Konus Fearless 4-16×50 HD riflescope review

This is the third Konus I have tested over the past couple of years. Like the flagship Glory and affordable Wild models that have gone before, this 4-16×50 HD Fearless delivers something over the norm, with its 34mm body tube well and truly setting this Konus apart from what is a very crowded airgun scope market.

A 34mm tube on an air rifle scope

Normally reserved for super-high-end telescopic sights designed for bigger-bored firearms, 34mm-bodied scopes are rarely seen on air rifles. However, with Konus offering its Fearless model for under £300, that may be about to change – just be mindful you will need much bigger ring mounts (see Mounting the Fearless, below).

While centrefire shooters may favour the extra structural integrity afforded by a scope with a fatter tube, rigidity under recoil is not something we airgunners need. Optics engineered around 25mm (1 inch) and 30mm bodies have served adequately for decades. Nonetheless, 34mm-tubed scopes have a major advantage: their enhanced light transmission. Whether shooting targets or controlling pests, we all want a sight picture that is as bright as it can be, right?

The new Konus Fearless 4-16×50 has more than a massive zoom to match its oversized 50mm objective lens and 34mm tube. With an FFP crosshair and a lot more besides, Konus has ticked plenty of boxes on that front. This Konus, however, posed a slight problem when it came to my expectations. On the one hand, I felt I should have high hopes of a scope designed around a 34mm tube; on the other, I also had to be mindful of its sub-£300 asking price.

Optical performance

I prefer to record a scope’s benchmark scores under controlled conditions before evaluating it in a real-world environment. Optical testing is carried out at 25m in typical daylight, viewing newspaper print at low, mid and high magnifications. The scores below are my benchmark results, marked out of 10.

The results clearly show that, across the entire magnification range, the Konus Fearless outperforms its asking price in the all-important centre of the sight picture. It did not surpass my expectations at the edge of the image, not that I ever really noticed that in the field. In fact, having a softer perimeter probably helped focus my attention on the target centred in the crosshairs.

Once I had got the scope into the field, however, I struggled with its performance at the lowest power settings. At 4x, the entire sight picture would distort with the slightest head movement on my part. Not that I was particularly bothered by this – at that power, my eyes could not make out the crosshair either. It was just too fine to aim with practical certainty.

Let us face it, the only reason you buy a 4-16x zoom scope is to make full use of its higher-end powers, reserving the 4-6x end for when the light levels drop off. The Fearless, I can tell you, renders such a bright image that you never need to wind it below 8x. If you do, then it is probably time to dig out the lamping kit. At its 12-16x top end, I found the Fearless coped with murky hedgerows at dusk better than I had any right to expect. The colours and detail it rendered were not only superb, but the sight picture remained thus long after the gloom had rendered the black reticle invisible to my aiming eye. That was not really an issue, either, because I could simply illuminate its centre and confidently take a shot.

The illuminated reticle

The Fearless sports glass-etched stadia in which the central dot and hanging cross are illuminable in either red or green. The outer ring of the left-hand turret – which also houses the CR2032 battery – controls both the colour and intensity, with five levels of brightness.

While an IR (illuminated reticle) system may seem the obvious choice for low-light shooting, it is surprising how often it benefits the sight picture in good light. For example, when shooting dark knock-down targets, or pests like corvids, having a red or green overlay is often preferable to black when you need to home in on a precise mark.

A first focal plane reticle

Because the Advanced Ballistic Reticle, as Konus calls it, is in the first focal plane (FFP), the stadia’s thickness gets finer as you lower the magnification. So, when you are shooting on the lower powers, you are more likely to lose the subtensions against busy backgrounds. In such scenarios, illuminating the central section helps immensely.

What also helps with a crosshair as comprehensive as the Advanced Ballistic is the very fact it is FFP, where the relationship between the target and the various subtensions remains constant, regardless of the scope’s magnification setting. A lot of shooters like this because it makes life simpler when making hold-over and hold-under allowances. Plus, it assists range-finding when using the bracketing system.

