Target Shooter 1

colours. The switch for these
settings is actually positioned
on the end of the sidewheel
parallax turret, making it very
handy, it’s a much better
position than the more
normal one on the back of the
scope body near the variable
magnification ring or on the
eye bell. Speaking of which
the eye bell has a fast focus
system which can be locked
off once you have set the
reticle to be in focus with
your own eyes, this locking
ring is then covered up by flip
up scope lens covers which
are fitted as standard and
The sidewheel parallax
also has red and green
illumination
The turret in its down locked position
supplied for the objective lens as well. The
magnification ring is described as “ High torque”
in Hawke’s catalogue and they do seem very well
constructed to tight tolerances as the ring does
take some force to glide in around when adjusting,
speaking of which I found the parallax a bit tough to
turn without the optional larger sidewheel fitted.
I checked the spacing of the Mildot on one of my
test charts at 15 yards, which was no problem as the
scope is designed for short ranges and comes down
to 10 yards. The reticle was indeed at true Mildot
spacing’s when set on ten times magnification, don’t
think I am strange in checking this as a lot of scopes
made in China come with Mildot style reticles which
are not true Mildot dot so cannot be used as true
Mildot reticles can. Some have one and a quarter
Mildot spacing or more commonly two and even four
mil between each
dot. Not very
useful if you
really need or
indeed want a true
Mildot scope. In
HFT for instance
we need a true
Mildot paced reticle
to be able to
accurately rangefind
the distance to
the targets. Scope
manufactures are
keen NOT to tell
you their scopes
reticle is not a true
Mildot one. You
can trust Hawke
as a top firm not to do such a thing. The reticle
itself is very crisp and well defined with four Mildot’s
positioned off each of the four legs off the
center crosshair. There is another thing that you can
trust Hawke not to do, some firms who sell 30mm
bodied scopes actually fit lenses made for 25mm
bodied scopes into them, not very fair. Hawke
30mm bodied scopes have true 30mm multi coated
lenses and it can be seen when viewing through the
scope, which I did next. I fitted the scope to a test
rifle and as I had heard on the grapevine the optical
quality was excellent. This scope with its massive
focus range is at home mounted on either an air rifle,
rimfire or indeed a centerfire. In fact I really fancy
one of the larger magnification Sidewinder 30’s with
the SR12 rimfire reticle for my .22lr Ruger K77/22,
I can then use it for pest control on eight times
magnification with the SR12 reticle and also
Target Shooter 23