Midas 4.5-27x50 BTR first impressions.

The riflescope arrived today, thanks for the two day delivery Kevin, and as requested I received the SHOT demo model. I wanted a riflescope that had already been fingered and played with before touching it but even after a week of SHOT the riflescope was in like new condition. As luck would have it today was our SRT training day so I took a few guys from my section and we went to the range to run some early and quick tests.
First, out of box I noticed that there was the rifle scope and a manual. There were no added items such as lens caps or a sun shield but right out of the box I was very pleased with what I received. The overall fit and finish of the scope is nice with a good even matte finish on the scope and smooth rotating parts like the power ring and focus knob. The knob adjustments are very nice for a $500 optic! Adjustments are Tactile, with good resistance and a very sharp and audible snap with each adjustment. The knobs have just the right tension IMO, tight enough to not move as I take it out of my drag bag but not so tight that I need undue force to make an adjustment.
The markings are clear and the elevation knob does have horizontal hash marks in order to track how many rotations you are at on the knob. Though there are no direction indicators visible from behind the rifle scope. Up is counterclockwise and is marked on the turret top, and yes it is basic going from one to two as up but it is nice to have indicators. The same goes for the windage, I prefer the knobs that count up in both directions, but the windage knob on this scope only counts up in one direction. Again, not critical, but one of those things I like on my tactical scopes. The focus knob is smooth and precise and works very well.
The fast focus eye piece is also smooth to rotate and precise with no slop. Everything on the scope is very nice quality from the outside appearance and feel. The site advertises 17 mils of adjustment, I came out with 22 but forgot to reset and count back how much usable I have after zero but my guess is in the 17 range.
The parallax adjust smoothly and although I am not too critical of such things, it was about spot on at 60-100 and 200 yards. The illumination is the standard six level with an off between each. I found the highest to have a bit of bleed but not so much it is distracting. I found the highest setting to be daylight useable and had no problem tracking from light to dark backgrounds. I think this illumination has far less bleed then my $1500 SWFA SS 5-20 but not as good as my March or ATACR, but that is not the competition. Just using them as a reference.
The reticule is in the 2nd focal plane, so you must insure that you are on the proper magnification to make your mil readings. According to the manual there should be a number highlighted on the magnification adjustment to show the proper magnification the reticle subtends to. My scope does not have any green highlighted magnification indicators. On most scopes I have found that to be the highest magnification setting; however, with 27x I would hope it actually corrects to a lower setting. This would be easy to figure out if we had only brought a measuring device, plum and marker to the range but we forgot and didn't run out to get one till later. By then it was too last so I'll just call in the morning and report back. For this first impression test we simply mounted and shot a bit but we will be doing further testing along the way.
Glass quality is subjective and that is why I brought assistance. I am almost 50 and my eyes do not recognize the same “pop” they did in my youth. For that reason I brought our youngest member, 28 years old and another old dog at 39 years old. We also brought along some comparison rifle scopes on other rifles. For comparison we brought six optics with, my ATACR (C553 new style) a Vortex Viper PST 4-16x50, Hawke Sidewinder Tactical 4.5-14x42, SWFA 3-15 & 5-20 and a Weaver 3-15x50. First we mounted it all up and for that I just used one of our spare Remington 700P 20" with the only modification being a Timney trigger and Badger 20 MOA base. Rings were Night Force aluminum 30mm and mounting was fairly straight forward.
Once mounted and bore scoped we started trying to judge glass quality. The optical quality and performance on the scope is outstanding with very crisp and solid sight picture. The optical quality is right up there with SWFA 3-15 quality, which we tested side by side with this scope. All of us thought the clarity was far better than the Vortex and the Hawke and close to the SS 5-20. We all could see a huge difference between this and my ATACR and March scopes but at 3.5 times the cost the difference was not that staggering. The Weaver and Midas were just about neck and neck with the Weaver having a bit better color resolution but the Midas still had very good edge to edge quality. For reference I attempted to keep the testing in the same ranges, for example I compared 10x & 15x on the Weaver and SWFA 3-15, but went to 20X for the SS and 25X with the March and ATACR. The only time the clarity suffered was over the 22-25X range. From 22-27 it is still very good and usable but I noticed the typical darkening you get with most scopes over 25X.
The low light performance appears to be excellent in the few times we were using it in those conditions. It does get dark early but the PD range is close to some homes so I only had the opportunity to get some early twilight time. The illumination is the standard six level with an off between each. I found the highest to have a bit of bleed but not so much it is distracting. I found the highest setting to be daylight useable and had no problem tracking from light to dark backgrounds. I think this illumination has far less bleed then my $1500 SWFA SS 5-20 but not as good as my March or ATACR, but that is not the competition. Just using them as a reference. Overall Optical quality is still very difficult to compare, but to my eyes it was excellent and right up there with the other very good scopes out there and far better than anything I have found in its price point.
The weather today didn't suck too badly for a MA winter; it was about 40 degrees with a mix of sun and clouds and 10-15 mph winds. During the tests we all took turns doing the normal box test, shooting groups at each corner and bringing the 5th group right back to the start on top of the first one the scope tracked very well during all three tests. We also fired a group and then moved the reticle over 5 full MILS on the windage knob and then measured the distance between the groups to determine accuracy of clicks. The groups measured 17.85″ from center of group one to center of group two, where 5 MILs is exactly 18″ at 100 yards. This shows an error of slightly more than 1% which is within the margin of error for our tests give group sizes and weather conditions. So far mechanically this scope appears to track very well.
The final test was a return to zero. Our range is only 350 yards so we set up steel at 350 and went back and forth dialing up for 350 and back down for 100. We each did this several times and measured the groups at 100, with a return back to the same POI each time.
So far I am very pleased and will be doing much more with this riflescope. I have a few courses coming up and there is the SRT/SWAT bragging rights match in March and I will use keeping shooing this until then to see how it holds up to rugged field use.

