel of looking through the scope. Hard to quantify this by just looking through it in a store for 5 minutes. Maybe Swarovski is finally putting that dumb patent to use.


Optical Clarity: Again this was challenging if not impossible to properly quantify in the viewing environment but I’ll give my first impressions. Right away it’s the typical European vs Japanese glass experience. The Kahles being brighter, more vibrant and more pleasing to my eyes. I can’t say if the 328 was actually able to out resolve the razor but it felt less straining to make out details and micro contrast at distance with the Kahles just due to the bigger image size. I was viewing buildings from about 100-400 meters away. Looking through their older models and knowing their reputation the next thing I looked for was signs of chromatic aberration. I tried to induce it by pointing the scope at the edge of a dark building with a white cloud behind it but there was no obvious color fringing. Maybe slight if I was off center or out of focus. The razor felt maybe slightly better in this regard but it definitely felt like a step up from their older models. More testing would be required to say anything definitive. If I had to choose to sit behind one all day based off what I saw in the store I would choose the Kahles. That opinion could easily change if I actually got out and shot through them at distance though.


Eyebox: When this scope was first announced my immediate thought was “The eyebox will probably be shit.” I was hoping I’d be wrong as Kahles has definitely fallen behind their competition and I feel like they need a win. Well glad to say I was wrong. The eyebox on the 328 is fantastic. Very forgiving. Better than the Razor at any equivalent magnification. Even at full 28 power just handholding the scope it was easy for me to get in; and stay in the sweet spot. Very impressive. Outside of the big image the eyebox was the part of the scope I was most impressed with.


Final thoughts: It remains to be seen how this scope will perform mechanically in terms of tracking and reliability. Assuming they’ve nailed those two things it’s still a bit of an odd ball in my opinion. The magnification range and construction are just weird to me. For a compact general purpose scope I’d rather have a true 3-20 and by giving up some range maybe lose some of the distortion on low power and have a more useable reticle as well. The FOV on this design is so good if they made a 3 power it would feel like 2x on a lot of other scopes. It would be fantastic for hunting or on a DMR especially paired with that big image. For a true high powered scope a 6-48x56mm would be a lot more useful and I could live with a longer body. Seems like they kind of split the difference here. Overall I won’t be purchasing one as I think the price is too steep (I’d rather get a ZCO) and the current configuration doesn’t necessarily appeal to me, but I do hope they use this new eyepiece design in some other models as it really seems like they might have something here.
 
Surely Kahles is working on a K16i-2 ?? I sure hope so. How's your K18i-2 at 1x?

Huge, clear, with a generous eyebox.


On a red dot, your field of view is obstructed by the housing of the dot.

A K16i or K18i is very similar to this, with the field of view through the scope basically matching what you see absent an optic, with little obstruction to the non-shooting eye.

The K18i-2's field of view is so wide that you see "around" the scope.
 
