“A rifle is only as good as the guy pulling the trigger” – Grandpa
In this product review, we’ll be looking at the Hawke Optics Endurance 30 6-24×30 223/308. Like my grandpa’s quote suggests, a good rifle won’t hit the target by itself. While many of us wish that were the case, reality says differently. Nope, in order for a rifle to do its job, it needs someone handling it who knows what they are doing. Oh, and a good set of sites will help, too.
While many shooters are perfectly capable with open sites, I for one am not an open-sites guy; I need a scope. Now, before we get to the review, let’s set the stage for why I’m reviewing the Hawke Optics Endurance 30 6-24×30 rifle scope. I believe that the site or scope you buy depends entirely on the intended use, so let me tell you more about the ‘why’ behind my decision to use the Hawke Endurance 30.
Living in East Texas, we are, as we like to say, “unfortunately fortunate”, to have year-round hunting; wild pigs. Yep, pigs galore! While feral hogs present ample hunting opportunity, they are incredibly destructive. This leaves us with the seemingly impossible chore of total elimination. I started by hunting pigs with a bow, and I was successful. I’d take down one here or one there, but it seemed like for every pig that I took out, three more filled its place. Additionally, my bow severely limited my range and oftentimes, I had to pass on shots. So, in order to increase my odds, I invested in an AR10 chambered in 308. You could say this enhanced my round capacity and range by a little bit.
My new 308 allowed me to leave the woods and work the fields. I was pretty excited about this because the particular property that I hunt made it difficult to bow hunt the open areas. With the 308, I could shoot every bit of 500 yards in any direction. That said, I wanted something with magnification.
I was looking around trying to find a good piece of glass for my new AR, and I landed on an ad for the Hawke Endurance 30. After reading into it a bit more, I realized I owned a Hawke scope already, the Hawke Deerpass. Atop my CVA Accura, this scope has helped me immensely in my muzzleloader shooting. I had such a good experience with that scope that I decided to try the Hawke Endurance 30. Fast forward to opening up the box, and the very first thing I noticed was the quality. The scope just felt solid. Everything down to the metal flip lens covers just screamed quality design.
Let’s start with some of the advertised specs before we get into the field review:
- 30 mm Mono-tube design
- Ballistic profile reticle designs
- Side Focus Parallax Wheel
- Fully Multi-Coated Lenses
- Low Profile Fingertip Turrets
- High Torque Zoom Ring
- Stepless Illumination Rheostat
Now, if you are like me you read over those and think, “those all sound pretty awesome”. Let’s be honest, every scope out there is going to list a slew of features that sound cool, but what do they actually mean? Let’s find out!
- Fully Multi-Coated Lenses: I bring this up first because I can honestly say this feature was the most significant in the field. These lenses are crystal clear. It’s rather humid in East Texas, and the fog-resistant lenses have saved my tail and my shot more than a handful of times.
- 30 mm Mono-tube design: Can’t say this is overly exciting, but the takeaways are still worth noting. Quite frankly, you want to make sure a scope is built to handle recoil. The Endurance 30 not only looks good, but it’s engineered to handle heavy recoil time and time again.
- Ballistic profile reticle design: In theory, the 223/308 reticle is designed to help shooters with quick reference hold-over aim points. The only catch, in my experience, is that you must use rounds with a similar ballistic coefficient to that of the ammo recommended by Hawke. My rounds are 25% heavier, therefore, the guide is a tad off for me. Still, after rounds and rounds downrange, I’ve been able to find a system that works well for me using the reticle as designed. This is a fantastic feature for those quick shots where time is of the essence.
- Side Focus Parallax Wheel: Again, not something you really think about until you are in the field, but having such a smooth adjustment makes life that much easier once you are out there. Is it 100% necessary? No. But, it’s pretty bad to the bone and besides, who doesn’t like little luxuries?
- Low-profile fingertip Turrets: The turrets are a great example of the fine design put into this scope. Compared to other scopes, the turrets sit low, contributing to the scope’s sleek design. Better yet, the turret is manufactured with a “no snag” grip surface, making quick adjustments a snap.
- High Torque Zoom Ring: This one is pretty self-explanatory. The adjustments are tight enough that they stay put, and the grip on the zoom ring makes finding that sweet spot easy and quick.
- Stepless Illumination Rheostat: At first, I didn’t think I’d need the illuminated reticle at all. After using it a few times, I realized it really does help during dusk and dawn. The only other scope I’ve had with an illuminated reticle had what I would consider “steps”, or “clicks”, between each phase. Again, while this feature won’t make or break a hunt, it’s certainly a nice-to-have. You can swing through the entire range of illumination to find that perfect amount of light given the conditions at that very moment.
Ultimately, the Hawke Endurance 30 exceeded my expectations. At the end of the day, my goal is to hit a pie plate at 100 yards. Beyond that, I just want a trustworthy scope atop my gun that won’t fail me in the field. Possibly the single most impressive aspect of this scope is that it literally doesn’t fog up, even when all of my other glass did. East Texas can get pretty humid, and if you can’t see out of a scope, aren’t all the features for nothing?
As an avid hunter, and an average shooter, I would absolutely recommend this scope to readers. The product is solid and the customer support is exceptional.
