NF and Athalon owners

[Lesco Brandon]

I have been running an Athalon Ares ETR 4.5 x 30 x 56 ffp and recently purchased a NF ATACR 7 x 35 x 56 FFP. I have to say I’m pretty underwhelmed with the NF. The elevation turrets are almost identical in feel but the windage turret on the NF feels mushy. I’ve just had it out at the local range and the glass quality is marginally better in the NF. I’m sure it will shine ahead at very long ranges - I hope. Things I hoped would be better in the NF are lacking suck as maximum zoom blurring and edge of glass distortion. Anyone else own both that can help cheer me up because I spent this money on a scope ahead of a light weight hunting rig and I’m second guessing the decision.

 

[celltech]

Once you get into the Ares/Cronus line of Athlon scopes it becomes diminishing returns to spend more money. If you thought the NF would be 3X better because it was triple the cost...nope. But it's great for us poors to get such quality systems at reasonable prices.

 

[charnicus]

Just sell it.

 

[ma smith]

Do your homework before spending $3k on an optic...

 

[jhr1986]

How does the depth of field compare between the two?

I admit I’m pretty happy with the ETR on my B14r

 

[Lesco Brandon]

Do your homework before spending $3k on an optic...

I did. Lots of it. Seems the riches here talk it up beyond reasonable expectations. One guy made it sound like he jizzed in his pants when he felt the turrets.

 

[Chickentoast]

Lots of misinformation going around. Could be people with little experience happy about their purchase, people who know better but trying to justify their purchase, idiots in their parents' basement with no experience, or salespeople masquerading as regular folks, but it's definitely here in one form or another.

I think the Ares ETR is a great value. I also think all of Nightforce is overpriced, by approx ~1K, as the rest of the industry has gotten more and more competitive. ZCO is far enough above the next tier to be "worth" the money, but is probably not "necessary" for anyone.

 

[Jefe's Dope]

I was running BTRs before my NX8 and while I'm not underwhelmed by my NF, I'm certainly impressed with what you get from Athlon for the money. The fit and finish on my NX8 is superior to my Athlons and the turrets are certainly better in my case. Athlon does a very nice job bringing affordable glass to an expensive market.

 

[hafejd30]

I own the Athlon Cronus BTR (Savage 300 WM) and a 4-16 ATACR (AIAT)

My most recent purchase is a NF ATACR 7-35 for my AXMC. I have yet to receive this optic

I’ve researched until I was blue in the face. Looked through Athlon, NF and SB together etc etc etc

I use mine for hunting. Every gun/scope listed above is a long range whitetail rifle. Crop damage hunting. Similar to what the southern guys do with hogs in farm fields (just with a lot less lead slinging)

My decision came down to reliability. I will tell you straight up I’ve been behind several 7-35 ATACR and if your comparing them to my Athlon Cronus BTR no your not going to be blown away by optical differences, maybe not even noticeable. Even side by side with the 4-16 the optics are very similar with a slight edge to the Cronus for light gathering but that’s to be expected with a much larger objective and the fact that it’s a 29X optic the 16X ATACR maxes out almost mid range on the Cronus magnification

I considered the Cronus BTR Gen II. Actually had one with my name on it ready to go on the AXMC but changed my mind.

Compared NF and SB. I thought the glass on the ATACR was a touch better, I actually noticed and for some reason preferred the bluish tint the NF has (you often hear SB has a “warmer” tint and NF has a “cooler” tint, I can see what people refer to when looking through both scopes) I also preferred the turrets on the NF vs the SB PM II.

Honestly I wanted a reliable proven optic with a track record. NF has a great (not perfect) record for toughness and durability. I love the Athlon but will I be happy if I top the AXMC with that and have issues with it being a newer scope vs the NF, no. The fact they changed the internals out in the Gen 2 Cronus doesn’t give me a warm fuzzy feeling but we’ll see in 10-15 years where the Gen 1 stands

I jumped on the vortex train when they first came out jumping head first into the PST line with several optics and was severely disappointed and used Vortex CS enough to turn me away from Vortex completely to this day

I went with ATACR for the reliability and toughness, bottom line over the Athlon. And with NF over the SB for the reasons above

Is the glass in my Cronus on par with a NF ATACR, yes. I do prefer the ocular not rotating on the Cronus like the NF does but the tenebraex caps solve that

However, for comparison my Sightron SIII had better glass than my NF NXS I owned but still consider the NF a superior product as I don’t judge an optic on just the glass alone. I sold the NF and kept the SIII tho based on my needs at the time

Are the turrets comparable between the ATACR and Athlon, difference in feel but both work excellent. I’m not a turret snob and actually dislike the extremely loud turrets. My 3.5-10 Sightron SIII had those and it annoyed the crap out of me

A lot of scopes TT, Athlon, ZCO etc have come along. And will likely be here to stay. They all have something in common and that is they are compared frequently to the NF ATACR and there’s a reason for that. In time if your not happy you can always sell and try a ZCO or something for a touch more $$

I changed my order to a 7-35 since starting this thread below but I’ll post for reference

Rifle Scopes - Topping an AXMC- Am I Crazy?

Long story short I’m buying an AXMC from a member this Saturday. I’m sure he’ll see this post and maybe chime in as well. Use: Long range hunting 500-1500 yards (mainly 500-1200) I’m an MOA guy, but I’ve used MIL and either works for me. So either works for me with this rifle Caliber: I will...

www.snipershide.com

 

[beetroot]

Yeah but the NF is a tank, you just can't put a price on that.

 

[264win]

NF has never been know for having the best glass. Their reputation is to have high quality optics that work, regardless of circumstances or even abuse.
If you want the best glass you should look at S&B, Hensold, ZCO, Theta.

 

[rhsc]

Before accidentally deleting it, I had a long (probably too long) response about not really seeing much difference between my Sightron SIII and my higher-spec Sightron SVSS HD until I was able to compare them out in the field at low light. The short version of the story is that, on the shooting range in near ideal conditions, both scopes look surprisingly close. It's when the conditions were less than ideal that I finally saw how an optic from the next higher tier could show its advantage. The SVSS was a bit brighter in low-light as you would expect with a larger objective, but it was the better color, detail and contrast that I found most impressive. Seeing those improvements made me feel a lot better about spending the money for the SVSS.

While it's sort of an apples-to-oranges comparison vs your ETR/ATACR, you might want to look through your scopes side-by-side in less-than-ideal conditions if you haven't already done so. That's where you might see a greater difference in performance between them. Just a suggestion.

 

[supercorndogs]

Lots of different lens coating out there designed to do different things. Taking a quick look through two scopes is not a good comparison.