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Rifle Scopes Athlon Argos vs Vortex Diamondback

W

Wrencoforge

Sergeant of the Hide
Full Member
Minuteman
Dec 9, 2019
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Hi, looking for a new scope for my 22lr. Budget is a very firm $500 or preferably less. Not my choice but I don’t want to be sleeping on couch for the rest of life.
May try to get into Nrl22, May just keep having fun shooting.. I’m mostly interested in stretching things out, at least for 22lr.
my requirements are ffp and 6-24ish.
Currently thinking of the Athlon Argos, (as they switch generations I’m seeing some really good sales.) Vortex Diamond Back, and the Bushnell Match (but haven’t seen it in stock yet, at least on paper, it sounds like a good choice , but at peak of budget and not in stock.)
Was leaning towards the Vortex but the price difference with the new sale prices is considerable and I may just get the Athlon.
Ive handled the Vortex, and it seems like it would fit my needs, it doesn’t have have an illuminated reticle though and the reticle is quite fine. I’ve never had an illuminated reticle so can’t say if that’s a big deal or if in the real world the reticle would even be a problem.
I have not handled the Athlon or Bushnell, but on paper both seem like they would work.
If anyone has experience with any of these scopes I’d love some input. Or of course if someone has some other ideas I’d be happy to hear them too.

Thanks, Justin
 
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Illuminated reticle probably isn't critical for your application. I honestly don't have experience with either model, but do with others of both brands. They're both fairly equal when comparing in the same price range, but I will support Vortex always for their customer service and unmatched warranty. If you're money-concience (i am too for the same reason!), then I'd go vortex. But only barely, and only because they are more established and I have had good experiences directly with them in the past.
 
Wrencoforge said:
Hi, looking for a new scope for my 22lr. Budget is a very firm $500 or preferably less. Not my choice but I don’t want to be sleeping on couch for the rest of life.
May try to get into Nrl22, May just keep having fun shooting.. I’m mostly interested in stretching things out, at least for 22lr.
my requirements are ffp and 6-24ish.
Currently thinking of the Athlon Argos, (as they switch generations I’m seeing some really good sales.) Vortex Diamond Back, and the Bushnell Match (but haven’t seen it in stock yet, at least on paper, it sounds like a good choice , but at peak of budget and not in stock.)
Was leaning towards the Vortex but the price difference with the new sale prices is considerable and I may just get the Athlon.
Ive handled the Vortex, and it seems like it would fit my needs, it doesn’t have have an illuminated reticle though and the reticle is quite fine. I’ve never had an illuminated reticle so can’t say if that’s a big deal or if in the real world the reticle would even be a problem.
I have not handled the Athlon or Bushnell, but on paper both seem like they would work.
If anyone has experience with any of these scopes I’d love some input. Or of course if someone has some other ideas I’d be happy to hear them too.

Thanks, Justin
Click to expand...

in your price range I would look at this. much better than the Athlon and Vortex and on a close out sale now.
www.eurooptic.com

Nikon BLACK FX1000 Riflescope 6-24x50SF Matte IL FX-MRAD FFP 16516

Nikon BLACK FX1000 Riflescope 6-24x50SF Matte IL FX-MRAD FFP 16516
www.eurooptic.com www.eurooptic.com
 
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I’ve had my hands on both scopes, I still haven’t used the illuminated reticle, I personally liked the Argos better than the diamondback.. but I feel if your taking a step above diamondback then I would go vortex .. but since you want ffp I think Argos would be a bit better imo
 
Since you're talking 22LR and not sure if you'll shoot competitive, I'm going to throw out Hawke here. I shoot spring airgun and 22LR, and Hawke is on ALL of them. The Hawke AirMAx is THE ONLY scope that has survived my Diana 34 springer. I have a Hawke Vantage 3-9x40 on a Diana 240, and a Hawke Vantage SF 6-24x44 on a Savage Mark 2 22LR. I'm not going to claim that they track perfectly, and I did have reposition the parallax knob on 6-24, but for sub-$200, even sub-$150, they are the best thing I've run across and the glass smokes vortex crossfire. Also, they are generous with the hash marks on their mil dot. I had a minor issue one time and called them about it. They sent me a prepaid label without a fight. The downside is that the scopes I have are all SFP, but they do make an FFP model. There are some spring airgunners that swear by the Hawke Sidewinder. Springers abuse the crap out of scopes.

And one more thing. This Savage Mark 2 I have has had some tuning done. I have set for 100 yd zero, and I routinely shoot .75"-1.3" groups at 100 using unsorted CCI SV with no weirdness from the scope. I've got about $360 in this gun.
 
