Hawke Optics anyone?

[The Trinity Kid]

Hey y'all.

Any one have any experience with Hawke Optics? I was thinking of getting this scope ( Hawke Optics | Sidewinder 4-16x50 10x ½ Mil Dot ) for the new rifle I'm getting. I'm either getting a Remington 700 .308win, or an Alexander Arms 6.5 Grendel upper for my AR. I've used their rimfire scopes on a 17 HMR, but never on anything with better "oomf." Thoughts? Suggestions?

-TK

 

[FEENIX]

Hopefully Bruce Ventura will chime in, he sells them and speaks highly of them.

 

[Laelkhunter]

Not too many replies, so I thought I would add my experience. I don't have any Hawke scopes on a high powered rifle, but I have one on a .22 cal RWS M34 pellet rifle, and one on my Ten Point crossbow (it is a crossbow scope). Both have excellent clarity, with crisp click adjustments in the turrets. My local gun shop carries the full line of Hawke, and he sells a lot of them to local hunters. I can't say they are the quality of a Nikon or Leupold, but for the money they are nice enough for what I need. Considering that a piston pellet rifle can wreck the internals of most scopes not designed for air rifles, mine has held it's zero for several years with no changes in point of impact.
The scope you are looking at is a step up compared to the ones I have. Hope you can get some helpful responses.

 

[FEENIX]

Hopefully Bruce Ventura will chime in, he sells them and speaks highly of them.

Found one of his comments ...

I develop prototype military optics for a living and over the years I've developed a quick method of assessing riflescope quality. I just got back from the SHOT Show in Las Vegas. I spent a fair amount of time inspecting Vortex and Hawke scopes, among others. I evaluate glare and chromatic aberration over the entire field of view, and I take detailed notes. I can only do a limited evaluation, however. I do not have the opportunity to do quantitative optical tests, which would include veiling glare, chromatic aberration, resolution, transmission and reticle adjustment accuracy and repeatability. I've been doing this at SHOT for the last four years. After a while, some trends become clear.

I can say with confidence after looking at most of the scopes in the Viper PST and Hawke Sidewinder lines that, optically speaking, they are not in the same class. The Hawke scopes are much better. I'm not saying the Vortex PST scopes are bad optically. They are acceptable quality for that price point. However, "acceptable" is actually below average.

The Hawke Sidewinder and TAC scopes, on the other hand, are exceptional for their price point. Glare performance is good - substantially better than average for that price point. Off-axis chromatic aberration is excellent and rivals that of the best scopes I've inspected.

In my experience, if glare and chroma are good, then overall contrast ("clarity") will also be good. Lens surface figure also plays a role, but that is a material cost issue and since both lines have similar prices, they should have similar material costs. Even though Hawke scopes are made in China, the company has factory quality under control. Return rates are less than 0.1%. Hawke scopes also have a reputation for handling recoil very well.

I know there are a lot of Vortex fans out there. Vortex is a good company and they offer some features (like FFP reticles) not available elsewhere at the same price point. There are other factors than optical quality that go into a purchase decision.

Optical quality has a high priority for me, however. I would give up features before I gave up optical quality.

BTW, I have no business relationship with either company. Nor do I own a Vortex or Hawke scope.

 

[Nomosendero]

Interesting comments concerning the optical quality, has Bruce compared the repeatability as yet ?

 

[Jumpalot]

Interesting comments concerning the optical quality, has Bruce compared the repeatability as yet ?

This^^ It doesn't matter how clear the optics are if it doesn't hit where I dial it to. Curious as well.

 

[FEENIX]

Found this old post ...

 

[cstunes]

Kind of late to the party here but I have the Varmint SF 4-16x44 and must say it's repeatability is nut on. It started life on my F/TR build before I picked up my NF and has since migrated to a smaller AR. It tracks true. The glass is not comparable to a high end scope but for the price it's good enough. The newer models and possibly even the higher end of their models could be better glass. They are very highly regarded in the Air Rifle world at holding their POI and an air rifle will destroy a cheap scope with it's dual recoil. I've never had any sort of shift in POI unless I dialed it in. It resides on a small play/coyote AR now and is perfectly suited for that role. No fogging issues either.

 

[6x6 elk]

I almost traded for a Hawke Sidewinder last year, called Hawke and they said the warranty only covers original owner. So I passed on the trade. I have 2 of their crossbow scopes, nice optics and options.

 

[Steelflight]

Vortex a side by side comparison of hawke vantage vs a vortex. The difference made me blink with surprise. Hawke has another step ahead of vortex.

But i have to agree with the professional opinions. Vortex. Still brings much to the table.

 

[Mike 338]

Have a Hawke Sidewinder on an air rifle. In comparison to some of the other better scopes out there, the only down side I find in them is that they're MOA clicks and Mil reticle. In the modern world of scopes, that's a little old fashioned. Also the clicks are a little mushier than I'd like but all in all, a solid feature laden scope with good glass/reticle that will focus down to short range. I cannot attest to the durability but I think it's safe to say they're not in the same category as Nightforce however I find it to be functionally acceptable for reasonable use.