Turrets and dialling

If you prefer not to aim off and want to dial in to the crosshair’s centre at every distance you are shooting over, then you have a big elevation turret drum at your disposal. This moves the point of impact (POI) in 0.1 milliradian clicks and is resettable to zero. The Konus’ turret also sports an extremely good zero-stop system (see The Zero-Stop mechanism, below) and the windage turret, also resettable, is push-lockable for security.

Range-finding with the parallax sidewheel

As for range-finding, you can make full use of the Fearless’ P/A (parallax adjustment) sidewheel. This feature’s primary purpose is to help eliminate parallax-induced aiming errors caused by poor eye-to-scope alignment. However, the secondary focus benefits it offers make it double as a great ready-reckoner for distance when the scope is on 16x power.

The inner ring of the left turret includes marks for 15, 20, 25, 30 and 50 metres, which airgunners will find well-spaced for practical purposes. You cannot dial it below 15 metres, but who needs to range-find that close anyway?

Beyond 25 metres, however, I was surprised at how accurately I could snap targets into focus and then estimate the distance to within a metre or two. My guess is that the light transmission gains from the 34mm tube let you see any sight picture changes more precisely. Of course, the scope’s crosshair must be sharp in the first place, but this is certainly a quick and easy affair thanks to the quick-focus ocular, which has a good dioptre range. Once set, you can then forget it – a process made easier once you slide on the eyepiece’s flip-up scope cover.

Lens covers, sunshade and throw lever

Konus provides a flip-up cover for the objective lens and this also pushes over the objective lens’s supplied sunshade if you use it. I never struggled with glare or reflections during my tests, so did not screw it on once. Nevertheless, it is a nice option to have.

Also well received by me was the supplied zoom throw lever. Though the magnification ring is knurled, the one on my sample was rather stiff to turn by hand. However, with the ZTL in place, I could rotate it with ease.

On test: Daystate Delta Wolf and a springer

For most of my test period, I had the Konus Fearless on a Daystate Delta Wolf PCP, as I wanted to confirm the scope returned the same accuracy results that the rifle itself is capable of. It did, and with aplomb.

However, I also mounted it onto a friend’s AirForceOne Hercules 100X for a range session to see how it coped with a springer’s harsh recoil. Again, the Fearless’ zero held firm on the Picatinny rail of the 100X’s receiver. However, such is this scope’s weight, I would recommend a very well-anchored mounting system if you use it on a recoiler with standard 11mm dovetails.

Mounting the Fearless

This Konus model is designed around a 34mm body tube, which is far fatter than the 25mm (1 inch) and 30mm tubes airgunners are typically used to. You will therefore need specialist 34mm rings to mount it to your own air rifle. Given the scope’s hefty weight, they also need to be heavy-duty. I used a set of two-piece Konus-branded steel mounts throughout my testing and was very happy with their performance. It is also worth mentioning that the Fearless offers plenty of mounting real estate, with 61mm of tube in front of the turrets and 53mm behind.

The Zero-Stop mechanism

Currently all the rage, zero-stop elevation turrets allow you to very quickly dial back to zero, where the turret is brought to an instant stop without overshooting the zero mark. The Konus’ Zero-Stop mechanism is one of the best I have come across.

To initially zero up your combo, you disengage the mechanism by unscrewing the stop bolt atop the elevation turret until it is level with the cap. Handily, Konus provides the hex key for this. That done, the turret can then rotate through its full range of adjustment, around 300 clicks at 0.1 Mils per click.

Once the scope is zeroed to the rifle, you then loosen the turret drum with the tool provided and free-spin the vernier to its zero mark. Then retighten it and screw the stop bolt back down to re-engage the Zero-Stop, and that is the job done. One slight drawback with Konus’ Zero-Stop system is that you cannot ever dial the elevation turret to a setting lower than zero. So, you will have to select a zero range that is at the apogee of your chosen pellet’s trajectory. Alternatively, you can simply allow hold-under when shooting at close targets.

Verdict

Konus’ UK distributor, Range Right, tells me it is getting excellent feedback on this scope from both dealers and end-users. I can understand why. Any limitations it may have at the low end are more than offset once you dial the magnification up past 6x. For the money, its 50mm HD objective lens and fat tube really make the Fearless quite a buy. A case of “less is more”, you could say.

Price is the RRP at time of publication and may have changed since.