Need Help with New Scope Selection...

[wind gypsy]

The $300 walmart M700 I bought in college circa 2005 rocked a 3-9 nikon prostaff. It works fine, but i wouldn't recommend one unless they have since gotten a whole lot nicer.

 

[farleymatters]

Sig Sauer SIERRA3 BDX Rifle Scope | Cabela's

www.cabelas.com

Just please, for the love of all things holy, stay away from the Vortex in that price range...

For the love all all things holy, care to explain why to stay away from Vortex in that range? I'm curious...

 

[nobody]

For the love all all things holy, care to explain why to stay away from Vortex in that range? I'm curious...

There's lots of history behind my post, but to paraphrase, I've never seen anything below the Razor line stand up to recoil and abuse long term. Just in my hunting camp alone, we've had:

1. 2 Crossfire ii's killed by the recoil from 50 cal muzzleloader. Actually, never could get my dad's to hold zero for longer than 2 or 3 shots. Finally got it dialed in, but dad constantly is verifying and worrying while we are out hunting. One Brother pulled his Crossfire ii out of the box and it rattled like a baby rattle from new. Another Brother has a Walmart Tasco Blister Pack scope that has never moved. The Leupold's and Nikons on all of our other guns have never needed adjustment either.

2. Broken Diamondback on the back of a .270. After getting it sighted in, it rode in a hard case from Idaho to Montana (about 4 hours). Upon arrival and pulling the gun out, the reticle was rotated and one of the internal lenses had come loose and was rattling around. Couldn't see out of it anymore. The Leupold that rode on another rifle in another case was totally fine and center punched a gong at 600 first shot out of the gun.

3. Broken Diamondback HP on the back of a 6.5 creedmoor. Pulled it out of the box, mounted with a wheeler fat wrench at 15 inch lbs in Vortex rings. Went to the range, bore sighted, shot one shot at 50 yards, and went to move the elevation turret and heard a "pop" like a bike skipping gears. After that, it was very hard to turn the turret, so I tried looking through, and the reticle had rotated 45 degrees. Pulled the scope off and put a cheap, old, fixed 6 power leupold on it just for fun and was able to sight it in within 5 shots with the friction turrets.

On top of that, all the diamondback binos, crossfires, and diamondback spotters have all broken/failed within 1 year. Stripped focus wheels, broken diopters, internal fogging, un-useable above 30 power on the spotters. The Viper line on up seems to be better, but the real step up in build quality seems to start at the Razor line. These are my experiences and opinions, but it does seem, from talking to friends/family and experiencing things personally, that these lines seem to have pattern failures. Maybe the new Diamondback Tacticals are different, but they're well out of his price range. The real tell for me is the fact that the big guide services all run everything else, but very few of them use vortex products it seems. When their livelihood depends on spotting/killing game, I like to think they use the best they can get their hands on. Never seems to be Vortex...

EDIT: To be fair, they have ALWAYS taken great care of us on warranty claims! No questions asked, fairly quick turnaround. However, having experienced a 100% failure rate with their products (not treating them any different from any other optics brand I own), it seems to be not a matter of if their stuff will break, but when. Will it be at home, or will it be in a torrential downpour chasing elk on day 10 of a 10 day hunt 5 minutes before legal shooting light ends with a bull at 400 yards across a canyon in some trees? I would rather NEVER have a warranty claim from my equipment failing. And if I do, the cause of the failure should be obvious (I.E., gun falling off the truck, spotting scope tipping over and falling on some rocks, binoculars getting backed over by a side by side), but all the failures I've seen have had seemingly no cause whatsoever. That's the frustrating part.

NOT trying to start a fight, maybe your experience has been better than mine! He was asking for opinions, and mine is worth what he paid! Have you had better experiences than me?

 

[farleymatters]

I appreciate the detailed explanation of why you're so down on Vortex in that price range. I personally haven't picked up any optics from Vortex, but was considering some binos and a Viper scope in the coming weeks. You've definitely given me something to think about. I'm a big fan of Sig though, so I might end up going with a gen 1 BDX, though the gen 2 Sierra6 scopes look solid.

 

[Trogon]

What's the difference between a 400$ sig scope and a 400$ vortex scope?

 

[RMajors]

Midway currently has Leupold VX-3i 3.5-10x40 for $339.99 with free shipping. You might be able to look around and find it cheaper, but Midway is a very good company to deal with, and seem to always have the best deals on Leupold. You can't beat the lowlight performance of these scopes for the money in my opinion.

Leupold VX-3i Rifle Scope 3.5-10x 40mm Duplex Reticle Matte

America's favorite riflescope just got better. VX-3i brings legendary Leupold Gold Ring performance to a new level. Twilight max light management...

www.midwayusa.com

 

[RMajors]

Midway currently has Leupold VX-3i 3.5-10x40 for $339.99 with free shipping. You might be able to look around and find it cheaper, but Midway is a very good company to deal with, and seem to always have the best deals on Leupold. You can't beat the lowlight performance of these scopes for the money in my opinion.

Leupold VX-3i Rifle Scope 3.5-10x 40mm Duplex Reticle Matte

America's favorite riflescope just got better. VX-3i brings legendary Leupold Gold Ring performance to a new level. Twilight max light management...

www.midwayusa.com

Leupold VX-3i Rifle Scope | Cabela's

The Leupold® VX-3i™ Rifle Scope produces super bright, clear images across a versatile magnification range, making then an excellent choice for hunting virtually any species of game in and

www.cabelas.com

 

[anthonytexas]

I'm interested in the Sig Sauer SIERRA3 4.5-14X50 Combo Kit with KILO1800 BDX2.0 . Currently can get at $750. I'm still not sold on the Sig glass quality compared to Ziess, but can't beat the price for scope and rf

 

[anthonytexas]

Second/third the Sig Sierra3 in terms of middle tier pricing.