This is what sours me on Vortex. Any company that makes a sub-$100 and a $2000 dollar optic is suspect. Just too much variance.
Yap, kinda like Kia offering a $75,000 Sedan.
Hey, careful! My wife loves her '08 Kia Optima V6. Pretty good bang for the buck when purchased used they are good at marketing, i will give them that.
Too good.
Yeah, apparently Vortex does provide good customer service, but I would prefer not to have to hassle with sending scopes back for repair/replacement. But to be fair to Vortex in this discussion, it really isn't fair to compare a $99 6-24x50 cheap scope to a Leupold Rifleman 3-9 that retails for almost double the price of the Vortex. I should hope the Rifleman is better optically at half the maximum magnification and twice the price. Same goes for comparing the Crossfire to a Leupold VX-1 4-12, as the Leupie is again, more than twice the price of the Crossfire. And I just got a new Nikon Prostaff 2-7x32 on sale at Cabelas for $95. It is probably superior optically to the Crossfire, too. But again it offers 1/3 the maximum magnification, and I wanted it for my S&W MP 15-22 since it has a 75 yard parallax setting. I don't expect it to equal a VX-3 (or even a Nitrex 1.5-5x32, which I probably should have ordered instead when Natchez and ATK were offering the $50 mail in rebate)
My theory is to buy the best quality you can afford. And watch for discontinued close out items. I have been happy with my $89 Intensity Optics 6.5-20x44 scopes I got a couple of years ago. Not VX-3's but have given good service, and I could probably sell them any time for what I gave for them. (I think they are pretty much identical to the old Simmons 44 Mag scopes from a few years back. All my "cheap scopes" were assembled in the Phillipines. I believe the really cheap scopes, like the Crossfire are made in China.
