Vortex Razor HD LHT 4.5-22x50mm Field Eval

[Formidilosus]

Ryan Avery asked if I would review this scope in the same vein as the Meopta Optika 6 and Tanget Theta evaluations and I agreed. I get queried about these scopes almost as much as any, and even though I have seen poor performance from the prior LHT’s, this is a different design and will be looked at with objectivity.

This thread will be similar to the others; focusing almost exclusively on correct function, and less on looks or “glass”. Those topics are beaten to death and they have little to do with use as an aiming device. It will be mounted correctly on a rifle/rifles that are proven shooters with large shot groups sizes, with bonded chassis ensuring that the rifle(s) are not the cause of any issues if found.


As it sits now-









Turrets:


Elevation Turret is a lockable pull-up/push down type:

Locked




Unlocked




“RevStop” ring. It’s a zero stop. Drop in, twist the ring that says “ROTATE TO STOP” clockwise until it stops. Zero stop is set. It will allow .5 mils under zero.



Windage is the standard capped type. It is not rotation limited.




The elevation turret feel is distinct, yet rounded or soft. 6 mils per rev. Locking is positive, yet takes very little pressure to unlock. Windage turret feels like a standard capped turret- soft and very mushy. Neither turret has revolution indicators.



XLR-2 MRAD Reticle:

4.5x





22x




The reticle is in general one of the common tree reticle designs with a center dot and .2 mil increments in the horizontal line, .5 mil increments on the vertical, with dots at .2 mil increments for the tree. Also on the horizontal and vertical stadia above center starting at 4 mils, it goes to .1 mil increments. It is illuminated.









Initial thoughts:

The turrets not having a revolution indicator isn’t ideal. The elevation isn’t completely necessary as with the RevStop ring you only get 11 mils up anyways. However the windage is not rotation limited and having a way to ensure the windage is on the correct rev is better, and should be included whether it’s a rev indicator or a rotation limited turret. I don’t really care too much about how the turrets feel as long as they aren’t horrible and they work. They’re usable as is, though the marketing needs to stop on the weird adjustments per rev- make them 5, 10, or 20 mils per rev. Again it’s isn’t a huge deal, but no matter how you slice it, your brain can deal with counting up from 5 or 10 mils per rev when you go past the first revolution, rather than 6 or 12 mils.

This scope is marketed as a hunting scope, a western, rugged hunting scope to be exact. Yet, once again we get a reticle that is a PRS/dedicated LR design- extremely thin with the thick outer bars spaced too far from center (10mils), and with a tree. Marketing. No one is holding ten mils worth of wind- ever. And no one that is hunting is holding 10 mils of elevation with 6 mils of wind on the tree. These reticles keep being designed for how people “think” they might use a scope, not for how they actually do use them. I won’t say that it’s invisible or useless on low power without illumination, but it is subpar and will more than likely be totally unusable in some legal light hunting conditions without the illumination.



Shooting starts tomorrow.

 

[Formidilosus]

First range day. Good shooting weather.

Clean targets.

Zeroing and RTZ target

“Tracking” and drop eval target.

Zeroing:

Shot a couple at 20’ish to get on paper. Then went to 100 yards (actually 94.5 yards exactly). Top three were the first at 100, read reticle, adjusted down .8 and left .3. Shot ten more (center orange).

Return to zero:

Adjusted down .1 and right .1 from first ten, then conducted the return to zero Eval Shoot a round, dial up and down stop to stop 20 times, for a total of 200 mils per shot. Repeat ten times, for a total of 2,000 mils dialed. Other than it moving farther right by a tenth than it should, no issues.

“Tracking”

Went to the “tracking” target. First, live firing to measure adjustment accuracy is less than optimal. Unless large shot group sizes are shot, there just too much error built in. This rifle and I can consistently get measure to about 1%. A static mounted scope and tracking board are the way to check “tracking” first. BUT live fire MUST be done because scopes can and do track well just using the turrets, and then the same exact scopes show issues once recoil is imparted.

STATIC MOUNTED TRACKING DOES NOT PROVE THAT A SCOPE WORKS. It only shows that it works when no outside forces interact with it.

Read the reticle in the scope and the spotter, both showed 7.8 mils center to center on the two dots. Always aiming in bottom dot- one shot on the bottom, dialed up 7.8 shot again, down to zero, shot, etc, etc for ten rounds.

No real issues- it moved 7.9 mils instead of 7.8, but it’s within 2%.


Some thoughts at this point.

In less than an hour out of the house, including a heated truck ride, the power ring was extremely stiff- quite hard to turn. Non fast focus eyepieces suck. The eyebox, etc is good on lower powers, but is tight at 22x which is to be expected. Didn’t have one side by side, but at 22x it reminded me of the NF NX8 on max power…. That’s not a compliment.
In the cold both elevation and windage had gotten much softer by this point.





Cont….

 

[Formidilosus]

Drop evaluation:

I’ve written about it quite a bit. You can read the other two scope eval threads I linked in the OP. In short, it’s done using rifles with a permanently bonded chassis and rail- there is no zero shift in the rifle system. The “test” consists of three 18” drops on a mat- one left/right/top with a shot to check zero after each drop. Then the exact same thing repeated from 36”. Then three drops on all three sides for nine drops on the last part- 15 drops total. This is not “abuse”. The 18” drops are a joke really. The 36” start showing something. And when a scope make/model consistently goes through the whole thing without losing zero, failures in actual use are almost unheard of.

