Hawke 4.5-14x38 sr6
I like hawke scopes ( I have 3) especially the frontier range so i decided to buy the new Hawke Sidewinder 30 - 4.5-14x38 sr6. It arrived today so I decided to go straight up the range and give it a try being as the rain had gone and the sun was shining.
I opened the package i received from opticswarehouse expecting the normal carboard box complete with polystyrene inserts. Instead you get a type of elongated aluminium camera case which contained cleaning cloth, scope, sunshade, scope ring pointer and a sidewheel. The scope had a screw in lense cover on each end. All packed in a nice foam lining. Overall scope looks solid and well made for a chinese scope.
I bought this scope for use in HFT so all but the scope and sunshade will never see the light of day again. A couple of butler creeks would have been much more useful.
Anyway to the test.
First thing was to look at how the line spacing compared to true mildots on the mildot board we have at the club.
Initial reaction when putting your eye to the scope:
Very bright clear optics.
head position is critical, move even slightly out of line and it goes milky.
Scope sunshade is a must, point it in the general direction of the sun and you get whiteout without it ( sun was about 30 degrees to me )
On 10x mag the first 2 full lines of the SR6 reticle are true, after that the rest of the spacing is hawkes own formula.
I used 2 x 15mm knockdown targets that had been shot at so i could simulate actual targets you would get half way round a HFT course. ie lots of misses around the killzone rendering it a fairly grey mess with about 50% of the paint still visible. ( i know you dont get 15mm @ 45 yards but i wanted to see how good the scope was)
I set parallax at 25 yds
Started the test on 10 mag
10 x mag @ 10 yards - Very blurred and could no way make out the killzone
10 x mag @ 15 yards - Blurred and still couldnt make out killzone
10 x mag @ 20 yards - Could make out killzone easily
10 x mag @ 30 yards - Could make out killzone easily
10 x mag @ 40 yards - Could make out killzone although slightly blurred
10 x mag @ 45 yards - A little more blurred but you just make it out
I then tried 9 x mag
I could'nt tell a lot difference from 10 mag exept the 40 and 45 were a little crisper
I then tried 8 mag
At 10 yards i could just see one killzone but not the one on the other target
At 15 yards i could see both. And all the longer targets were also very clear.

I cant really see where/who this scope is aimed at. It comes with all the FT bits but is deinitely not a FT scope with only 14x max magnification. For HFT i would have expected the depth of field to be better but my £50 leup clone from china is beats it easily ( not optically though )
Unless its aimed at existing sr6 owners looking for a brighter optics upgrade, in which case hawke would have done better to ditch all the extra bits that are not needed and reduce the price.

In summary

PRO's
Very bright clear optics with SR6 reticle

CONS
Overpriced

Would I buy it again? Unlikely, but I will keep you updated if I change my mind.