I was able to compare this scope side by side to a Gen 3 razor at my LGS yesterday. I’m by no means an expert and I was just handholding the scopes and looking through a dirty window into the city so this is far from technical but I’m going to attempt to summarize my observations.
Was this at a store or did you actually have the scope to play with for a while and setup the diopter appropriately?
Scope Body: Before even looking through it I was immediately struck by just how massive the eyepiece on the 328 is. It’s literally bigger than the objective bell. As others have said the turrets are so far forward on the body that mounting is going to be more challenging especially with standard one piece mounts. Construction and feel was typical Kahles.
Strange design, will definitely turn off those looking for good aesthetics ;)
Controls: The DLR 10 mil elevation turret felt fantastic. Very positive clicks with the perfect level of resistance. Only thing I would have liked is a little bit more aggressive knurling to help me spin it. A serious step up from the Vortex turret. Although not locking the windage turret was extremely stiff in a good way, I would never worry about accidentally bumping it. The zoom control felt perfectly damped with a nice level of resistance, felt no need for a throw lever. Parallax was great, perfect level of resistance and no need for the massive clamp on throw wheels. Illumination and diopter were typical Kahles nothing noteworthy.
I thought Kahles always had some of the best turret feel outside of TT, I can only imagine that 10 mil per rev would be even better with wider spacing.
Image/First Impression: The thing that immediately stood out to me when bringing the scope up to my eye was the size of the image. It was huge. I’ve heard a similar phenomenon described when looking through a ZCO. The razor felt like watching a tv and the 328 felt like looking at a big screen in the movie theater. If I had to put a number to it I’d say the Kahles image felt at least 30% larger. Very immersive. One thing that was odd to me though was the image at 3 power looked like it was off center. The other thing that immediately stood out to me was just how much distortion was visible at low power. Major fish eye especially towards the edges. Like I’m talking 2000s skateboard video levels of fish eye distortion.
This fisheye effect is not uncommon especially with wide angle eyepieces, you are seeing the optical distortion of the curved lens element and with any off axis eye placement you will see the curve and if you wiggle your head a bit you'll likely see the reticle do a little dance.
I suppose the only time you’d be shooting this on low power would be for hunting and at the point who cares about the distortion but still. No tunneling noticeable at all. Practically edge to edge image at the lowest power setting, almost no scope body visible. The reticle was a little challenging to make out at lower power, but that’s to be expected with an 8 power FFP scope.
I do not see this scope as a "crossover" scope as I feel it is too heavy (for that use) and most would likely prefer 56mm objective for more light gathering. This is more of a competition oriented scope and starting at 3.5x was a strange marketing choice because most competition shooters care little for going below 10x.
FOV: Looking at the specs it’s pretty clear this thing has a monster FOV. It seemed to beat the razor at any equivalent magnification range and I think the big FOV also contributed to the immersive feel of looking through the scope. Hard to quantify this by just looking through it in a store for 5 minutes. Maybe Swarovski is finally putting that dumb patent to use.
Seems like Swaro did just that given the popularity of some of the new wide angle eyepiece scopes over the past few years.
Optical Clarity: Again this was challenging if not impossible to properly quantify in the viewing environment but I’ll give my first impressions. Right away it’s the typical European vs Japanese glass experience. The Kahles being brighter, more vibrant and more pleasing to my eyes. I can’t say if the 328 was actually able to out resolve the razor but it felt less straining to make out details and micro contrast at distance with the Kahles just due to the bigger image size. I was viewing buildings from about 100-400 meters away. Looking through their older models and knowing their reputation the next thing I looked for was signs of chromatic aberration. I tried to induce it by pointing the scope at the edge of a dark building with a white cloud behind it but there was no obvious color fringing. Maybe slight if I was off center or out of focus. The razor felt maybe slightly better in this regard but it definitely felt like a step up from their older models. More testing would be required to say anything definitive. If I had to choose to sit behind one all day based off what I saw in the store I would choose the Kahles. That opinion could easily change if I actually got out and shot through them at distance though.
Sounds promising, I keep debating on whether I should grab one of these for a review.
Eyebox: When this scope was first announced my immediate thought was “The eyebox will probably be shit.” I was hoping I’d be wrong as Kahles has definitely fallen behind their competition and I feel like they need a win. Well glad to say I was wrong. The eyebox on the 328 is fantastic. Very forgiving. Better than the Razor at any equivalent magnification. Even at full 28 power just handholding the scope it was easy for me to get in; and stay in the sweet spot. Very impressive. Outside of the big image the eyebox was the part of the scope I was most impressed with.
There were mixed comments based on the SHOT show experience, I find the Vortex RG3 6-36 to be pretty forgiving with eyebox so encouraged to hear that Kahles somehow figure out how to get an 8x erector to not be so finicky, could be the extreme FOV may be playing a part here.
Final thoughts: It remains to be seen how this scope will perform mechanically in terms of tracking and reliability. Assuming they’ve nailed those two things it’s still a bit of an odd ball in my opinion. The magnification range and construction are just weird to me. For a compact general purpose scope I’d rather have a true 3-20 and by giving up some range maybe lose some of the distortion on low power and have a more useable reticle as well. The FOV on this design is so good if they made a 3 power it would feel like 2x on a lot of other scopes. It would be fantastic for hunting or on a DMR especially paired with that big image. For a true high powered scope a 6-48x56mm would be a lot more useful and I could live with a longer body. Seems like they kind of split the difference here. Overall I won’t be purchasing one as I think the price is too steep (I’d rather get a ZCO) and the current configuration doesn’t necessarily appeal to me, but I do hope they use this new eyepiece design in some other models as it really seems like they might have something here.
Appreciate your time to provide some feedback. Sounds like another design from Kahles that was "almost there", not sure who their target audience is here but I would agree with you, given the unusability of the reticle at lower mags there just won't be much appeal to the crossover market, but the competition market may have some interest even if they don't care about the lower mag range, if this scope excels in the 10-20x range where most dynamic long range shooters find themselves then it may not matter it can go down to 3.5x as long as FOV stays extreme in that Goldilocks zone which based on your above findings sounds like it does.
 
