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Rifles, Reloading, Optics, Equipment
Long Range Scopes and Other Optics
Razor HD 4000 GB Review
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<blockquote data-quote="catorres1" data-source="post: 3001588" data-attributes="member: 80699"><p><strong>Ranging</strong></p><p></p><p>The ranging on the Fury AB was pretty good, but to be honest, the Razor CRF, at least the unit I had, is clearly stronger, which, considering the much smaller receptor diameter, surprised me. The sensor is basically a horizontal oval with a divergence measurement of 1.5mrad wide and .1mrad tall. So like the sensors on most of the better CRF's on the market, it is wider than it is tall, which improves the accuracy of ranges by limiting the accidental overshoots and undershoots that are more prevalent with round sensors. Of all my RF's, the Kilo 10k I had for testing was the strongest RF I have ever used. Behind it has been my 8k. Pretty much equal to it has been this new Razor. I say pretty much because there were times when I could range with the 8k, but the Razor would not lock, and vice versa. But overall, they were pretty much neck and neck. However, I did not have the Razor for very long so I did not have it during my hunting trips this year. In contrast, Sig generally gets me stuff in time to use it during season so I get to try it out in Colorado, for instance. Unfortunately, I was not able to do that with the Razor. That's unfortunate because I find that the distances I have access to up there are much farther and the air is much clearer than near sea level where I live, plus I have access to more realistic long-range targets up there too, whereas at home here, sometimes all I have at very long range are buildings or low hills etc. All that is to say, at near sea level with the test distances and targets I generally have access to, they were about equal, but I cannot comment on how the Razor would do up in the mountains. That said, I believe it is likely the 8k's equal there too. It's hard to say without real life testing, but they were so close at lower elevations that I suspect they would hang together in the mountains as well. Regardless, the numbers the Razor put up on my home range were impressive and I am pretty confident that it would continue to be a hammer in the mountains as well.</p><p></p><p>Overall, I had no problem getting past 2000 yards on cedar covered hillsides. When testing the ballistic returns, I was pinging off a hillside 2400 yards distant more than an hour before sunset under full sun, and the Razor did not disappoint. Earlier that day, I hit over 3600 yards on distant buildings, in this case, at the height of the sun on a very hot, cloudless day. On both of those occasions, I had the 8k with me as well, and they were matched neck and neck, so again, I was really impressed with the Razor I had, and I would have liked to have seen how it did next to the 8k up in the mountains in Colorado and out in West Texas. Either way, these are strong numbers for any CRF and I was satisfied with the Razor's performance in this regard.</p><p></p><div style="text-align: center"><a href="https://postimg.cc/tnNZk2ND" target="_blank"><img src="https://i.postimg.cc/wMSX6ryK/IMG_20230507_171951269.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></a></div> <div style="text-align: center"></div> <div style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 12px">The Razor includes a standard mounting point built in to the bottom of the rangefinder, allowing direct mounting to a tripod for extended distance ranging</span></div> <div style="text-align: center"></div> <div style="text-align: center"></div><p></p><p><strong>Mapping Integration</strong></p><p></p><p>Like Sig and Leica, Vortex now enables a connection via Basemap allowing the CRF to range a point and then have that point plotted directly in Basemap. There is some variability in the accuracy of this, however. I tested the Sig CRF's I have and they were pretty close at some locations and not so close at others. When testing the Razor and the 8k at the same time and place, they both exhibited the same amount of error, both shifted in the same direction. When talking to Vortex about this, they suggested it may have to do with how the data is transposed onto the maps themselves, all of which, they tell me, apparently come from the same source and which can suffer some amount of variability in terms of parallax and other issues. I think it may be something with Basemap, as both manufacturers I have tested have shown the same level of error, and oddly, in the same direction, but really, I don't know. Hopefully, they are eventually able to improve the consistency, as this tool would be great, not just for navigation (which, it's fine for now), but also for finding downed animals (pretty fine for that too) and for ensuring game's position vis a vis public/private boundary lines. For now, I am not confident in the feature for this use, whether using a Sig or a Vortex, because the longer I have tested out the feature, the more inconsistency I have noted. Sometimes the pin seems to drop very close to true, other times not so much. And that's just not good enough when trying to make sure the elk you are about to shoot across a canyon isn't across an invisible private boundary line. It needs to be spot on, and in my experience, it does not have that level of consistency just yet.