This one was not as it should be due to the deep soft snow, but figured I would do so at least to start. Note: the snow was not compacted down- it was very soft and fresh.

I videod each one, but will save the play by play. It was a complete failure. The very first 18” drop on the left side shifted .7 mil in elevation and .4 mils on windage. Went to a separate target to see if it would settle back to zero after the recoil, it did not. I continued the eval. You can see below every single drop from both heights caused significant POI shifts.

Think of it this way; a single impact- that is less than if your rifle was on a bipod and tipped over- on relatively soft snow with a foam mat on top caused a shift large enough to miss a deer at just over 200 yards…..



So, I thought- let’s rezero, then start the drop at 6 inches- a hands width…. And see when it starts shifting. I went to the other target, adjust based on the last shot of the drop eval, shot three on top black square, made an adjustment, and three more on bottom black square-

Then went to the left orange 1.5 inch dot. The left side drop from 6 inches did not noticeably shift. The right side drop from 6 inches however….

Shifted right .4 mils. From hand width height. On a mat. On soft snow.


So.. two more black squares, adjust and rezero. Right square was initial three after adjusting from the 6” drop, left square was after adjusting from the first. (Of note, I think this rifle is way sub half moa for three round groups…).

This time I decided to video the entire thing. A confirmer shot through the scope, then the massive abuse of a 6” drop onto snow, then the shot, etc etc. I did so, the confirmation shot before dropping hit, and the first 6” on right side did not shift. However, the next drop from 6 inches in the top, shifted .4 mils high-

Again, a continuous video between each drop and each shot.


Drop Eval Results:

A total failure. The lightest “impact” causes a significant and consistent loss of zero. The scope used to proof the rifle before this Vortex went over 20 drops from 36” without a single point of impact shift. Also the drops would cause the reticle illumination to come on, even when not touching that side.




Thoughts for the day:

The cold turned both elevation and windage to mush. The elevation is barely an audible and physical click, the windage lost all feeling and felt like a friction Leupold turret after two hours in 12-15° temps. The magnification ring all but locked up- as in I have very strong hands and fingers, and it took my full strength to barely move it. Also, with parallax adjusted correctly at 22x, it is now out of focus at low power, and vice versa.


In comparison, three other different makes and models of scopes present worked without issue and correctly in every aspect

 

[Formidilosus]

After the last drops, I rezeroed which happened without issue. No more abuse will be put on it unless somethings changes. It’ll ride in the truck seat and be shot regularly to see how long it holds zero. It clearly is not what I would term a “rugged” scope, but it is good to see if day to day light use will effect it.

Also, there will be a thread detailing why the drops are done the way they are, at those heights, etc., and how they are applicable to hunters- they’re not just random.

 

[Formidilosus]

Final check on the Vortex. At the last range session it was zeroed, and then rode in the backseat of the truck for 678 miles. Padded seat, nothing touching it, this is it before I pulled it out today to check-

First shot was over 2” high at 100 yards. They’re labeled-

Scope is going back to Ryan.

 

[Formidilosus]

The Razor that was cleared as functionally perfect by Vortex was checked today. @Ryan Avery came over as well as @slowelk to shoot. As has been standard, the scope that was on the rifle (Bushnell LRTS) was checked for zero and dropped three times from 36”. It held zero. Then on camera, that scope was removed, the Vortex HD LHT was mounted exactly as Vortex stated in the email sent- EXACTLY. Then was zeroed and the drop eval conducted. Left dot is zero, center is drop eval. The first 18” drop shifted left .4 mils. The second shifted to the right over 1 mil. The third shifted back to the left .8 mil, the fourth off the paper, and in the scope was approximately 10’ish mils off the center by the impact in the dirt. The next drop, and miss of paper again. Then, slowelk switched in and shot the rifle. The scope started walking the rounds closer to center and his hit is far right, then a little left. His hits are the two right hits on paper.





Then, on video the scope was remounted again EXACTLY as Vortex stated to, rezeroed, and reshot for the drop eval- well, we shot and dropped, shot and dropped as it wasn’t going well.

Second target-



While “better”, if losing zero by half a mil is better, on camera 6-8” drops were causing .3 to .5 mil shifts. Not every time, but about 2/3rds of the sub 12” drops were shifting.




While it may get shot again, it may not as it is a tremendous expenditure of ammunition when it clearly does not hold zero from impacts. At this point over $500 in personally purchased ammunition has been fired with this scope. It in no way holds zero from impacts- from the exact same rifle, rail, same rings, etc. Going immediately from a scope holding no matter how many times it is dropped, to take ring caps off, place LHT in, torque exactly as specified by the manufacture, fail epically, then take ring caps off, replace former scope back in it, zero, and that scope holds zero.



I do not hate Vortex, nor do I want them to fail. I take them straight at their statement that this scope passes their tests and standards. However, I will not color what happens. This scope continues what I have seen from prior LHT’s.