Glad that someone likes this scope because I've been very disappointed.
I have 4 Hawke scopes ranging from the Sidewinder 30 3-12x50 to the HD 3-9x50 and including the 4-16x50 Varmint SF so you could say I'm a Hawke fan that's for 3 of the models I have but sadly the Varmint SF is the odd one out. Like the poster of this thread I selected this scope with great care for a NV application, I wanted a side focus for a Challenger monocular NV scope and similar narrowed it down to the Mamba Lite or the Varmint SF. The eye piece tube needs to be straight to take the NV mount and that rules out many scopes with illuminated grats. The Varmint met the spec at a price I was prepared to pay so I bought the 4-16x44 and paid £135 from Uttings which for the spec. was a good bargain I thought. I've never got on with it however I'm afraid firstly like someone else has found on this thread the eye relief and alignment is highly critical on this scope, a fraction off and the image whites out, not at all what you want on a hunting scope. I couldn't understand this effect as the exit pupil shouldn't be any more critical than many other scopes. Even at lowest zoom when the exit pupil should be at its highest this scope is still very critical. I did some investigation and discovered that the off axis stray light exiting the eyepiece is quite high hence if your eye is off axis then the image gets flooded and loses contrast resulting it whiting out unless you are dead on axis. I suspect that in order to get a side focus mechanism in a 1 inch tube the light baffling has been sacrificed and there’s consequently a lot of scattered light getting through. I think Hawke in trying to keep the cost low with a one inch tube have seriously compromised the design. Far from the high contrast image promised in the product promotion the contrast is poor (the HD range is far better). In bright daylight it's just about acceptable but in low light forget it. The critical alignment issue makes its use on the NV monocular very fiddly to get a good image. The 4 times zoom is also a bit too much I feel for the quality of the optics especially at the x16 on this model. Image sharpness also suffers at the edges but would be acceptable on a budget scope if this were the only problem. I'm also not convinced that the mill dot is true at X10, I don't measure it at the standard moas. The half mildot graticule is quite thick as some have noted though I don't find that an issue. However the turrets are the poorest I've used, the clicks being non existent at the extremes of the travel giving no feel at all. I'm also not entirely convinced it maintains its zero as I've found I often have to adjust it during a session. I've used this scope on a HW100 and a ProSport with similar results.
The net result is I've added an eyepiece extension to help with eye alignment and contrast (off axis light is also improved with a sun shade tube) and relegated this scope to daylight target shooting use and bought the Sidewinder for my original application, an all round improvement albeit at more than twice the price. If you must have a side focus and will be using it in good light at the lowest 3-12 Zoom range I suppose the Varmint SF might be worth considering at a bargain price otherwise spend a bit more and get a better scope.
Terry
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Originally Posted by JonP
thanks guys 