</p><p></p><p><strong>Kestrel connection</strong></p><p></p><p>Before we get into wind and environmentals, we should first cover how the Kestrel connection differs from the Fury AB and, indeed, from that of Sig and Leica's connectivity. With the others, they all connect directly to a Kestrel, sending distance, angle, and (sometimes) direction of fire information to the Kestrel. The Kestrel then takes this information and data from its own onboard environmental sensors and feeds it into its AB solver. At that point, the solution is displayed both on the Kestrel and in the display of the rangefinder. The Razor does not operate in this way. When I first got it, I thought it might be like the Fury, which lets you have the option of a solution displayed using the Fury's onboard sensors and onboard AB, while the Kestrel displays it's own (or you can have the Kestrel's show up in the Fury display instead if you like). So I thought I'd have an easy way to test AB verses GB because the Razor would show the GB result and the Kestrel the AB result. In reality, the Razor does not interact with anything 'AB' at all. It does not actually have a direct connection to a Kestrel, ie CRF to Kestrel. The way it works is that both the Razor and the Kestrel have to be connected to the app. In addition, only environmental data from the Kestrel is utilized. The Razor does not send its data to the Kestrel for AB to crunch, and neither the Razor, nor the app, can receive an AB solution from the Kestrel. Only environmental data is received from the Kestrel, and that goes via the app to the Razor. So to sum, the Razor cannot talk directly to the Kestrel, and the Kestrel cannot talk directly to the Razor. The app is the conduit, and it only pulls enviros from the Kestrel and feeds it back to the Razor, nothing more. Basically, the Kestrel is simply an alternate source of environmental data, it cannot be utilized as a ballistic solver for the Razor.</p><p></p><p>All things considered, this makes some sense, especially when you look at the cost of the Razor. AB is not an inexpensive feature to add. Vortex clearly has the capability of utilizing AB and connecting to AB devices (as the Fury AB does), but my guess is that they were looking for a way to provide a ballistic solution without having to go the more costly AB route. That's just my guess. But to do that, not only would they have to not license AB on the device itself, but likely have to eschew utilizing the code needed to access AB on a Kestrel. Hence the truncated connection with AB enabled Kestrels.</p><p></p><p>Whether this is a deal-breaker is up to the user, but I found that as long as the onboard solver (whether it's AB or GB) works, I find myself using the Kestrel less and less. There are times when its superior temperature system and extra parameters come in handy, and I use it then, and of course, it's great for wind at your position etc. But when I do, I generally use it with manual entry anyway these days. So while a full featured connection is a 'nice to have', I did not find myself limited by the lack of it in any way, and I imagine the lack of that connection contributes to the lower than expected (to me) price point on the Razor.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="catorres1, post: 3001588, member: 80699"] [B]Ranging[/B] The ranging on the Fury AB was pretty good, but to be honest, the Razor CRF, at least the unit I had, is clearly stronger, which, considering the much smaller receptor diameter, surprised me. The sensor is basically a horizontal oval with a divergence measurement of 1.5mrad wide and .1mrad tall. So like the sensors on most of the better CRF's on the market, it is wider than it is tall, which improves the accuracy of ranges by limiting the accidental overshoots and undershoots that are more prevalent with round sensors. Of all my RF's, the Kilo 10k I had for testing was the strongest RF I have ever used. Behind it has been my 8k. Pretty much equal to it has been this new Razor. I say pretty much because there were times when I could range with the 8k, but the Razor would not lock, and vice versa. But overall, they were pretty much neck and neck. However, I did not have the Razor for very long so I did not have it during my hunting trips this year. In contrast, Sig generally gets me stuff in time to use it during season so I get to try it out in Colorado, for instance. Unfortunately, I was not able to do that with the Razor. That's unfortunate because I find that the distances I have access to up there are much farther and the air is much clearer than near sea level where I live, plus I have access to more realistic long-range targets up there too, whereas at home here, sometimes all I have at very long range are buildings or low hills etc. All that is to say, at near sea level with the test distances and targets I generally have access to, they were about equal, but I cannot comment on how the Razor would do up in the mountains. That said, I believe it is likely the 8k's equal there too. It's hard to say without real life testing, but they were so close at lower elevations that I suspect they would hang together in the mountains as well. Regardless, the numbers the Razor put up on my home range were impressive and I am pretty confident that it would continue to be a hammer in the mountains as well. Overall, I had no problem getting past 2000 yards on cedar covered hillsides. When testing the ballistic returns, I was pinging off a hillside 2400 yards distant more than an hour before sunset under full sun, and the Razor did not disappoint. Earlier that day, I hit over 3600 yards on distant buildings, in this case, at the height of the sun on a very hot, cloudless day. On both of