what I find truely impressive is how vortex has marketed themselves. they went from nothing to being sold everywhere. keep in mind, I know I keep saying this but vortex doesn't actually make anything, they just label products generally built in asia with their name. some of these are probably built to their spec others might be existing product that their name is thrown on. while this isn't always a bad thing. it just means vortex has less control over the final product than alot of other companies. many optics companies do the same as vortex does to some or all of their line. I would be really weary of spending more than a few hundred on any of their products, reason being is they tend to blow out price the old models quite often. a buddy of my bought a vortex skyline spotter, without asking me, as I would have told him to get the leupold kenai, in any event he paid over $700 for that spotter, last I looked doug was blowing them out for $449. he has owned the spotter for less than a year and its worth half what he paid for it. contrast that to a leupold gold ring spotter that I owned for 6 years and sold it for MORE than I paid for it.
if your going to be spending more than $1000, I would buy, leica, swaro, ziess, or leupold, I just can't lay out that kind of coin for a product that is going to be blowout priced 6 mos later or has no established resale value. I horse trade in and out of optics all the time, I need retained value.