Epoch mountain mag review

Austink47

WKR
Joined
Dec 1, 2018
Messages
693
BLUF: Great little piece of kit. It is not perfect but, it is compact and works great with my phone case. In short it is what I was looking for.

My equipment:
Swarovski STX 65 20-60
iPhone 14 Pro
Otterbox defender XT case

Weight:
eye piece 0.46oz
Phone piece 1.69oz
Cap and string 0.39oz
Total 2.54 oz

Fit and finish:
The eye piece fits perfectly. Everything is smooth and is a very good melding of plastic and metal, not quite Glock good, but very nice. The eye piece cover is great, I consider it an upgrade to the factory rubber cap.

Function:
Magnents are plenty strong. All magnetic connections line up easily. The design makes it easy to change between the medium and zoom camera lenses. This does not work with the native ISO camera app. Epoch recommends apple Final Cut. I was not impressed with Final Cut, but Phone Skope 360 works great!

Setup was super simple, one thing to be mindful of is that you will need to line up the magnets on the eye piece so that your phone will sit straight when in use. One issue I had was that I found it worked better with the eyepiece fully extended, but the weight of my phone would rotate it closed. The solution is to attach the phone camera lens down, this works great but it took some figuring to figure out.

I love how small and compact the adapter is. It fits in my marsupial spotting scope case, which I find incredibly convenient.

I think it will work with most MagSafe cases, but it is not 100% universal. I am happy because I think the Otterbox defender XT is a damn near perfect phone case, and the mountain mag works well with it. I tried it with a Otterbox/lifeproof fre, and it did not work nearly as well. The fre has ridges around the edge that did not let the adapter sit flush. It worked but not well.

Overall: I am very happy with the epoch mountain mag. I am fortunate that I live and work in a place where I have the opportunity to glass various critters almost every day. Being able to digiscope without changing my phone case was important to me. With this set up there is nothing else to grab, all I need is stabilization, scope, and my phone. It is minimal and efficient.

Like most pieces of high speed light weight gear it is not 100% idiot proof and does require a bit of figuring out. It needs some time playing with it in the back yard before you take it to the back country.

IMG_7463.jpeg
Controlled test, 24mm lens 2x zoom.

IMG_7462.jpeg
Same set up 77mm lens 2x zoom.

A few pics from the field.
IMG_7572.jpeg
24mm lens 5x zoom. Using phone skope 360
IMG_7450.jpeg
24mm lens 3x zoom. Using Final Cut. It was very foggy.
IMG_7427.jpeg
77mm lens 3x zoom. Using Final Cut.
 
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One other thing to note is that epoch’s customer service seems to be top shelf. Brand new American company run by a husband and wife. My wife ordered this for me for Christmas and has made several comments about how nice they are.

This is the kind of business I feel good about supporting.
 

Here is a pretty comprehensive review of the best phone scope adapters of 2025. The mountain mag did very well.

I am absolutely loving mine, kind of surprised it still seems to be flying under the radar.
 
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