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Kahles 6-24x56

Kahles 6-24x56

Many scopes that are labelled as tactical or target models descend from police or military requirements and come with advertising to match. The Kahles 624i first came to my attention on a test rifle over a year ago and when I got my hands on one to test it came to me as a blank sheet of paper with no preconceptions.

Parallax On Top

The K624i has a 6-24x magnification range coupled with a 56mm objective lens. The main feature that strikes you is the styling; something is missing, or is it? A one piece aluminium maintube swells centrally into a slightly larger than normal saddle with the usual dials on the top, left and right sides controlling elevation, windage and parallax. Ah, but no it doesn’t, the left dial is the illumination control and the parallax dial sits atop the saddle surrounding the base of the elevation turret and although initially looking a little odd, this turned out to be a hidden gem.

The turrets are calibrated in miliradians with clicks corresponding to 1cm at 100m or 0.01 mRad. Light knurling is easily gripped and matched well to the click tension, spacing and overall turret size. Elevation offers two turns of the turret with a simple red post emerging from the top on the second revolution indicating both visually and in a tactile fashion where you are in the travel. With a zero stop at the lower end, there are 14mRad per turn, 26 in total and 17 were left available to me after zeroing which will dial me out as far as I’m likely to go! Similarly calibrated, the windage drum is marked left and right of zero and both turrets operate on the clockwise up/right orientation shown on many European scopes. A simple Allen key is used to slacken the outer dials to return the markings to zero.

Illumination on the left knob rotates to both turn on `click` and increase brightness of the reticles centre mil.

The patented parallax systems looks strange at first but its markings run from 50m out to infinity and the 100m steps have detents so click very gently as it turns past each increment. The movement of all controls to the saddle has the benefit that there is plenty of tube space to wrap with 34mm rings to sit on any type of gun. An 11 year mechanical and two year electronic warranty show confidence from Kahles where.

Mil3 FFP

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Kahles offer two reticles, the Mil4 and Mil3 (the latter is on test here), a plain mil-dot reticle sited in the first focal plane (FFP) matches the turret calibration perfectly and only the centre-cross illuminates. Being FFP means as the mag is wound down to 6x the reticle diminishes in size and with the illumination turned on, leaves a small centre cross bright red. This combines very nicely with the wider field of view if hunting in lower light conditions.

The K624i landed on my lap with good timing as I got to use it for both long range steel plates and McQueens shoots alongside some other top end optics. I’m equally happy with minute of angle (MOA) or Miliradian adjustments these days as I have become used to swapping back and forth with both the unit, and how it relates to the reticle size. Here with FFP, zeroing, dialling or aiming off was straightforward and the turret clicks were easy to read from the shooting position.

Nothing was overtly bulky and it became obvious the parallax location (after a few accidental illumination applications) was actually very convenient with most shooters I encountered, either left or right handed, quickly adapting to it and liking it. A fairly short depth of field meant it snapped in and out of focus sharply but parallax agreed with image focus, backlash wasn’t evident and the ranges even agreed roughly with the numbers marked on the dial. It’s probably not as friendly to gloved hands as a side mounted drum but the turret clicks were firm enough to prevent any accidental adjustments to the elevation although I wouldn’t say it was impossible.

Eye of the Beholder

Mechanically the Kahles had me convinced but the more scopes I test, the more optical quality becomes a subjective opinion but trends do still occur. Kahles is owned by Swarovski and although Swaro don’t offer the target shooter a scope mechanically suitable to complex dialing for long ranges, they do have what many consider to be the BEST glass and more secretively, also the best internal mechanical design?

Anyway, the Austrian genes can be found here with a superb image displayed through a generous, forgiving exit pupil in the 38mm ocular lens. When shooting toward the sun’s direction, a small green shift could be picked up towards the top of the lens but when the sun is that bright, it’s dazzling anyway and can easily cause confusing reflections from external surfaces. The fast focus eyepiece was never altered and the reticle snapped to attention front and centre every time. When shooting in all conditions I experienced what I can only describe as a “relaxed visual environment”,  a term I have only ever used once before!

Don’t Believe The Hype

The lack of hype, honest mechanics, specifications and optics left a scope that I thought punched well above its weight price wise yet if judged on features alone, would be my choice of optic to buy anyway.

The 6-24x magnification gives versatility where needed and the only element of the scope I could find to criticise was that the zoom ring’s knurling could have been a bit more grippy. I don’t think you can realistically offer more than 4-5x magnification range with a FFP scope as the reticle size is too compromised and illumination is mandatory at the low end but here, Kahles did it just right, I’m impressed. GM

  • Kahles 6-24x56 - image {image:count}

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  • Kahles 6-24x56 - image {image:count}

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  • Kahles 6-24x56 - image {image:count}

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  • Kahles 6-24x56 - image {image:count}

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  • Kahles 6-24x56 - image {image:count}

    click on image to enlarge

  • Kahles 6-24x56 - image {image:count}

    click on image to enlarge

  • Kahles 6-24x56 - image {image:count}

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gun
features

  • Model: Kahles 6-24x56 (624i) Mil 3 scope
  • Reticule: MIL3
  • Click Values: 0.01mRad (1cm @ 100m)
  • Clicks Per turn: 140
  • Full rotation: 14 mRad
  • Total range: 26 mRad (2.6m@100m), 11mRad windage
  • Top, 50m to infinity: Parallax
  • Tube Diameter : 34mm
  • Field of View: 6.8-1.75m@100m (20-5.25ft)@100yards
  • Eye Relief: 90mm
  • Weight: 990g
  • Length: 405mm
  • Waterproof: Yes
  • Gas Filled: Yes
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