IMG_3109.jpeg

Been enjoying mine so far. No problems with the eye box
 
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Well give us a good review already... you seem to be the only one on here with one in their hands outside a show or store
Ha. Haven’t got to take it out to shoot at distance yet. Was wanting to wait till I do, however I have done some low light testing against a zeiss lrp s3 6-36x56. Price points are far apart but the kahles seemed to hold on longer in low light. This was looking 1500-2400yds away in a clear cut. Looked through both until 30 minutes after sunset. I have the skmr+ reticle, which I really like. Keeps the image nice and clean. I believe this will be a fine crossover although it is heavy. I’ve always liked the feel of Kahles turrets and these are as good as any imho. I have very little wiggle room with the eyepiece and the 90 degree bolt throw with the low ARC rings I went with. Could’ve went with the 1.10” height but like it low on the rifle. If it gives me any trouble I’ll go higher but cycling thus far I haven’t hit the eyepiece. Haven’t seen any CA yet, but I’ll be looking at white targets in the near future.
 
Thanks.
Thats what I figured but I could not find any information on the Kahles website.

So how is everyone speccing these, DLR vs other turret, windage L/R?
Leaning towards MSR2 or SKMR4+ if going DLR.
If majority of your shooting involves dialing 10-15 mils, I’d get the 15 mil turret. Otherwise I’d go with the 10mil DLR.

For windage location, is it more important to see where you are at on the illumination dial or where you are at on your windage turret?

After having SKMR3 and MPCT2’s, I’m casually eyeballing a SKMR+.
 
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I shoot left handed so I went right side windage

I liked the idea of the not so cluttered turret and 90% of my shooting will be 10 mils or less so I went DLR

Since I went DLR I kinda got screwed on reticle choice... I really like the looks of the AMR reticle, it looks way busy on paper but looks really nice in scope cam footage I've seen but for some dumb reason they don't offer that in the DLR so I went with the SKMR4+
 
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I shoot left handed so I went right side windage

I liked the idea of the not so cluttered turret and 90% of my shooting will be 10 mils or less so I went DLR

Since I went DLR I kinda got screwed on reticle choice... I really like the looks of the AMR reticle, it looks way busy on paper but looks really nice in scope cam footage I've seen but for some dumb reason they don't offer that in the DLR so I went with the SKMR4+

I shoot left hand also so right side windage makes most sense, just worried it might damage resale value if all ringht handed shooters prefer left side windage on these scopes.

I am actually leaning towards DLR turrett, I have other scopes more suited for LR so like you, It will most likely end ut being used shooting at shorter ranges.

How do you like the SKMR4+?
I am thinking a tree reticle fits this scope well.
 
Any idea on glass quality to other top scopes?
I only have the 525 dlr and Gen3 Razor to compare at my house. Well and an XTR 3, but this isn’t really a fight for that scope.

The 328 certainly beats both of those in FOV and ease of getting behind the scope. That being said I’ve never had an issue getting behind the 525 DLR or G3. The 328 eye box is very forgiving. Clarity is also better on the 328.

1716383584201.jpeg
 
I only have the 525 dlr and Gen3 Razor to compare at my house. Well and an XTR 3, but this isn’t really a fight for that scope.

The 328 certainly beats both of those in FOV and ease of getting behind the scope. That being said I’ve never had an issue getting behind the 525 DLR or G3. The 328 eye box is very forgiving. Clarity is also better on the 328.

View attachment 8423387
What mount/rings did you go with for the 328... how much extra room did you have for eye relief. I'm guessing I'm going to need a cantilever mount to get it far enough forward
 
What mount/rings did you go with for the 328... how much extra room did you have for eye relief. I'm guessing I'm going to need a cantilever mount to get it far enough forward
I’m using 36mm 2 piece Heavy Tactical Hawkins Precision 1” rings and will wait for them to come out with a 1 piece cantilever mount in the future. I would have gone with 1.15” height rings, but they didn’t have any when I dropped by.
 
