Anyone here run Hawke bins?

[Newtosavage]

I have a $200 rebate credit at B&H that I've been sitting on, and I'm probably going to pick up a backup set of 10's with it.

Looking at all the specs and reviews, the Hawke Sapphire ED's and their new Frontier ED-X stack up pretty well and get very good reviews.

Has anyone here tried them?

 

[Huntingpreacher]

I'm a newbie to optics, but I bought the Hawke Sapphire ed and nikon monarch hg in 8x42 to test. Kept the hawke and sold the Nikon. I just couldn't tell enough difference to justify the higher cost. Bird forums give the Hawke's good reviews.

 

[gr8fuldoug]

Hawke makes excellent optics, you'll be pleased with them

 

[Huntingpreacher]

Hawke makes excellent optics, you'll be pleased with them

I bought the Hawke's from cameraland. Good buying experience.

 

[Newtosavage]

Welp my "$179" Sapphire ED's should be here Friday. I'll post a review once I've had a few days in the field with them. Was really undecided between these older Sapphire ED's and the new Frontier ED-X's, so I hope I made the right choice. I've seen reviews go either way.

 

[Newtosavage]

Well the Sapphire ED's were a bust. What a disappointment. Maybe my standards have just gotten to the point where I'm really picky, but still, my wife's Bushnell Legend M's kill those things, at half the price. I had them out of the box for less than 20 minutes, and they are already on their way back to B&H. Cost me $20 to satisfy my curiosity I suppose. I figured with all the good reviews, they would have been better. The image had so much distortion that I never felt like I could get anything in focus. And despite being 10x42's, they weren't even as bright as my Meopta 10x32's! Maybe next time don't worry about providing a fancy leather case and put that money into the glass or the optical design.

I was excited when I got them out of the package because they were a really nice size and handled very well. But if the glass is going to twist my eyes into pretzels then none of that really matters.

Back to my tried and true, made in Japan optics. <sigh>