Originally Posted by
Ned Christiansen
I had a chance a couple years ago to examine the Vortex lineup of LPVO's. This was my intro to Vortex, I had no prior experience with them. The idea was that I was going to pick one and run it for a summer or Patrol Rifle classes and other testing. When I'm selecting an optic like this I'm looking for utility but also affordability-- something an officer can afford, but it has to be durable too. These two may be somewhat at odds, I mean, one presumes it and I guess even hopes for it. If you paid upward of $3000 for it, it ought to be more durable, dammit.... but how do you find out, barring knocking it around, and at that price you aren't going to knock it around! Which is a secondary downside to very expensive optics (besides the high price), in my opinion: the feeling that it needs to be babied. A guy should not have to bring a velvet pillow on call-outs for his scope.
Back to the Vortex selection. Knowing nothing about the prices (but one can look at the Razor and guess), I immediately rejected the Viper. The glass was waayy not as good as the Strike Eagle and Razor, and the FFP reticle was essentially of no use at low power. This has been my universal experience with LPVO that are FFP, to include some very expensive ones from S&B, NF, and US Otpics. All three of these had circle reticles that were of seriously inadequate illumination, and at low power good luck finding the circle fast. At 4X good luck making a precision shot with. Those three were ten years ago or so, so maybe they're much improved now, I dunno. So the Viper was out; then the Razor was out due to size and weight plus I felt that with the glass so very close to the end of the tube, it would be more susceptible to breakage. I picked the Strike Eagle because I felt the glass was as good as or 95% as good as the Razor's. The size and weight were more reasonable, and the reticle, in my opinion, was much better suited to carbines than the Razor's. It has indeed proven over the last few seasons to be simple and fast, using the holdover dots for holdover on very close shots works well once learned (I write that info on the scope), and the dots for me have been nearly spot-on for 3 and 500 yard shooting-- certainly close enough for as fast as they are.
Durability-- again short of actual durability testing, all I can do is listen for general feedback.... I mean my Strike Eagle has maybe 1200 rounds under it, hardly a test and yeah even though it wasn't $3K I try not to bang it around. But sofar I have not heard of the going bad....?
Oh, the other downside.... made in friggin' China. That's a turn off and of course we get Chines red dots in class from time to time that typically puke right away if they don't fall off first, but I grudgingly concede that some Chinese glass is very good for the price.
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