Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Opinion of Vortex optics as a company

*their*

I read a lot of bad reviews about the Company, warranty. I was going to buy the vortex razor lll ended up buying the Kahlas K16i.

Don’t be “that guy”

I've been to the factory and while they have significant warehouse space, but they have allocated a really substantial portion of it to manufacturing and keep on growing it. Also keep in mind that they are going for some really interesting military projects and if they win the production will be mostly done in the US.

A fairly significant portion of the campus is R&D and other labs. They do a lot of design there in WIsconsin and test a lot of OEM'ed scopes there as well.

In a nutshell, anything that says "AMG" is made in the US. For now, that is two products: 6-24x50 precision crossover scope and UH-1 holographic sight. Both are excellent.

The rest of the Razor riflescopes are made in Japan with final assembly on some of the models done in the US.

Golden Eagle scopes are also made in Japan.

Razor spotters are Chinese, but they take them apart and realign them in the US.

Razor UHD and Kaibab HD binos are made in Japan. The rest are, I think, made in China.

Anything riflescopes that say Viper or PST are made in Phillipines.

Diamondback riflescopes are also from the Philliipines.

Diamondback Tactical, Strike Eagle, etc are all from China.

If you do not like that they make a significant portion of their products in China, buy their US/Japanese/Phillipine products. It is nice to theorize that you do not want Chinese made products, but Vortex lives in a very competitive world. If they stop making products in China, other companies who do will simply take over their market share.

Plenty of companies simply lie about where their products are from. Vortex does not. They are very clear where different things are made.

Like any other company, they respond to market demand. If people buy more of their non-Chinese products, they will do more of their manufacturing outside of China.

Average Joe consumer is all anti-China until it is time to open up their wallet. Then, things change really quickly.

ILya

I own one Vortex Viper scope that cost me around $450.

It has very poor optical quality, and I won't be buying any more of their scopes.

Fool me once......etc. etc.

What did Vortex offer to make it right with you?

Thank you Ilya, appreciate the information.

The End.

And why is that?

Wow!

I just personally can’t support a company that markets the way they do all the while selling 99% prc junk. It’s not even a made in USA thing. I’m fine with Japan, Germany, Czech, etc along with the US of course. I think of vortex as a marketing company that is currently marketing optics

I have no problems if others do. It’s their money...

I figured out that they were average to mediocre since every box store aggressively markets them in multiple price points and every noob just has to have one. Lifetime replacement reeks of “they are so cheap we’ll just send you another one.” But I’m sure some of their products are ok. Most optics consumers have no idea what really good glass is like until they use it. I didn’t.... Happy Trails

Oh, so you want opinions, do you???

My take is that Vortex kinda pioneered the business model that lots of others are now following. Spec a product (for anything they didn't actually design themselves), then have it built wherever the costs are least. Try to put in the best QC plan you can afford, given the price point you've targeted. Match Leupold's warranty. Go for the widest distribution you can.

Since they began, ZenRay, Athlon (a/k/a ex Bushnell guys), Maven, Toric (ex Nikon guys), GPO (ex Zeiss guy), Vanguard, et. al. have done roughly the same thing. China gets the bulk of the mfg. orders, based on price. They can make a great product, but one's gotta have a team of eagle-eyed staff on site looking over their shoulders, to ensure the product in the box meets the specs. It's my understanding that Chinese mfgrs won't cut corners until the very first possible instant they can.

The market is what it is. Vortex has gone to bigger tubes & christmas tree reticles & all the features I don't care about, because they'll make more $ doing it. Good for them. Athlon seems to chase those same products, at a discount. Toric & Maven seem to go after higher-end offerings, I believe utilizing most or nearly all Japanese products, & get their price advantage by selling direct.

10 years ago I talked to the owner of a local company that rebuilds Lyman and some other legacy scopes. He had a 10 month backlog. Given how strong business was, he said they'd gone a long way down the path of actually making their own straight 6x scope in their shop. However, that process stopped when they realized they'd need to retail the scopes for $1,500 to make it worthwhile. $1,500 scopes aint gonna sell any faster in 2020 than they did 10 years ago.

