I was looking to upgrade from my beater Konus Konuspot 65 15-45x65mm scope that I bought 2nd hand from the EE. It's fine for what it is, but I want somethin' mo' betta!

After doing some lookin' and talking to some dude named Scott out of Camera Land in New York, lol, I was steered toward this the Athlon Ares models:

Athlon OpticsAres G2 15-45x65 UHD

Athlon OpticsAres G2 UHD 20-60x85


With the above in mind, do any of you guys have any experience with the two above models? Or with Athlon in general??

Muchas gracias, for any info!


Oh, yeah, and I almost forgot. I wanna use the spotting scope for shooting at steel out to 600 yards.

Just butting in ... You don't need a spotting scope for steel; you could use something like a flashing target hit indicator.

https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/new-products-from-hornady-hit-target-indicator-mobilis-single-door-safe-and-5-7x28-ammo/

Using it to spot for other people.

Hmm, that’s a nice compact spotter. Do you know how good the glass is? In a majority of the reviews, the Athlon Ares was noted for having good glass and punching above it’s weight. It performed well when pitted against more expensive spotters.

Athlon also has a model with a mil reticle.

Okay, so, in order to clarify, I want a better quality spotter to help spot other shooters, and have others spot me. I have access to a shooting spot that goes out to 800 yards, but don’t frequent that spot as much as the 600 yard range.

Do you think that that the 45x Athlon spotter would work out 800 yards for just spotting duties? On a review I saw on-line, some guy was digiscoping deer out to 900 yards and it was pretty damn clear.

Do you guys think this guy is bullshitting?

Any other feedback?

If you can afford a spotter with a FFP reticle, go that route. I'd suggest buying as much magnification as you can so long as you are still getting quality glass.. Calling impacts on paper with 223 and 308 at 600 yards, even with 60x will be hard. Steel impacts you can  just look for movement and oftentimes the impact will clear enough paint off that you can easily spot the impact on the plate. Alternatively you can put clay pigeons out, they don't self reset but they show impact really well.

Yes, for sure, I’m not expecting to see holes on paper at distance, but due hope to see impacts on steel and misses kicking up dirt around the steel.

I would get the best glass that has the most power, you don't have to max it out, but its nice to know its there if you need it, while a lower power is more compact, smaller lens will not produce as good of an image as a larger will with the same quality of glass..Nothing is more useless than an underpowered scope...It does nothing good....

One of my shooting partners recently purchased an Athlon Ares G2 20-60 spotter... can't beat the value.  Side by side with a Vortex Viper 20-60 and a Razor 20-60, all 3 are about equal... the Razor is disappointing, probably why they've been on sale at $750 lately but Vortex Viper & Athlon Ares work just as well.  Our range only goes to 350y so that's as far I've looked thru any of the above spotters.

Thank you for the feedback based on actual comparisons against other spotters.

I am just looking for a spotter that will let us see impacts on steel (plate moving) and splash around the steel when missing. I do not expect to see holes on paper and do not expect to see where exactly on the plate shots were landing. I just want something better than the Konus Konuspot spotter that I got off the EE for a good price but don’t want to spend $1000 plus on a spotter.