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Check the classifieds on here for something in the next tier up. I have an argos, I replaced it after less than a year. I didnt think the turrets, lack of zero-stop, and mediocre glass would bother me. In that price range, you're not getting something that is top tier. For a first scope in this FFP arena, it was fine, I did not miss, even at 1k+ because of my argos. But I will say, that no matter what I did, I could not get my eye comfortable behind the glass. I would leave the range with headaches from it.

I still use it, but not on my high volume rifle.
 
I have both and would buy another Athlon. I am a fan of vortex but the diamond back not so much .
Call Doug @ Cameraland and get an Athlon . Also if you have a 500 dollar budget I know he can upgrade you in the Athlon family
 
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I have purchased 3 Athlon Argos BTR scopes, and zero issues with any of them. Sold two to a friend(bought Athlon Ares and Tacticle). They just work as advertised.
 
The Argos mechanism has proven to track and is robust. There’s several companies using that mechanism successfully. This is coming from someone who has never used either. But I have had several of the midway BSAs, one primary arms, they all tracked well. Glass was pretty good for the price.
 
I have had a couple of Argos's in the past with excellent tracking and good-enough glass. I noticed the gen 2 Argos is out now and it mentions upgraded turrets. Anyone have more details on that?
 
A-Rob said:
I have had a couple of Argos's in the past with excellent tracking and good-enough glass. I noticed the gen 2 Argos is out now and it mentions upgraded turrets. Anyone have more details on that?
Click to expand...
I seen a video of the turrets, they index way better. The zero stop was a hard stop. Looks to be a big improvement.
 
A-Rob said:
I have had a couple of Argos's in the past with excellent tracking and good-enough glass. I noticed the gen 2 Argos is out now and it mentions upgraded turrets. Anyone have more details on that?
Click to expand...
Old
1579620095036.png


New
1579620044649.png


Looks like more travel per rev at least plus a zero stop that isnt shims.
 
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No.. was being lazy ?
Thanks for everyone’s input, it’s been very helpful.
Think I’m gonna go ahead and get the Argos, With the current price I can get it today, where some of the other choices I’d have to wait a few months.
Thanks, Justin
 
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They are going to stop rifle optics but Nikon isn’t going anywhere. They are still honoring their warrantee but have made some changes and don’t have the no fault warrantee any longer. There are a whole lot of Nikon rifle optics out there and they can’t just stop servicing their products.
 
Eoddave27 said:
They are going to stop rifle optics but Nikon isn’t going anywhere. They are still honoring their warrantee but have made some changes and don’t have the no fault warrantee any longer. There are a whole lot of Nikon rifle optics out there and they can’t just stop servicing their products.
Click to expand...
They can just stop servicing their optics if they decide to do so - there are examples of it happening before. Owners of Premier scopes are very lucky that Tangent Theta is honoring any warranty repairs.

Besides that, even if they do continue to honor the warranty it's a garbage warranty compared to Athlon or Vortex. Athlon or Vortex don't care if you're the original owner or the 10th owner, and they more or less don't care at all about how it got broken - they just fix it or replace it. I had an issue with turret caps not perfectly lining up on my Argos, they asked me to send pictures, and then they immediately sent me a custom replacement cap to fix the issue (the original Argos turrets used to not line up exactly based on where your zero was set). I had an issue with the reticle in a Diamondback because I was a dumbass and took the scope apart before poking it with my finger (I broke it), and Vortex still had a new scope in my hands before the end of the week.
 
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I am leaning toward the Diamondback... I don't really want more than 3-4 x on the low end... at least around here MDs are putting targets close and starting at 6x makes things tricky.

PM me on a 3-15 PST GII if you can stretch budget a little.
 
Again thanks for everyone’s input, truthfully I had been leaning towards the Diamondback but the Athlon supporters swayed my decision. That and it was $120 less..
Truthfully I’m pretty curious to see how it stacks up.
 
I just got the argos for my 22. I haven't had a chance to mount and shoot it yet, but construction feels solid. From reviews and videos I've seen it tracks well. I will test and be able to give better feedback as soon as I get to the range.

We have a new baby due any day now, so it might be a while.
 
So got the Argos in mail last night and got it mounted this afternoon. Did a quick sight in using a snow bank ( makes things so quick and easy being able to see impact as it happens), and was able to start hitting some targets.
We have quite a bit of snow so can’t actually get to my range, but can still see a couple targets from the path to the cars. Guessing about 65-70yds, and getting into twilight.. scope was much clearer and brighter that my 3-9 Nikon prostaff.. no experience with truly superb scopes so I can’t really compare but for the price I’m pretty happy.
Have the day off tomorrow so should be able to really get a sense of how it works. Only slight complaint, is that at the higher magnification it wasn’t great.. it wasn’t unexpected though and it was also getting dark. We’ll see how it is tomorrow in full daylight.
So thanks to everyone’s helpful advice, Justin
 
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