I don't foresee an imminent on-shoring of scope production anytime soon. If overseas scopes are what we'll be dealing with, the best one can hope for is US management that will support the customers. From my experience, Vortex does about as well as anybody.

And that's the opinion you asked for.

FC

The thing about Chinese qc is that a marketing firm like vortex knows what they are suposed to be getting in terms of glass quality,coatings etc but they have no idea what they are ACTUALLY getting...and neither does the end user.

Chink manufacturers cut corners at every single opportunity...it’s how they operate and why I won’t buy Chinese optics regardless of good they are speced to be

+1. I won't buy anything that props up an enemy regime that just purposely killed a few hundred thousand people . Because of their stupidity I have a 10% pay cut effective last paycheck . That will buy a whole lot of flugging optics. . Currently I count one Hawke spotter which is MIC. I have NF, S&B,Swarovski scopes and Zeiss Binos.


If Vortex makes products in any country but China I will look at them, if not sayonara. Athlon,Hawke and other direct Chinese importers are SOL in my eyes

Yeah, about that...




I, myself, have not been to the factory. I've only returned 3 scopes to them. All were tested in WI, and back in my hands in 3 days. After inspection, 2 had nothing wrong with them; the problem turned out to be cracked mounts. The 3rd had a bent tube, which wasn't their defect. They did replace it at no charge, however.

This is just my experience, which informs the opinion I offered to the OP. I'm no Vortex fan boy. There's not a single current-production product of theirs that interests me. When I needed to mount a scope on a Whelen last week, I went with a M8 3X.

In any case, US firms in lots of industries have outsourced production to China for decades. There are well established methods for maintaining QC - think Apple products. It all comes down to how committed ($$$$) a firm is to maintaining those standards. If the QC choices fell to me, I'd probably dedicate more QC funds for the $1,000+ Razor scopes, than I would for the Crossfire II that retails at $100.

China's schidt in their mess kit, for sure. People won't forget the Covid BS anytime soon. Still, I'm not counting on legions of hunters/shooters who've frequented WalMart for the past 20 years, to suddenly give up on anything but $600+ scopes 'n binos.

FC

Here is the level of vortex qc...they shipped out a scope with a bent tube. No go ahead and tell me they are confident in the quality of the glass and lens coatings. This is the inherent problem with China and it’s not a just a cortex problem. I won’t buy Chinese Nikon either.

Maybe I’m off base...but I’ve dealt with Chinese manufactures at the OEM level in the past and know better than to think you are getting what they are telling you you’re getting

In this particular case, the tube was bent by my buddy's overzealous tightening of a windage screw on a Leupold mount.

I've personally never had an out-of-the-box product failure with several specimens of 2 brands that source from China. I have had such a failure with the last (ostensibly) US-made scope I purchased. Maybe if I bought thousands of scopes, I could offer statistically significant figures. 'Til then, that's just what's happened to me.

In the end, the marketplace will efficiently, and probably cruelly, discern which companies meet the expectations of enough customers to keep them afloat. It'll be interesting to see which ones are still around in another 10 years.

FC

Well...my poor assumption but ill stand behind the rest of my concern.

The market ultimately decides I agree but the issue with optics is that they are being sold for the most part to people who wouldnt know good optics If they fell out of the sky landed in their face and started to wiggle.

Lots of cheap optical combines out there and they all have their place...but it rubs people the wrong way they present themselves as premium and basically bribe their retailers to sell it as such

Very few know better...but some do

I own 2 Vortex binos and 4 scopes. I own models that are made in the Philippines or Japan.

I’ve found Vortex optics are very competitive wuslity wise within their price point. The Japanese made/assembled optics are just plain good.

I’ve used Vortex frequently during hunting season and I’ve never had them fail me.

The company seems solid and they are very pro-veteran and pro-2A.