Gunnr Odin 1-8x LPVO: Budget Price, Budget Delivery

Testing the latest and greatest never gets old, but not all of us are in the market for $2,000+ LPVOs. The world of budget optics is one I genuinely like diving into since there is a lot of innovation and change that goes unnoticed. 

The thrill of finding a hidden gem of an optic that is a steal of a price gives a unique hit of dopamine. And being able to share that news with others is one of the most satisfying parts of this job.

But sadly, most of the time, it ends more like this. The Gunnr Odin is a budget LPVO that does budget LPVO things. It’s not the worst budget LPVO I’ve shot, but it has some critical flaws that are difficult to ignore and ultimately prove there are better options for the money.

SPECS

OUT OF THE BOX

The Odin is what you should likely expect from an LPVO these days. Throw lever that screws into the magnification ring, lens covers, a couple of generic tools for the turret and mount. The construction feels fine but it is a bit lightweight. 

The magnification ring runs very smoothly out of the box, a nice touch.

Turrets are super “clicky” and have zero slop when locked down. A+ on that point.

Illumination only offers 6 settings with 6 being not “Eye of Sauron” bright like one might hope.

The mount for the Odin is reasonable. Nothing super overbuilt, but does the job it needs to do. And good news is you won’t need to go looking for the manual to find the torque specs.

ON THE RANGE

Once the Gunnr Odin was mounted and checked out, it was time for the range. Full disclosure, I didn’t run this optic as hard or as long as I normally do in a review. Frankly, it didn’t take long for me to see the major flaws, and spending more time and ammo on this optic wasn’t worth it. 

Good News First

Gunnr claims to be using German Schott Extra-Low Dispersion glass in the Odin. Known for producing some of the best optical glass in the world, Schott glass normally has a price tag that goes with it. Seeing that a $370 LPVO sporting Schott brings up questions, but it cannot be said that the glass in the Odin is lacking. It’s pretty outstanding. Extremely clear, crisp, and damn nice. It produces a far better image quality than any other optic in this price range I can recall.

This is the gold star of the Odin, if nothing else it cannot be said that this glass isn’t amazing. It beat my expectations and looks simply incredible for the price.

These pictures don’t do it justice since I’m limited to my camera setup. The image is nearly perfect in real life looking at trees 315 yards away on 8x. There is almost zero CA, and almost perfect edge-to-edge quality. 

And The Downsides

At 8x and at range is where the Odin shines best but it’s also where it only shines.

But even as a more long-range LPVO, it isn’t perfect. While the turret is extremely clicky and feels great, the design is off. 130 MOA max elevation travel is a lot for an LPVO, but if you have it, flaunt it. Right?

Odin’s turret adjusts in 1/4 MOA clicks, this makes for a lot of clicks to adjust, but it’s fine. It’s also marked with 75 MOA hash marks but doesn’t include any kind of rev indicator to tell you what series of hash marks you’re on.

1 MOA looks, feels, and smells the same as 51 MOA. But good luck hitting what you’re aiming for.

However, there is a solid zero stop so it is at least easy to reset the turret and start fresh. But having shot a lot of long range PRS, it’s easy to get lost in your turret without a rev indicator. 

But the downfall of the Odin for me is the 1x performance. Where the Odin is pretty solid for distance shooting, the close-up performance is simply bad.

First, the Odin has a major fish-eye effect for anything under about 15 yards. This isn’t entirely uncommon with LPVOs especially when they get into the 1-8x or 1-10x range, but the Odin has it worse than many others. 

For room-to-room, it’s extremely distracting and feels more like a 1.5x than a true 1x. Flat range shooting where targets are normally at least 15-20 yards, it’s much less pronounced but still there.

However, the worst part of the Odin is the reticle and illumination at 1x. The huge benefit to running LPVOs is that they can pull double duty. 1x for close-up, 6, 8, 10x to punch distance. To do that, they fundamentally need to work as much like a red dot as possible at that 1x setting. We all know no LPVO is as good at 1x as a real red dot, but a lot of them get a lot closer than others. The Gunnr Odin doesn’t.

The part of the reticle that is illuminated is the innermost dot and the ring around it. This gives you about a 5 MOA circle that is illuminated but not strongly. At 6x this is enough to give you a fine aiming point and okay contrast, but at 1x is entirely lost being too small and too weak. And that’s not even a Hell Desert problem that tends to blow out most “daylight” bright optics. I’m talking in the house after dinner it is too small and too weak to be used as a red dot. It can barely be seen.

First Focal Plane LPVOs tend to struggle with this in general but normally help make up for it by having the illuminated section be at least 10 MOA edge-to-edge to give you something larger to see. They can also help by cranking the brightness up, but that does reduce battery life.

Gunnr’s Odin does neither. It’s small, it isn’t bright, and it’s extremely hard to use. Most of the near targets I shot were hit because I was using the outer arms of the reticle to bracket the target and shot more by feel than by sight.

While this can work in some situations, it is far from ideal and not even in the same zip code of being red dot-like.

WARRANTY

Since Gunnr is brand new and fresh on the market, it’s worth taking a look at its warranty policy. 

Most of it is fairly standard. Defects are covered for a lifetime and they will be repaired or replaced as needed. But then it gets… strange.

Selected from their website:

What is Covered:

• Unlimited Coverage: This warranty applies to all owners, whether you are the original purchaser or a subsequent owner.

Important Notes:

• This warranty is only valid for Gunnr Optics products purchased from authorized dealers.
• Please retain your proof of purchase, as it may be required to validate the warranty.

Since these statements don’t entirely make sense, I asked Gunnr for clarification. Are secondhand users covered or not? The reply was not what I was expecting.

“To ensure the authenticity of products and prevent counterfeit claims on Gunnr’s product warranty policy, customers are required to retain their purchase proof. This policy extends to second-hand owners, provided they can obtain the proof of purchase from the original owners.”

“As long as second-hand owners can furnish proof of purchase, they will be covered under the warranty policy.”

Personally, I’ve never seen a company ask secondhand users to obtain proof of purchase from the original owners. But here we are.

LOOSE ROUNDS

New brands and new products are never perfect but that doesn’t mean we can ignore the shortfalls either.

The Gunnr Odin is an inexpensive LPVO with some impressive glass, good construction, and the potential for greatness. But the horrible reticle that leads to a nearly useless 1x performance kills the optic in my book. If this was packaged as a 2-10x or if the reticle was redesigned, it could be a major contender for entry-level LPVOs.

The warranty policy is kind of weird, but likely not a big deal right now. If Gunnr offers higher-priced optics in the future, this will be a policy that could hold them back.

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