Kahles K624i on Mauser M03

Here are some pictures showing how a Kahles K624i riflescope looks mounted onto a Mauser M03. I think this scope is the least 'military' looking of those with similar features and utility. It's a good match for an M03. Further down I list some of the scope's features that make it a great choice.

Something to think about when mounting a tactical style rifle scope is the height of the rings and how far below the tube the turret housing protrudes.

 Like many tactical scopes, the Kahles K624i has a 34mm tube. Mauser can supply 34mm steel rings to go with the Double Square Mount; their height, from the base to the tube, is 12mm. The rings shown in these photos are from the Blaser R93 saddle mount system and are made from aluminium (hence the dings and scratches). Their height, from base to tube, is 7mm. The turret of the K624i protrudes 5mm below the tube, leaving 2mm clearance, shown in the photo below.

Features of the Kahles K624i that make it good choice are:

 - availability of the Multipurpose Sniper Reticle, by Finnaccuracy. Kahles have made some slight modifications to the MSR reticle compared with the standard version used by Schmidt & Bender and Steiner. The Khales version has slightly finer crosshairs and an open centre with a dot at the intersection. It is a thing of beauty. I'll post a photo once I've got a good one.

- the turret boss is big and the dials are wide, but not tall. The overall effect is that it's compact, compared with others. Have a look at the Steiner 5-25x56, or any Hensoldt! The photo below shows a K624i next to an S&B PMII. It may be that the large diameter turret boss makes more space for the click detents, which might explain how smooth and distinct the clicks are.



- the turret housing does not protrude too far below the tube - only 5mm. The housing of an S&B PMII protrudes a couple of millimetres more, which can create mounting problems.

- the controls are all co-located on the turret housing. The parallax/focussing control can be adjusted with either hand.

- the parallax/focussing control has gentle detents at the major distances - handy, especially in the dark.

- there is no tunnel effect when moving down to the lowest magnification - 6x. This video shows the tunnel effect with an S&B PMII 5-25x56 scope - not a fault, just a feature that S&B fans know about and don't really mind.



- there's a good length of tube fore and aft of the turret housing for mounting flexibility. However, a limitation will still be the separation of the rings on the rifle's mount - a 69mm opening with Mauser rings on the Double Square Mount, as well as for the Blaser R93 rings. Even with significantly longer tubes, the K624i is only slightly more flexible to mount than an S&B PMII 5-25x56, which has short tube lengths. The wide turret housing of the Kahles is the culprit. Mauser make a rail version of the Double Square Mount, an option if the fixed position of the integral rings is a problem. The rail is 103mm long (red arrows) and sits 21.5mm above the receiver (blue arrows).

- the illumination system is excellent. Only the central 1 milliradian crosshair is lit. It goes from very dim for moonless nights to very bright for daylight. There's a gentle detent for the off position. If the magnification is zoomed right down so that the reticle is very fine, the small brightly lit central cross is like a red dot. The control dial is a rheostat, for continuous and click free, pause free adjustment. I'm not too keen on the coin slot for the battery cover - similar to those found on Swarovski Z6i - it could be damaged when loosening and tightening.

- the optics are excellent. The eye box is trickier to use at 24x magnification than with a lower power general hunting scope, but that comes with the territory. It's better than other high power scopes I've used. The clear view with the MSR reticle is a thing to behold. Measuring distances is a snap if an object of known size is out there. Length of a house brick is 230mm; if it subtends 1 milliradian then 230mm / 1 mil = 230 meters. A roof tile on the next house is 295mm wide. It subtends 1.2 milliradian. The distance is 295mm / 1.2 mil = 245 meters.

The last two photos show how the red rotation indicator lifts when the elevation turret is turned into the second rotation. The turret takes a little more effort to turn when the mechanism begins to lift the indicator, but this is only noticeable if turning very slowly, click by click. The turrets on the K624i are really nice to use. The clicks are distinct, yet easy to control.

Please post a comment if you have any questions.