Just entering the world of LR and picked up a ZCO 527 as my first higher end optic. Anyone compare this K328i to the ZCO?

I'm currently building a 7mm hunting rifle for out west. Besides the weight, wondering if this could be a contender?
 
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Just entering the world of LR and picked up a ZCO 527 as my first higher end optic. Anyone compare this K328i to the ZCO?

I'm currently building a 7mm hunting rifle for out west. Besides the weight, wondering if this could be a contender?
The k328i is not a contender for a hunting scope for me. Particularly if you are wanting it on a long action. 37 ounces is a chunk, and I think you’ll need a fairly tall mount (more weight) to get good eye relief, which also means you’ll probably need/want an adjustable cheek piece (even more weight).

I’ve killed stuff with a k525i, but that’s on the far side in terms of weight. If you want a high end hunting scope, the TT315M is it.
 
Only being hand held... too tough to really make any judgements until it's on a gun and run through the paces.
Just waiting on Area 419 to get their mid cantilever mount in stock
Tier One makes a comparable product. If I end up with one versus another 7-35 that’s the route I’m going. Unless Badger comes out with something.
 
I’d be on the lookout for a Hawkins one piece cantilever mount in the future. Last I talked to them they’re looking into making one. Otherwise their 2 piece rings work fine for the 328.
 
Swaro just sent me a 3-28 for some development of parts. First thoughts, golly what a FOV. Also, eyebox is very forgiving. It's rare I can just hold up a scope by hand and not struggle to get a view at max magnification.

It is also heavy and the ocular end is massive.

I plan on getting some pics vs other Kahles models, Razor G3, Zeiss S3 & S5, and ZCO. Then I'm gonna grab my popcorn, post on here and on my social pages for all 100 people Meta lets see it, and watch people bicker :D
 
I really really love the 328 on its own.
My only complaints are not related to the quality of the scope, but what doesn’t come with it and for the price you are paying:

- No flip covers, but does come with a neoprene cover.
- No sunshade.
- No throw lever.

The 525 DLR came with the cover, parallax spinner, throw lever and sunshade. I was really disappointed to not see at least a sunshade with the 328 DLR.

I guess one more point. There seems to have been very little coordination with scope ring manufactures given the odd design of the scope prior to its release. 419 seems to be the only one that was coordinated with and I won’t be using their mounts.
 
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May I ask why?
Honest answer. I’ve gotten tired of their cockiness, passive jabs at their competitors with everything. The constant “we scanned the market and determined everyone is doing it wrong and we are now fixing it” has got annoying to me. Great example of this was the Zero Press (of which I own), they jabbed everyone’s depriming system “baby bottles” and I have found their depriming system, specifically the primer catcher to be the worst. You have to tape it to the press to keep it from constantly backing out. Then when they pushed their scope rings out they did the same narrative and I just got tired of it. I’m grateful they support the sport, but I’m tired on how they advertise.
 
Ya for it being their flagship new most expensive option I sure was expecting more or at least some accessories other than a cheap neoprene cover most people will never use... they claim they don't even have a magnification throw lever available yet which really surprised me.

The area 419 mount looks like a great design and I'm kinda married to that since I need some cantilever to get the right eye relief and the scope won't even fit in the 36mm tube, 32mm height cantilever Sphur mount I bought to try... not to mention I've already bought the dope card holder and send it level adapter for the Area 419 mount since they told me it would be available in May. Come on Area 419, you're leaving me hanging here
 
I really really love the 328 on its own.
My only complaints are not related to the quality of the scope, but what doesn’t come with it and for the price you are paying:

- No flip covers, but does come with a neoprene cover.
- No sunshade.
- No throw lever.

The 525 DLR came with the cover, parallax spinner, throw lever and sunshade. I was really disappointed to not see at least a sunshade with the 328 DLR.

I guess one more point. There seems to have been very little coordination with scope ring manufactures given the odd design of the scope prior to its release. 419 seems to be the only one that was coordinated with and I won’t be using their mounts.
@Jmeier1981

Throw lever, caps, ARDs coming within a few weeks, max.

Our 36mm XLP level is real nice.