Hawke Optics - My opinions before purchase.

Cason

Member
Hey guys,

I just wanted to pop on here and spout my mouth off about a scope I'm about to order. I will follow up with an up-close-and-personal review of it when I get it, but here's how I see it...

Its the Hawke Optics Sidewinder 30 w/Illuminated Mil-Dot. Ive been looking at it since I started looking at rifles. I didn't end up getting it because at the time I didn't foresee needing a good IR.

Well, now that I'm doing mostly night hunting, I have found that some green illumination would be great. On top of that, I have a .308 SPS... Perfect for long range target stuff which was why I got into rifles in the first place!

Well, Hawke looks like they have a great custom reticle in their lineup, referred to as the SR reticles. It works out well with the ballistics software to allow consistent changes with wind and distance for long range application.

Ive heard great things about quality of optics. It seems to me as a high end scope at a mid-end price. Perfect for me as I'm into saving as much dough as possible for gas money to hunt with.

I am ordering one of these bad boys tonight. Its an early Christmas gift from the parents, so as soon as I get it, I will be posting pictures and a full review on it.

In the meantime, does anyone here have experience with these scopes?

Cason
 
I guess nobody wants to comment on a sub $300 scope. Well, here goes:

I've ordered and received, my Hawke Endurance mil-dot, model HK3390. It looks to be well made, and very clear. It looks great on my new .270 Tikka T3 Lite, deer rifle. I won't get a chance to zero it in, until deer season is over. Currently, I'm hunting with my 25 year old Remington model 6, with a Bushnell scope. It still holds zero, but the Hawke looks much clearer, and has better eye relief.

Cason, looking forward to your review.
 
I am looking forward to it also. A very popular gunwriter whom I speak with from time to time says it has pretty decent optics, and the adjustments are superb. Pretty high praise coming from him......
 
The one I bought did not last 5 shots mounted on a .220 swift. The internals came completly loose, sent it back and bought a nikon for just about the same price. Thats my only experience with them from 2 years ago.
 
Chuck Hawkes? J/K,,
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I too am interested.. I just won a scope and was not really impressed by it. Please keep us updated.
 
I have researched them several times. Have not had the chance to see one in person, but they appear to be a decent scope for the money. I am looking forward to your review.

Weedlayer
 
Nothing against Chuck, but he's kinda "the master of the obvious". Very few gunwriters whose opinions I actually value. I'm talking a really short list.........
 
Well,

It looks like SWFA has them backordered and has no estimate as to when it will ship. So I guess we wait
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I guess Im going to have to go back down to Sandersville for my Christmas-for-me.

While we wait, Id like to get you guys' opinion on their custom reticles. It sounds like a cool thing, but who knows. I guess its just another custom reticle, however I find it UBER cool that they have a Ballistics software that is fully "compatible" with their reticle...
 
Update, on my Hawke 3X9 40mm, Mil-Dot Endurance.

I sighted in my .270 Tikka T3 Lite. The rifle only weighs 6.2 ponds, so the recoil is kind of brutal (I have a neck injury). I planned to shoot managed recoil loads at the range, then redial it in using 130 grain loads for hunting. Couldn't find the reduced loads, ended up using 150 grain rounds.

The scope was clear and bright, from edge to edge. It was easy to walk my shots in. I only managed 20 rounds. Very happy with the scope. I haven't seen anything this clear, in it's price range.
 
My boss has a sidewinder 30 with SR-12 reticle on his Savage 260 VLP. I compared it to my old model Burris Signature in the same power 6x-24x. The larger tube and bigger objective on his scope did show obvious advantages in brightness and field of view. The clarity was about the same as my Burris. I'm not a big fan of the reticle, it is better than the Shephard reticle in my opinion, but still seems "busy" to me. Of course I'm still having a hard time with Mildots being distracting, LOL. He's turned in some excellent groupings at 100yds and has made some shots in the 400yd range on groundhogs and water jugs. We haven't had a chance to run it on out past 400 yds. He likes it and is very pleased with it. The scope is big, and I mean really big. It is comparable to the Nightforce NXS line in size. The software is neat that comes with it, but the reticle is SFP, so ranging must be done at a pre-determined power. The cool thing is the software lets you choose the power scale ranging will be done at. You enter the ammo specifics and it lets you print a range card and scope cap card for your load. The reticle allows for basic windage holdoffs and target ranging based on a set target size using a scale in the lower quadrant of the reticle similar to the Horus system. The main disadvantage I see is that the reticle hold points at longer distances can leave big gaps to have to hold between. In other words, you may have a crosshair for 425yds and one for 525yds and have to hold at a guessed point for 475yds. The scale for ranging also leaves gaps depending on the target size you determine. It looks to be a good scope for the price range and looks to have promise for larger targets of a known size at unknown distances. This would probably be good for steel targets at varying distances. As for a varmint scope, I think I'm going to stick with a LRF, dope chart, and target knobs. We really haven't tried out the target knobs much for repeatability or done any box testing, so a duplex verison of the same scope may be a worthy scope for dialing come-ups and windage if available. Like any system, it would definately require lots of practice to become proficient with it. These are just my initial impressions of the scope. Again, it isn't my scope and I don't have a lot of time behind it. Since I'm looking for another varmint scope, I'll watch how he gets along with it over the next year. We're hoping to run our rifles out to about 825 yds when my new stock arrives, this will be a good test of the optics.
 
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