Recently I was on a mission to replace or upgrade an optic on one of my AR’s. After shopping around, based on my criteria I was clearly in the realm of expensive optics for what I wanted. I have not gotten into ‘fine glass’ yet and I really didn’t want to blow my budget. The optic I bought was less than 1/3 the price of the nearest comparable optic with the features I was after.

During that search I was made aware of an optics company that I wasn’t previously familiar with. I tend to shy away from being a guinea pig but in this case after reading into it I was intrigued so I made an exception. Long story short I am very glad I did. So far I am very pleased with what I got. I definitely think this optic in many ways punches way above it’s class.

The optic I got was the Athlon Ares ETR 1-10×24 ATMR3 FFP IR MIL UHD.

https://athlonoptics.com/product/are...fp-ir-mil-uhd/

Here are a few things that I have noticed so far with just a couple of weeks using it. Keep in mind that this is more like first impression (from a layman) rather than a final professional review.

1. The glass is clear. It’s a lot clearer than any other optic I’ve ever owned. For a budget optic that’s pretty good. The optic itself is a lot ‘brighter’ than what I had before. I am guessing the bigger tube diameter allows more light transmission.

2. The apparent quality is pretty good. It’s better than any Vortex I’ve owned (note: I haven’t owned any of the higher end optics of any kind, not just Vortex).

3. For what I was looking for this optic was literally less than 1/3 the price of the next option.

4. Compared to what I was using before the 1x side is a major improvement. I definitely do not think it’s true 1x, and there is some distortion on the edges (at 1x), but it’s still substantially better than what I used before. It can EASILY be run with both eyes open and with hardly any trouble finding your aiming point.

That said I wouldn’t put the reticle anywhere near ‘daylight bright’. With something like an Aimpoint RDS it doesn’t matter how bright it is outside. With this though, it’s still very respectable for what it is, and especially for how much I use it that way. If I had to run it on 1x all day long it could be done with a lot less effort than my previous optic. If conditions are even slightly overcast or it’s more towards sunset it’s really not bad on 1x but I don’t think this kind of optic is primarily intended for that use. As one of the few reviews I could find online said, this is basically a longer range optic that is more than capable at shorter engagement distances. I would agree with that for sure.

5. The reticle itself is not overly distracting like with some other optics I’ve handled or used, even others with Christmas trees. Yes there is a Christmas tree, but it’s not bad. The horse shoe and the center dot are the only things that get illuminated which has pros and cons. If you are trying to hold on a dark subject/target there is little contrast. That said the reticle in my opinion doesn’t ‘get in the way’ like others of this nature can do.

From about 6x on up to the max of 10x the reticle is able to be seen and used with all the wind holds and so forth. Below 6x down to 1x it’s actually relatively clean for what it is, part of this is the pro side of not being entirely illuminated.

6. I wanted a mil based reticle and this is just that. With the reticle just as it is without dialing anything at all I can have precise holds out to 750 yards with my pet load for this rifle (.223/5.56 using 69 grain SMK bullets). If I need or desire to dial the turrets are remarkably crisp, especially for the price range. There are some of the Vortex options that are much more ‘mushy’. This one is rather crisp by comparison. The lines on the turret all match up nicely as well. Another thing that I like is the zero stop. Inside there where you set it, it’s all metal parts so there is nothing but steel on steel (actual stainless steel I think). It’s very robust. The zero stop once set is a hard stop. You can set it to over turn past zero if you want, but it is a very hard stop, which I like, especially since it’s all lined up nicely.

The elevation turret is not capped so if you desire to do so you can dial up. Once it’s set you have to raise it up (it clicks up) before you can turn it. Otherwise it’s locked into place. The windage turret is capped. I don’t intend to do much dialing with this optic but it’s nice to know it’s there if I need it. I haven’t tested it but the specs say there is 29 mils of total adjustment. I am guessing that with my 20 MOA scope mount I would guess it would have somewhere near 20 mils of usable elevation in the turret. (If you are wondering why I got a 20 MOA scope mount, it’s because that’s what they had in stock, and in the future I could in theory use the mount in other applications).

I have no idea if the scope has good tracking or not, but since this is not my intended use I am fairly confident that whoever etched the glass did it in a fairly straight line. It is extremely nice to have reference points for wind though. I like that a lot.

Overall the reticle for me is very usable. I don’t know if I am right or wrong in my thinking but not having to try and work around a BDC is preferable for my use. If I know my dope I just do my thing. I might be right and I might be wrong, but it works for me. That said I really like how this optic though gives me feedback, particularly in wind. Just today I was shooting in gusty wind and at 300 yards it was pushing the bullet around some. At 300 yards a 5mph cross wind is roughly 6 inches in movement so to me I can look at things downrange and get immediate feedback of what the conditions are doing.

Another thing I am able to better do with this scope is to range things. It has a built in range finder at the bottom of the reticle. It’s based around a 36” tall IPSC target. You can range using that method out to 1000 yards in seconds (provided your targets are 36” tall). As an experiment I tried to range using the old ways of measuring using the reticle itself and I was on to about 5-10 yards at known distances.

7. There is no parallax adjustment. I am not sure if this is good or bad. So far I am indifferent on it but time might tell a different story. On that I am undecided so far. That said it does keep things rather simple in the big picture to not deal with something like that, especially on an optic of this nature.

Overall I am glad I made the leap. The company offers a warranty similar to that of Vortex but hopefully I never need to use it. The only negative thing I can think of is that they don’t include any kind of covers for the optic in the box. I bought a cheap bikini cover that is doing that job for now. They should include that in there for sure. They don’t offer throw levers either, but there is third party support for that. I bought one of those as well. There are other small things that I could probably nitpick, but overall I definitely feel like I upgraded my rifle with this addition.