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Posted: 5/25/2005 3:08:21 PM EDT
| Does anyone have any experience with ATN Rifle Scopes. It seems, they are the best bang for the buck, so to speak. Their scopes offer the most features for the least amount of money when compared to Leupold, Ziess, Swarovski. Please give me your thoughts. Thank you. |
| I also thought about getting an ATN scope. Price seemed great, so I did some research. I have heard mixed opinions on these, but here's what I heard the most. They are pretty heavy scopes and they have a yellow tint to their lenses that is very noticable when looking through them. ATN claims that the yellow tint helps the clarity. I asked an ATN retailer his honest opinion, his response: "For the money, buy a Nikon Monarch instead." Some people were satisfied with their scopes. All in all, ATN's daytime scopes are not as advanced as their night vision. If you can deal with the tint and the weight, it may be worth the price; it's just a judgement call. Hope this helps |
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I just purchased an ATN 6-18X65LU daytime rifle scope to use on my AR target rifle. BIG disappointment! Positives: 1. the lit reticle which is fairly good 2. the european mechanics to it Negatives: 1. supplied scope rings are made of a cast steel and are sloppy 2. everything is painted in a semi gloss paint that peels of fairly easily such as when tightening screws 3. rediculously long eye relief - almost 5 inches although specs say 4.5 which leads to number 4 4. to use on an AR style rifle you have to use an extra long extension rail to get proper eye relief 5. I bought an ATN long weaver style extension - made of low quality metal (I presume the same shit the rings are made of) with lots of flex to it, same cheap paint 6. outragously heavy and oversized - not suited for hunting applications in my opinion therefore the whole idea of the illuminated reticle is out the door 7. yellow tint as stated in above post - while not seemingly detrimental I cannot tell any positive difference either therefore it just becomes annoying I mounted the scope and took it out to the ranch yesterday. Just FYI, I'm a scope whore who is always changing out scopes so I'm fairly experienced in how to do this properly. I got everything mounted, tightened down, set at a usable eye relief while trying to stay far enough back on the rail so as not to experience too much of the flex in the rail. Tried boresighting and had to move to one end of the windage adjustment to get it to line up. Checked everything and it all "looked" ok so I tried reseting the scoped to the center and boresighting again. Same thing. Figured I would shoot it to make sure I really wasn't f'ing something when boresighting. Nope, boresight setting yielded 2" left, 3" low at 100 yards. Took everything apart and started over. In the process I removed the little insert on the forward ring ( the bar that locks into the t slots on the rings can be removed and rotated 180 degrees to allow for more precise ring placement)because something just didn't seem right although I coundn't figure it out . I set the scope back on the rifle to take a look and tightened everything down again. Reboresighted and things were much better this time, where it should have been. Since the only change was leaving the insert out and there really isn't any significant recoil to a .223 I decided to leave it alone and shoot it as is. Shot the rifle and got it zeroed it. Everything seems to be working as it should at this point. Shoot 3 rounds, walk to the target to check it, do some ranch work for 15 minutes letting the barrel cool then shoot again. Got about 4 to 5 groups and then things started opening up. Then things started looking like a shotgun pattern. Same ammo, same everything. Well, the rings tighten down via thumbscrews. The front one had worked loose. Tried tightening and the treaded insert in the PLASTIC thumbscrew just spun and spun. I used some small vise grips lined with cloth and got the ring somewhat tight. Enough to groups 3/4" groups again until I ran out of ammo. Got home and looked at the thumbscrew and I can loosen it but not tighten it. Needless to say I am extremely pissed off right now. I forked out a weeks pay and this is the shit I got for it. ATN claims "professional" grade quality and I've had a Simmons that was much better for only 1/6 the cost. I'm going to call ATN on Tuesday and find out if they can do anything to help me out here. However for the money spent I could have gotten a Burris Fulfield II 6.5-20X50 with target knobs, Warne 1" rings and a GG&G GS1 rail (or an A.R.M.S. rail) and not had any of the problems while having a much lighter and more solid system (which is what I will be using as I have the scope and rings already!). Just thought I would give the ATN a try and lost. A lot more info than you probably wanted but I hate wasting my hard earned money on a poor product and want to help prevent others from doing so as well. If anyone really, really just wants an ATN though let me know. With an A.R.M.S. exrension rail and good 30mm rings it might be a decent target setup. |
| As I assumed, it is an inferior product. To borrow an old cliche, "You get what you pay for." At least, that is the case with most things. I will buy something else then. I just wish I could afford to put a Leupold on everyone of my guns. I have the CQB, and it is the clearest scope I have ever seen. Thank for the post, and best wishes with your other configuration. |
| I called ATN on Tuesday and talked to their tech support guys. So far, neither of the two guys I've talked to seem very technically minded or knowledgable. The scope and rail are on their way to the repair facility with a 7 page letter fully detailing the issues. Hopefully that will be enough info for them to understand the problems I'm having. They said they have never heard of that happening before but they want to check everything out and find out what is going on because they want me to be a "happy customer." I should find out middle of next week what gives and how they plan on actually making me happy. I'll keep you guys updated on what happens but honestly I did not see anything about their scopes that could ever make me a happy and confident customer. |
