Any long time readers know I don't review products here very often. IIRC the last review I wrote was in late 2009 or early 2010.
Athlon Optics customer service REALLY belted one out of the park!
Seriously!
Let's get the boo-hah part out of the way right off the bat before the Leopold $5000 scope crowd jumps in to this. I'm not talking Camp Perry here. I'm an irons shooter that finally needed a seeing eye cat to take me to the firing line, OK? I have always been a middle third of the pack shooter, OK? The best I have ever done was NRA Sharpshooter. Got that?
I'm 72 years old, can't see and now shake like a dog $hitting peach pits. You got that?
A truly top shelf scope would be entirely wasted on me at this point.
Still, with my eyesight crapping out on me I felt I had to do something so after I cried my eyes out over having to hang up shooting irons. After much moaning, wailing and gnashing of teeth I bit the bullet and started shopping for a basic service rifle scope. I was looking in the $200-300 range.
It was an Athlon Talos BTR which had halfway decent reviews and it seemed like a good bang for the buck. I found one on eBay NIB and ran with it. IIRC I paid about $200 for it.
I installed it and took it to the range and presto! I could actually see the target again! Hooah!
A few range sessions later the windage clicks turned mushy for some reason and it wouldn't hold zero. I was bummed and parked it. Later I went through the policy and looked at their guarantee and decided why not? Send it in and let's see what happens.
I read where the policy is repair/replace and sent it in a week ago.
This morning there was a package on my door and I was WTF? I don't remember ordering anything. When I opened it there was an NIB Talos BTR in the box, only not the Generation one I had bought but a new and improved Generation TWO!
It was like they sent one out to me three days before I sent them mine! What a turnaround! Amazing!
I bolted the new one on the rifle and decided that as soon as the weather breaks (as soon as tomorrow) I'm going to sight it in at 200 yards. I fully expect I'm back in business and this one will be OK.
OK, the plan for me is to simply zero it for 200 yards and leave it there. I'm looking for something that will enable me to actually hit the target so I don't look like as big of a horse's ass that I really am.
This is NOT a review for the scope itself. That may/may not come later. One of these days I'll consider writing that. However I am optimistic it will do the job better than I can. After all, the fast turnaround likely means they don't get a whole lot of returns which probably means the quality is good.
At this stage I think the dud I got was an anomoly. It happens to every company in business to some degree or another. Even the top shelf optic makers ship out a dud here and there. What surprised me is how fast they fixed the problem.
What this is about is the absolutely incredible customer service Athlon has given me.
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