A While back I picked up a new
.308 and had all intentions of mounting it with a vortex. Then along came the Athlon Midas and on paper it's a perfect match with and a price point of me getting to keep a couple hundred bucks in my pocket. So I figured I'd dig a little and see what's it's all about. After a bit of asking around for a real perspective I decided enough people like what Athlon has to offer so I bit the bullet and put in the order for a Midas BTR 4.5x27x50. Sure first impression are good, it's pretty and came in a nice box but who cares about this stuff. Let's get to range and see what the hype is about.

Here we go, two Remington 700 sps with 24" bull barrels. First in my .308 mounted up with the Midas btr 4.5x27x50 in MOA with night force rings. The next is a Remington 700 300 win mag with 24" bull barrel mounted up with the vortex viper pst 6x24x50 in mil rad with the same night force rings. To keep it fair both of these guns are being shot for the first time with there new scopes.

First impression was these scopes are the same, crystal clear glass with a perfect MOA reticle. At 100yrds still nothing but perfection. Now this is where it differed on the scopes. The parallax adjustment on the Athlon was a wider range making jumps from 100-200-infinity while the vortex offers a tighter range 100-200-300-500-infinity. I figured this would make a big difference but I found the clarity beyond 300yrds was the same and he had to adjust his parallax a few extra clicks.

Next let's get to clicking. Adjusting this thing was an ease, it uses a 1/4 MOA adjustment and as for using precision I'm no Carlos Hathcock. I stick to 4 clicks is 1 inch and moving on. The Athlon was spot on to adjustments made. This allowed for a less frustrating day on grouping my shots.

The vortex was equal in performance.
At the end of the day one scope is $900 and the other $700. Both are amazing for less than $1000 price point and one is no better than the other. With the Athlon be prepared to purchase a set of covers and a sunshade. I have no regrets on my choice of going with Athlon over vortex. Especially getting to keep the extra $200 in my pocket. Well Ill being buying a pelican case so I guess that money is already gone. I'll leave you with the notation that if you can shoot like a military sniper then this scope with let you pick out what hair too shoot first. As for me I got to see my misses very clear.

Very surprised at the quality of this glass. After reading so many positive reviews I decided to pull the trigger(ha-ha). I will admit that at long distances on very hot days you loose some clarity. But when you compare prices to some of the bigger names it's hard to turn your nose up to a $1,000 savings. If your only shooting 500-800 yards out this scope will be more than enough for you.