M14 Lpvo

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Nicol Allphin

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Aug 5, 2024, 7:54:43 AM8/5/24

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Thisis where I have to take a moment to thank Athlon Optics. I got hooked up with them through my friend Ilya of Optics Thoughts (the optics guru I featured a few weeks ago). When Athlon heard what I wanted to do and saw my previous testing, they sent me a magnifier to use. I cannot overstate how much Athlon has helped me out with this. The guys at Athlon make a solid product, at a great rice, and are genuinely good people. Having had multiple products of theirs, and conversations with them, I can confidently say that they punch way above their price range. If you are value minded like I am, or want to buy more than just a name, Athlon should be where you start. They have really impressed me in a lot of ways. I was given a product for testing, but I was not instructed in what to do with it or what to say about it.

The goal was to have an unbiased, objective comparison of optical systems. To keep variables to a minimum, we used only one rifle. We ran a drill with one shooter, swapped shooters, and ran it again. We did that with all three drills using the LPVO (it was already zeroed). We then swapped to the red dot + mag combo, re-zeroed, and repeated the process. I believe that it was as objective as one could get in an afternoon.

The Dot + Magnifier came out faster in this drill, even after you add in the penalties. I had +2 seconds more penalties on my dot + mag times than with the LPVO yet the dot + mag still came out faster. Ozone had no penalties one any of his six runs, and his time averages have a more substantial difference to show for it.

This drill is all about changing magnification quickly. Two targets with between 60 and 110 degrees of rotation between them, one 3 yards away and the other around 50 yards away. Start by mounting the gun and shooting one round at the near target. Transition and engage the far target.

First, red dot + mag beat LPVO again. Also, no penalties incurred during all twelve runs. Even Ozone showed better times using the magnifier, though my time differences were more pronounced. I attribute this to his familiarity with his scope. Looking at how close all his runs are seems to bear this out.

And once again, Athlon Optics made this entire thing possible. They have a great line up of optics at affordable prices, and you can check out their website here. They did not pay me to write about them, nor did they ask me to compensate them in any way for the magnifier, just that I review it for this website. Which you will see soon.

A good holo like the EXPS3-0 will be faster than an RDS as well, it also will noy suffer the dot amplification and subsequent MOA increase that a magnified rds will. Curious to hear your thoughts on the ALPHA TARAC, would seem to me it could be an lpvo killer.

Or you could just go with the best of both and toss a micro red dot on the top of the scope or mount one on a 45deg mount next to the scope. Leave the scope at 4x and learn to use them both together. Its a very fast combo with a very small weight penalty if you use a micro red dot.

As i'm currently in the process of building a DMR, I sold the 3-9x Nuprol optic that came with the base AEG as it only had a minimum magnification of 3x. I briefly considered using a 3x flip down/to side magnifier but would like the ability to have A. adjust windage and elevation for the longer shots and B. have a smooth adjustment through the magnification range so I can have a suitable magnification for the situation. My current options are as follows;

Take what I say with a pinch of salt as I only like LPVOs on 1.1J builds. Anything at DMR or bolt action power I want a bit more zoom and find that 3x zoom is fine for anything over the 30m MED that comes with the higher power. I also don't have any direct experience with the listed optics, so my post is more just general advice.

Adjusting for wind in airsoft is... not a precise science. The muzzle energy is too low and the projectiles are too light to really use wind adjustments on a scope, so I tend to just use the mil-dots and some experience-based judgement on my shots where I adjust for wind. My preference is using the crosshair itself so I like a good crosshair with mil dots over anything else, since the majority of shots I will just use those to adjust for distance and wind. Distance is a lot easier to work out and if you spend time dialling in your rifle you can reliably make shots that other people think are impossible.

That said, if you can get both I'd say get something with tool-less adjustment nobs (not under caps either, literally just turnable as they are) AND a mil-dot reticle, then spend a long, long time working out where you need to turn the nobs and where to aim on the reticle to hit at a whole variety of long distances. I still probably wouldn't bother with windage adjustments and just go with mil-dots on that, for the reasons I stated, but for distance I could definitely see the merit; just need to get my rifles to a range without wind as the range at my local site catches the wind and this summer the weather has been wank. Illuminated reticles are nice for low-light situations, so if you can also get that I'd go for it but to me it's the least important aspect of the three.

FFP scopes are nice too, but for the distances we deal with I'm not entirely convinced with their usefulness when you consider the price, though I may try getting a Visionking FFP scope to experiment with that.

I probably wouldn't go with the Novritsch scope, as you can probably get a better Visionking or Vector Optics for a similar price; that said, I have also heard good things about it, but from someone who really likes a lot of Novritsch's stuff. You don't want to cheap out too much on the scope as you'll be using it a lot and a good scope can really help. Heard good things about it, but I also typically want a bit more than 4x at the highest level so I can double up on recce duties, observing enemy positions and movements from a distance and radioing it in to my team; one of the best games I have had in the past few years was one where I didn't fire a single shot, but radioed in every movement the enemy team made along one part of the site.

Thanks for the info. It just seemed like a too good to be true for 80. That's a nice mount too, did it come with the optic or was it extra? Are adjustments under the caps or are they the one's where you pull them up to adjust?

I was concerned about the optics windage/elevation adjustment being under the caps which is why one's i've listed (with the exception of the Visionking which i'm not sure about) have their adjustment on the 'turret' itself and not under a cap. The mil-dot reticule is a good piece of advice rather than adjusting all the time so thanks.

The Victoptic ZOD has all of these features and is the cheapest of the lot while being a 1x rather than 1.2-1.5x. I'm trying to do more research about this as it's apparently not widely known about but this could also be because it's an older & discontinued optic. The RedWin Rynox again has these features but is 1.2x minimum and only 2 more so it could be a contender.

I'd second what impulse said. Inhave the vision king lpvo and it works just fine, glass is clear but I still only use it for dmr or sniper. I don't use it in general as the prefer a straight up red dot for closer work as I fond the eye relief better and the 1.5 isn't quite as easy to ignore for me as I'd like.

For dmr use or anything with a MED its perfect. Use the adjustment dials to zero it and then take the time to learn the holds so you aren't messing with adjustments in game. Bbs just aren't consistent in the wind to make full use of that functionality.

I woke up to an email this morning with a partial refund and another email to let me know the optic actually comes with a throw lever/ring for free and they just refunded me the cost of the it. That's pretty decent customer service right off the bat.

I would have just went for the Victoptics ZOD but Evike Europe wanted $150 in shipping. Every other store I found it at were priced higher than the RedWin option so i've taken the gamble especially which is offset a fair bit when the total is