Tex
Well-Known Member
Just thought I'd put my 2 pence out there on my Element scope I've had for a few months now. There's a lot of hubbub about Element scopes online the last 2 years (a lot of it sponsored) so I thought it worth adding an honest review.
My relationship with Element: I'm by no means sponsored or in contact with them at all, and this review is not sponsored. I bought the scope second hand on eBay for £400 + P&P. This is my first Element product
How I've been using it: I've had it 4 months and used it on my 223 and recently on my new 6.5CM. I've been target shooting at 100m, foxing, popped off a couple crows, and several practice/recon stalks (it's off season for my local species) at ranges from 30m to 400m.
What I like:
- Optical clarity and brightness for the money. It's a hard thing to quantify, but it's probably the best optic quality per £ on the market right now
- Great turrets and feature set. I know in stalking KISS (Keep It Simple) rules, but many manufacturers are still releasing scopes without features that are now 'table stakes'. Beyond zero stop and all that stuff, it's great that it comes with sun shade, optional zoom throw lever, good flip caps, scope cover etc. all in the box where other manufacturers make you pay a fortune for those separately.
- Decent (enough) build quality
- Incredible parallax range. It does have a shallow depth of field vs other scopes, so you are often forced to use the parallax, but whilst the manual says 10 (or 15?) meters minimum, I can get it sharp down to 6 or so. A super versatile scope from airgun to 308.
What I don't like so much:
- It's really a 5-20x scope, not a 5-25x. The eye box becomes very unforgiving at 25x and I get the milky-ness coming in a lot as well as the black shadow (I have got a slight stigmatism in my eyes, mind you). The optical clarity also drops off a little at 25x.
- FFP reticle thickness. This is a hard one for them to solve and will never please everyone. The reticle is borderline too fine at 5x. If you've a dark background at 5x, you'll be panicking to acquire the shot.
- Illumination bleed. Only the center cross should illuminate. The illumination can go up very bright (good for daytime) but settings 4, 5 and 6 cause a lot of bleed with illumination reflecting off the other random graduations in the scope and the tube interior. Maybe that's just my model?
- Build quality/strength issue. My scope had a slightly wonky illumination turret, and I assumed the top cap came off then you could remove it by pulling, just like the windage and elevation turrets. Wrong! I didn't pull hard at all and the illumination turrent sheared off. I had to do brain-surgery using tiny watch maker's tools to reassemble the turret and circuit board stack. One tiny screw had stripped, but there's still 3 more holding it down.
- Weather sealing. I've been inside each of the turrets and whilst they each have multiple seals, I didn't get the impression they'd withstand a really heavy downpour. I found some dust and grit had already passed them during the previous owner's use. Again, it's not a Nightforce, nor does it cost as much.
Versus the competition: Not as good built quality and slightly lower optical sharpness as my previous japanese Vortex Viper 6-24x50 HS-T, but close. Turrets just as good as the Viper but better features (and they're the new low, fat style. Rejoice drag bags everywhere!). It's miles ahead of the mainstay Hawke and Nikko scopes (not touched any Hawke stuff release in the last 24 months). Much better than my past Nikon 223 BDC (ok that's a $350 scope vs £700 one). I've had some range time on a Nightforce ATACR on a friend's AR10 and can say the Nightforce (of course) feels way more sturdily built and never looses quality throughout it's zoom range.
Overall impression: I'm very very pleased for my £400 second hand. I wouldn't have been displeased at £700 retail but may have held my brand loyalty and gone vortex in that scenario. It's a lot of scope for the money. It won't last as long as a Nighforce or Schmidt, but it's still good value for money. They're retailing typically north of £700 now and stock can be an issue at times.
Happy to answer any questions. Eventually want to test it with an add on nightvision, but that's some months away.
My relationship with Element: I'm by no means sponsored or in contact with them at all, and this review is not sponsored. I bought the scope second hand on eBay for £400 + P&P. This is my first Element product
How I've been using it: I've had it 4 months and used it on my 223 and recently on my new 6.5CM. I've been target shooting at 100m, foxing, popped off a couple crows, and several practice/recon stalks (it's off season for my local species) at ranges from 30m to 400m.
What I like:
- Optical clarity and brightness for the money. It's a hard thing to quantify, but it's probably the best optic quality per £ on the market right now
- Great turrets and feature set. I know in stalking KISS (Keep It Simple) rules, but many manufacturers are still releasing scopes without features that are now 'table stakes'. Beyond zero stop and all that stuff, it's great that it comes with sun shade, optional zoom throw lever, good flip caps, scope cover etc. all in the box where other manufacturers make you pay a fortune for those separately.
- Decent (enough) build quality
- Incredible parallax range. It does have a shallow depth of field vs other scopes, so you are often forced to use the parallax, but whilst the manual says 10 (or 15?) meters minimum, I can get it sharp down to 6 or so. A super versatile scope from airgun to 308.
What I don't like so much:
- It's really a 5-20x scope, not a 5-25x. The eye box becomes very unforgiving at 25x and I get the milky-ness coming in a lot as well as the black shadow (I have got a slight stigmatism in my eyes, mind you). The optical clarity also drops off a little at 25x.
- FFP reticle thickness. This is a hard one for them to solve and will never please everyone. The reticle is borderline too fine at 5x. If you've a dark background at 5x, you'll be panicking to acquire the shot.
- Illumination bleed. Only the center cross should illuminate. The illumination can go up very bright (good for daytime) but settings 4, 5 and 6 cause a lot of bleed with illumination reflecting off the other random graduations in the scope and the tube interior. Maybe that's just my model?
- Build quality/strength issue. My scope had a slightly wonky illumination turret, and I assumed the top cap came off then you could remove it by pulling, just like the windage and elevation turrets. Wrong! I didn't pull hard at all and the illumination turrent sheared off. I had to do brain-surgery using tiny watch maker's tools to reassemble the turret and circuit board stack. One tiny screw had stripped, but there's still 3 more holding it down.
- Weather sealing. I've been inside each of the turrets and whilst they each have multiple seals, I didn't get the impression they'd withstand a really heavy downpour. I found some dust and grit had already passed them during the previous owner's use. Again, it's not a Nightforce, nor does it cost as much.
Versus the competition: Not as good built quality and slightly lower optical sharpness as my previous japanese Vortex Viper 6-24x50 HS-T, but close. Turrets just as good as the Viper but better features (and they're the new low, fat style. Rejoice drag bags everywhere!). It's miles ahead of the mainstay Hawke and Nikko scopes (not touched any Hawke stuff release in the last 24 months). Much better than my past Nikon 223 BDC (ok that's a $350 scope vs £700 one). I've had some range time on a Nightforce ATACR on a friend's AR10 and can say the Nightforce (of course) feels way more sturdily built and never looses quality throughout it's zoom range.
Overall impression: I'm very very pleased for my £400 second hand. I wouldn't have been displeased at £700 retail but may have held my brand loyalty and gone vortex in that scenario. It's a lot of scope for the money. It won't last as long as a Nighforce or Schmidt, but it's still good value for money. They're retailing typically north of £700 now and stock can be an issue at times.
Happy to answer any questions. Eventually want to test it with an add on nightvision, but that's some months away.