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I just received the 10 x 65 prismatic scope with built in mount. It is large and heavy as expected, but appears to be of very good quality. The adjusments are different than any I've had before; the most unique feature is that the windage/elevation have floating verniers. This means you cannot use them as tactical knobs. But they are not intended for that anyway; the elevation has a pretty nice BDC cam system and the scope comes with .223, .308, 30-06, .300 WM, and 50-BMG cams. One downside is the cams start at 200 yds and go in 200 yd increments, although you can stop in between (there are detents at the 200 yd points). The thing does gather light, which is what I was interested in, as well as to try out a scope of this design, with the prism that allows the eye to be in a normal position even with the giant objective. The illuminated reticle also seems nice although it is very bright and I doubt I will ever set it past 1 (it goes to 11...anybody know the phrase "AMP at 11"?). The built in rail is interesting in that it has an insert with the crossbar to engage the Picatinnay rail. Since it is offset, you can take it out and flip it around, moving the scope forward or backward if you find yourself in the first/last slot of your mount. A little odd there are two positions on the rail (front / back) for the insert, but they only give you one. I checked the manual and this is correct--you can also move the insert to the back position and again move the scope some. Effectively, there are 4 positions for the insert which allows you to "fine tune" at spacings not equal to the Picatinnay spacing. Not sure this is really a "feature" or an accident. It is an AO scope and the adjustment is nice and smooth. The diopter adjustment is also very smooth and works correctly. There is a built in cover for the monster objective lens with a sturdy metal latch. As I mentioned, it is heavy... Unlike the unit mentioned in the thread, the cross-rail screws and hardware appear to be all metal. However, I have not shot it yet to see if it works loose as was noted. This one has thumbscrews as well. I'm putting it on a Bushmaster .308 AR (BAR-10 unless you are one of the guys who slams Bushmaster...). I'm waiting for a couple of other parts and will report again after I actually use it. |
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I've been calling ATN about my scope and they have there heads so far up their asses I would never use one of their scopes again. Not even if they gave it to me. The tech support guys tells me every time I call they have not received it yet and it has been there a month. Then when I tell them the tracking number date it was dropped off then they have it but no one can tell me any information on it. The service manager won't return my phone calls either. Total jackasses! I've been nothing but professional with them. DON'T BUY ATN PRODUCTS!!! |
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I was able to get out over the long week end and shoot the Bushmaster .308 AR with the ATN 10x65 prismatic scope. Here are my initial impressions: The light gathering and clarity are very good. My benchmark is my Leupold Mark IV M1 10x40 ; I would say the ATN probably does gather more light which means that at least the glass is good enough to not negate the larger objective size. The clarity is subjective but I didn't have any greying or apparent distortion towards the edges of the field. I bore sighted then shot various surplus ammo to get roughly sighted in. I checked the fixing screws on the base after each group since I was marching 200 yds down and back to check my target every time anyway. I tightened them only by hand; they did settle in for the first few groups, say ~ 15 rounds, but nothing unusual. Of course, the recoil on a gas gun is not what you would get on a bolt gun (more on that later). Groups were nothing to write home about but never got to the match ammo; after two hours of shoot/walk/check/repeat it started to storm and I had to pack it in. I didn't see anything that indicated the scope was moving around or was not repeatable. Zeroing on this scope is interesting in that you remove the dust covers adn you have a 1/8 MOA smaller knob. There is a vernier scale, but it floats. What you do is line it up to some known point by rotating it relative to the knob, then turn the knob to make the adjustment. Essentially the vernier is just to simplify the process in that if you need to move 2 MOA, then you could set the vernier 2 MOA back from the 0 mark, then just turn the knob to zero, instead of counting clicks. Overall it is OK. Other than zeroing, the only elevation adjustment is done with the BDC cam on the main knob which is outside the dust cap. This means that you can crank from 200 to 800 yds (on the .308 cam) without removing the cover etc. The cam has a groove cut on the underside with detents at the appropriate positions. There is some slop in each detent so I'm not sure how perfectly it will repeat but would guess within 1/4 MOA. When I get to Whittington on the 1000 yd range I'll check repeatability. A feature I like is the built-in front lens cover with the release on the top in the form of a button you push down. For the ocular lens I'll have to get a Butler Creek cover. After using it on the AR, it would be OK as a sniper setup with the .308 but it turns out it is somewhat in the way of the charging handle as the ocular lens overhangs the handle making it hard to grab. I decided to move the ATN to my .300 WM Remington 700 sniper rifle. I already had a Badger Ordnance rail on that rifle, so the ATN drops right on and seems right at home. I have not gotten this latest combo to the range so I cannot say if the heavier recoil of the .300 plus the sharper impulse of the bolt gun will be too much for the ATN. When I get around to testing it, I'll post more results. |
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