Vortex Razor HD Gen III 6-36x56 Riflescope Review

[Justin Crossley]

I heard Vortex was releasing a 6-36x56 Razor HD and knew I needed to test one out. The features align perfectly with what most people would want in a long-range or competition riflescope. My plan is to test it on my competition rifle for a couple shoots to see how it performs. Let me know what questions you have and I'll get them answered.

***Update*** Full review available here.

 

[Justin Crossley]

I really like how easy these turrets are to set up.

 

[OSU Fisher]

Vortex and $3k in the same sentence… I’m not quite sure about that. Anyways, seems to be a well thought out scope. Lots of nice features. For a comp type rifle it would be nice. Glad they’ve cut some oz’s. I do feel they are starting to out price themselves with this one. Guess they will see what everyone else thinks. At this point why not grab a 7-35 atacr etc. curious to here your feedback. I wouldn’t mind it on my 6 creed comp rig and even with my vortex pricing I’m not sure I will pull the trigger. I have a 5-25 atacr on it right now but have been thinking about going with more magnification as I also use it as a plinker a lot.

 

[Justin Crossley]

Vortex and $3k in the same sentence… I’m not quite sure about that. Anyways, seems to be a well thought out scope. Lots of nice features. For a comp type rifle it would be nice. Glad they’ve cut some oz’s. I do feel they are starting to out price themselves with this one. Guess they will see what everyone else thinks. At this point why not grab a 7-35 atacr etc. curious to here your feedback. I wouldn’t mind it on my 6 creed comp rig and even with the vortex pricing I’m not sure I will pull the trigger. I have a 5-25 atacr on it right now but have been thinking about going with more magnification as I also use it as a plinker a lot.

My thinking was very similar to yours and partly why I wanted to review this scope. The scope I normally use and will compare this to is a 5-25x56 ATACR.

I have had a couple not so positive experiences with Vortex optics in the past so I'm not a fanboy by any means. We'll see how it goes. I'll do my best to be fare and unbiased as possible in this review.

So far I do have a couple of small gripes but overall I'm impressed. I'll continue to test it this month and I have a couple competitions next month so that will be the real test.

 

[OSU Fisher]

My thinking was very similar to yours and partly why I wanted to review this scope. The scope I normally use and will compare this to is a 5-25x56 ATACR.

I have had a couple not so positive experiences with Vortex optics in the past so I'm not a fanboy by any means. We'll see how it goes. I'll do my best to be fare and unbiased as possible in this review.

So far I do have a couple of small gripes but overall I'm impressed. I'll continue to test it this month and I have a couple competitions next month so that will be the real test.

Awesome. Look forward to it. I’m not a fanboy either and maybe leaves me a little extra critical. I had a razor line scope fail and cost me a bull years ago. Swore off vortex at the time. I’ve come around a little since then l… I did put a new lht on a super light weight kimber. Anyways, look forward to your thoughts. It appears to be a nice scope just more $ then I would like to see. Travel safe! Looks like you’ve been fighting some lovely weather…

 

[Dobermann]

Justin - I almost hate to do it, but is this where we ask if you're going to drop test it?

 

[Justin Crossley]

Justin - I almost hate to do it, but is this where we ask if you're going to drop test it?

I won't drop it while it's mounted to a 21 pound rifle but I'll see if I can come up with something for this review.

 

[brn2hnt]

Is this a Rokslide purchase or a donation from Vortex?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Justin Crossley]

Is this a Rokslide purchase or a donation from Vortex?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

This scope was sent to me for testing purposes by Vortex. Sometimes they let us keep the product and sometimes they don't. Either way, Vortex will not have a say in what I write or say about it in my review just like the rest of the Rokslide reviews.

Also, Robby and Ryan have never asked a writer to sugarcoat or omit negative opinions in posts or reviews. In fact the opposite is true. They remind our writers to do their best to find complaints about a product if they exist. If we don't have any complaints, that's fine.

 

[OSU Fisher]

One more complaint… how come a scope of that caliber/price can’t come with better scope caps and cover. Atleast give me tenebraex caps and a scope coat xp6 cover like a lot do. Even trijicon does exactly that. The vortex defender caps have to be the worst caps on earth. Atleast to me. I’m still contemplating picking one up as
My pricing is pretty descent. But dang…

 

[Justin Crossley]

One more complaint… how come a scope of that caliber/price can’t come with better scope caps and cover. Atleast give me tenebraex caps and a scope coat xp6 cover like a lot do. Even trijicon does exactly that. The vortex defender caps have to be the worst caps on earth. Atleast to me. I’m still contemplating picking one up as
My pricing is pretty descent. But dang…

The caps are the biggest pieces of garbage I've seen. I already lost the objective side.

