mod7rem,
I have owned your exact Bino(Minox HG 8.5x43) and loved it! However, when Minox moved assembly of the HGs back to Germany from Japan I grabbed a pair of the "Made in Germany" 8x43 HGs from Doug at Cameraland for a deep discount(like new demo). I liked everything about them much better than the Japanese Minox(Better eye relief, larger field-of-view, better optically...) Never felt scaling back from the 8.5x to 8x was a negative. However, the larger field-of-view and better eye relief were immediately apparent and much appreciated(just made the binocular more user friendly / more enjoyable to use). I had no problem spotting a nice 4x4 mulie buck at 800+ yds with the 8x out in Utah a couple years ago(couldn't count the individual points but could tell well enough that it was a mature buck worth going after). Needless to say, I sold the Japan made Minox HGs as they no longer interested me.
Campfire member JG Raider raves about the Tract Toric 8x42! Described them as very, very close optically to his Swarovski SLC HD 10x42. Also, described the build quality as equal to the Swarovskis. JG also bought the 10x42 Torics but sent them back as he was not nearly as impressed with them as he was with the 8x.
I've always heard that it is much easier to make a good 8x bino than it is to make an equally good 10x. If the 8x42 Toric is better than the 10x Toric and if the 8x42 Toric is truely on par with the 10x Swarovskis, then that's a huge compliment(and likely a significant upgrade from your Minox)!
8x for me.
Good luck,
Leftybolt
Last edited by leftybolt; 03/28/17.
