Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Vortex Optics

I have a Viper 6-20 and Diamondback 4-12 scopes, have recommended them and mounted them on rifles, but wouldn't think of replacing my Zeiss Conquest scopes on big game rifles in favor of any Vortex. In my sample of 5 I've had to return 1 scope and won't say that the glass is above pretty good. Targets, varmints, and rimfires is what I use Vortex scopes for. One of my hunting partners likes his 12 power Viper binos just fine for rugged hunting and they seem to be holding up welll.

I would sooner buy a quality product than a cheap one with a free replacement warranty. No matter how good the warranty is it is useless when you're on a hunt and no longer have the product to use. Vortex has done a great job of marketing their product using their warranty and not their actual product.

Exactly

I think it's been 7 years or so since Doug first enticed me to try a Vortex scope. I've since bought 3 more, along with a spotter & a rangefinder. My first, "failure" wasn't until 2 weeks ago.

A known load began to spray into patterns, so I called to get a RMA number and sent the scope in. They called 3 days later to say it checked out 100%. A careful examination of my mounts showed a crack on the rear base. Fast forward to yesterday, where the same scope in new mounts put the groups right back where they should have been.

I'm certainly aware of the many firsthand reports of failures, but I've not yet experienced one myself. Vortex stuff may not exactly be, "world class", but I've found it to be more than serviceable, especially for the price.

In the end, we all make the best guess we can, lay down our $, & roll the dice.

FC

I have just two Vortex items a 20-60x80 Viper HD spotter for range work, I haven't had it long and within my limted experience its good glass for what I payed, will it hold up long term? hard to know but a range spotter isn't really Mission critical equipment to me.

I also have a set of 8x32 viper binos. Ok glass, what I like is that the glass is good enough for what I do and they are cheap enough that I can use them hard. Had them for maybe 6 years and used them on many hunts and scouting trips and so far they have held up.

There is a part of me that would like to buy some alpha glass, but two things hold me back, one is the cost would pay a chunk of a hunt and secondly I wonder if I would feel if I had to baby a $2000+ set of binos, which in the end might actually make them less useful for me than some thing like the vortexes that I use pretty hard.

Cheap? I remember well when Vortex released their Razor binocular at a price to match the big three and everyone said it would fail. It sold well and worked perfectly straight out of the box. Hard to see where they relied on their warranty to sell the product.

Confusing price points is what I see here.

Clearly Vortex targets stuff at different markets, big difference in the glass between the Crossfire/Diamondback stuff and the Razor line. I would hope that the its not just glass that's different that there is big difference in build quality too