 

[Justin Crossley]

I got home from my North Dakota predator hunt yesterday and the weather was decent today so I got a little testing in.

First I shot three shots to check my zero. I adjusted .3 mils to the left and fired another. I normally shoot 10 shots to confirm zero but I didn't want to waste ammo since it's been hard to get components.

 

[Justin Crossley]

For a tracking test, I placed two target dots on a verticle line. I measured them at exactly 6 mils apart with the Vortex reticle (lucky!).

I shot at the bottom dot, dialed up 6 mils, and shot at the bottom dot again. I dialed back to zero and shot, dialed up 6 mils and shot, then repeated that one more time for a total of six shots.



When I looked at the results I knew I should have fired more shots to confirm my zero. During this test, I was hitting about .1 mil left and .3 mils low.

I think it still shows that the Razor was dialing accurately and returning to zero (at least as accurately as my rifle, ammo, and myself are capable of showing).

 

[Justin Crossley]

I came across this video that gives a quick rundown of the EBR-7D FFP Reticle.

 

[Justin Crossley]

Shot my first match with the Razor last Saturday. It was low to upper 30's throughout the match.

I noticed the parallax knob was hard to adjust compared to my Nightforce ATACR. Depth of focus seemed good and I didn't have to move the parallax during any of the stages even though some targets would vary by a few hundred yards. The zoom was easy to adjust with the throw lever but stiff enough it stayed where I set it.

The locking elevation and windage turrets must be pulled up to adjust. I had to make sure I didn't press down while adjusting so they wouldn't lock and I thought it may cause me issues. I never had a problem but I would if I forgot in the heat of the moment.



The eye relief was good throughout all positions. Clarity is up there with the best scopes I've used including the Nightforce ATACR Enhanced and the Swarovski X5.

The bad news is I shot really poorly for the day. My worst match to date. I wasn't sure if it was me, the rifle, the scope, or a combination.



Today I spent some time at the bench and ruled out the scope. It looks like my load may need some work.

First I shot a 10 shot group without changing anything from the shoot. My grouping is about 1.5 moa and the zero is clearly low. The only thing I'm not sure on is if I did a piss poor job on my original zero or if the scope shifted. I'll do more testing on that later to confirm.



Then I mounted the ATACR back on the rifle and torqued it down.



I didn't zero the Nightforce, just shot another 10 shot group with basically the same results. The zero on the ATACR was obviously better but grouping is similar.

 

[DangerRanger]

Lots of people seem to be putting an o ring in the turret space to keep it up if you want to try that. I know mkmachining makes a printed one for zco I bet he would make a razor one.

I haven’t noticed it being an issue for me yet but probably depends on how each person uses the scope and I don’t compete so never in a hurry.

How many rounds on that barrel?

 

[Justin Crossley]

Lots of people seem to be putting an o ring in the turret space to keep it up if you want to try that. I know mkmachining makes a printed one for zco I bet he would make a razor one.

I haven’t noticed it being an issue for me yet but probably depends on how each person uses the scope and I don’t compete so never in a hurry.

How many rounds on that barrel?

Unfortunately I'm a really bad note taker like @Ryan Avery so I'm not sure exactly how many rounds. Probably between 1k and 2k I think.

 

[Rifleman86]

Unfortunately I'm a really bad note taker like @Ryan Avery so I'm not sure exactly how many rounds. Probably between 1k and 2k I think.

At that round count your barrel may be giving up the ghost depending on caliber and how hard you are pushing it.

 

[khuber84]

I have one these new gen3 razors, man I love it on my prs rig. I never liked the gen2. This scope has very similar glass to the minox Zp5 525 I normally run. It has better DOF and better eyebox than the minox. The turrets are more distinct on the minox, but as long they track and I can see them, I really dont care, as long they're not total mush. Its a good scope, and the street price I paid, man i cannot complain one bit.

 

[Justin Crossley]

Just shot my fourth match with the Razor this weekend and my review should be finished shortly.