The hatch was at the 45 degree point exactly. That is, the center of the hatch was at 4:30 o'clock on the turret, with the gun pointing to 12 o'clock.
This is non-negotiable, it's in the basic German drawings for cutting the armour, and many other things are positioned around it; the standard turret bin was designed to clear the hatch by just a few centimeters.
So, no matter what museum Tiger they may have looked at, they never saw the hatch out where they put it. I can't explain what they were thinking. No 35th scale model has this mistake.
I've looked at some photos of Mid Tigers and they have the hatch in the same position as expected.
As for the bevelled sides; it was back in 1998, I think, that Doyle and Jentz published their famous Tiger book with a list of production changes, and they said clearly that the Mid hatch was a simple disc. So, these companies just haven't done the research. If they would get me onboard their projects, I'd put them straight.
David