those occasions, I had the 8k with me as well, and they were matched neck and neck, so again, I was really impressed with the Razor I had, and I would have liked to have seen how it did next to the 8k up in the mountains in Colorado and out in West Texas. Either way, these are strong numbers for any CRF and I was satisfied with the Razor's performance in this regard. [CENTER][URL='https://postimg.cc/tnNZk2ND'][IMG]https://i.postimg.cc/wMSX6ryK/IMG_20230507_171951269.jpg[/IMG][/URL] [SIZE=3]The Razor includes a standard mounting point built in to the bottom of the rangefinder, allowing direct mounting to a tripod for extended distance ranging[/SIZE] [/CENTER] [B]Mapping Integration[/B] Like Sig and Leica, Vortex now enables a connection via Basemap allowing the CRF to range a point and then have that point plotted directly in Basemap. There is some variability in the accuracy of this, however. I tested the Sig CRF's I have and they were pretty close at some locations and not so close at others. When testing the Razor and the 8k at the same time and place, they both exhibited the same amount of error, both shifted in the same direction. When talking to Vortex about this, they suggested it may have to do with how the data is transposed onto the maps themselves, all of which, they tell me, apparently come from the same source and which can suffer some amount of variability in terms of parallax and other issues. I think it may be something with Basemap, as both manufacturers I have tested have shown the same level of error, and oddly, in the same direction, but really, I don't know. Hopefully, they are eventually able to improve the consistency, as this tool would be great, not just for navigation (which, it's fine for now), but also for finding downed animals (pretty fine for that too) and for ensuring game's position vis a vis public/private boundary lines. For now, I am not confident in the feature for this use, whether using a Sig or a Vortex, because the longer I have tested out the feature, the more inconsistency I have noted. Sometimes the pin seems to drop very close to true, other times not so much. And that's just not good enough when trying to make sure the elk you are about to shoot across a canyon isn't across an invisible private boundary line. It needs to be spot on, and in my experience, it does not have that level of consistency just yet. [B]Kestrel connection[/B] Before we get into wind and environmentals, we should first cover how the Kestrel connection differs from the Fury AB and, indeed, from that of Sig and Leica's connectivity. With the others, they all connect directly to a Kestrel, sending distance, angle, and (sometimes) direction of fire information to the Kestrel. The Kestrel then takes this information and data from its own onboard environmental sensors and feeds it into its AB solver. At that point, the solution is displayed both on the Kestrel and in the display of the rangefinder. The Razor does not operate in this way. When I first got it, I thought it might be like the Fury, which lets you have the option of a solution displayed using the Fury's onboard sensors and onboard AB, while the Kestrel displays it's own (or you can have the Kestrel's show up in the Fury display instead if you like). So I thought I'd have an easy way to test AB verses GB because the Razor would show the GB result and the Kestrel the AB result. In reality, the Razor does not interact with anything 'AB' at all. It does not actually have a direct connection to a Kestrel, ie CRF to Kestrel. The way it works is that both the Razor and the Kestrel have to be connected to the app. In addition, only environmental data from the Kestrel is utilized. The Razor does not send its data to the Kestrel for AB to crunch, and neither the Razor, nor the app, can receive an AB solution from the Kestrel. Only environmental data is received from the Kestrel, and that goes via the app to the Razor. So to sum, the Razor cannot talk directly to the Kestrel, and the Kestrel cannot talk directly to the Razor. The app is the conduit, and it only pulls enviros from the Kestrel and feeds it back to the Razor, nothing more. Basically, the Kestrel is simply an alternate source of environmental data, it cannot be utilized as a ballistic solver for the Razor. All things considered, this makes some sense, especially when you look at the cost of the Razor. AB is not an inexpensive feature to add. Vortex clearly has the capability of utilizing AB and connecting to AB devices (as the Fury AB does), but my guess is that they were looking for a way to provide a ballistic solution without having to go the more costly AB route. That's just my guess. But to do that, not only would they have to not license AB on the device itself, but likely have to eschew utilizing the code needed to access AB on a Kestrel. Hence the truncated connection with AB enabled Kestrels. Whether this is a deal-breaker is up to the user, but I found that as long as the onboard solver (whether it's AB or GB) works, I find myself using the Kestrel less and less. There are times when its superior temperature system and extra parameters come in handy, and I use it then, and of course, it's great for wind at your position etc. But when I do, I generally use it with manual entry anyway these days. So while a full featured connection is a 'nice to have', I did not find myself limited by the lack of it in any way, and I imagine the lack of that connection contributes to the lower than expected (to me) price point on the Razor. [/QUOTE]
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