Sorry! Wife has had me running around the house with a tool kit and a list all day!
heres the first half with iphone pics
VORTEX RAZOR LHT 3-15X50
For the purposes of this review, comparisons of features and glass clarity at a known distance(235 yards) will be against the Leupold vx5hd 3-15x56 rifle scope.
When I decided to do this, I was asked to be pragmatic and not show my loyalty to either brand. In the nature of full disclosure, my precision rifles wear Gen 2 Razors as well as SB PM2, Minox ZP5 and NF. My hunting rifles are mostly Leupold. Since the razor is billed as a crossover scope, the second focal plane determined its competitor. The VX5HD was selected due to its feature similarity and price point.
I will start with the obvious.
Upon opening the box, I was underwhelmed given Vortex's history of over building and over packaging their razor line. Gone are the days of fully die cut, foam inserts. Industry standard white foam ocular bell and eye piece supports hold the scope in place against two solid stabilizing cut outs. Not a big deal at all, I have just become more accustom to the luxurious presentation of old.
The fit and finish is typical Vortex. Even coating on the one piece 30mm main tube, perfect in every way. I'm sure within a day or so after using it I will be able to report on its durability, I drop things. The lettering from stem to stern is readable and well applied. No surprise there.
Some hunters may find it a little more on the shiny side, but it's all personal preference and in my opinion, not enough to bust a hunt.
After the initial smiles and views of my garage wall wore off, I placed my Talley Mfg. Tactical rings in a level fixture I've made on my workbench. After checking the fixture for level and making a slight adjustment, I hand tightened the ring bases onto the fixture and laid my new Vortex scope in. No need to lap these rings. They are matched and serialized to their caps. Knowing my eye relief, it was easy for me to place the rings at the perfect distance apart. Once I had the base and scope level with one another, I tightened them down and placed the scope on another fixture I have mounted to a tripod. I have found that before I mount an optic to a rifle, I can get a better idea of the optical clarity etc standing and adjusting my relief as I go. It's also far less intimidating than a rifle since I have neighbors. Imagine a surveyor.
I have a known set of distances on my street that allow me 50, 100, 200 and 235 yard references. I feel that these are more than adequate for initial impressions.
The first thing I like to play with on a new scope is the diopter. I fully believe that without the correct setting to the shooters eye, the rest means nothing. I unscrewed, yes unscrewed, the diopter locking ring and began to twist. Only took a few seconds before it was clear and the reticle in focus.
The reticle. There has been a bit of grumbling about it. The LHT 3-15X50 offers a milradian reticle with the G4i BDC reticle. Imagine a German 4 reticle with subtensions. I personally love this reticle. I'm also a huge fan of the German 4. There are other reticle offered, but in this objective size, this is it for now. The 42mm objective model has a reticle that is more reminiscent of the Nightforce MOAR for reference. The Vortex LHT has an illuminated center dot. As a hunter who relies on dawn and dusk movement, it's a nice feature. Most of my hunters have illuminated rets and I prefer a simple dot. A dot draws the eye to the center and with the correct illumination setting, does not overpower the image. There is a line where too much illumination is a bad thing. Where that setting is depends on the end user.
The mag ring. The Vortex has a slightly stiff, but smooth mag ring that glides through 3-15 power. I fully expect this ring to get easier to turn as it is used. I plan on hunting this scope on a carbon rifle, so a stiffer ring could lead to my rifle shifting more than I like it to in the field. All in all, I have come to expect Vortex to challenge the end user on the mag ring in the Razor line. No surprises here, but a throw ring would be a good idea, especially in gloves.
Now I feel that the turrets are going to be a point of contention with most shooters. The top turret is where the T in LHT comes into play. I am a set and forget hunter. My max distances rarely go north of 300 yards so I am no stranger of a holdover. For shooters who need to dial their shots, this turret is fantastic for the price range. Pop up locking turret, tactile clicks, audible enough for a hunter and from what I can tell so far from a tripod test at 100yards, repeatable. A box test will be done when I can get range time. All in all, the elevation turret is a home run. So with good, we must have the bad. For this scope, it is the windage turret. Small, mushy and antiquated are three adjectives that come to mind. This is where the underwhelming side of the features comes in. The industry standard for reset has become a pop style turret. I prefer them. Toolless adjustments are a must for me, zero stop setting excluded. Simply less parts to lose. I'm going to say they could have done better, especially considering the amount of play between clicks on the windage.
The final impression before comparing the LHT to what I feel is it's closest competitor is image quality. Here, we have a stumble before the stride. The following will be describing image color, contrast, clarity and depth of field above 8x. Below 8x will be discussed at the end of this portion.
Image color is rich. A little more on the cool side of the spectrum, but as a woods hunter, I prefer that. Greens are true, blacks are dense and the red of a stop sign was striking. All in all, color is a home run above 8x.
Contrast at 8x and above is stellar. No difficulty distinguishing anything at 235 yards. Every leaf stood away from its neighbor. Great color separation and little to no chromatic aberration like we see in the Vipers.
The clarity from 8x to 15x with a slight mirage was fantastic for a sub $1500 scope. I wouldn't expect it to best a Schmidt unt Bender Zenith, but that's in another league all together. The average end user will not see an issue with higher magnification performance from this scope.
The depth of field is impressive. Very little flattening of image at distance. In my opinion, the depth of field in this scope above 8x is some of the better performance I have seen in this price point.
As I stated earlier, all of my observations were based on 8x and above. I will refrain from any more criticism until I do the side by side with the Leupold VX5HS 3-15x56, in my opinion it's closest competitor.
Included are four photos from my phone. My final review will include photos take. From a fix positioned digital camera.
Pay attention to the low power photos. The Leupold is the duplex reticle, the Vortex has the G4iBDC.
THANKS FOR READING MY RAW REVIEW! When the full review is ready, I will post it in its entirety.
Jason
heres the first half with iphone pics
VORTEX RAZOR LHT 3-15X50
For the purposes of this review, comparisons of features and glass clarity at a known distance(235 yards) will be against the Leupold vx5hd 3-15x56 rifle scope.
When I decided to do this, I was asked to be pragmatic and not show my loyalty to either brand. In the nature of full disclosure, my precision rifles wear Gen 2 Razors as well as SB PM2, Minox ZP5 and NF. My hunting rifles are mostly Leupold. Since the razor is billed as a crossover scope, the second focal plane determined its competitor. The VX5HD was selected due to its feature similarity and price point.
I will start with the obvious.
Upon opening the box, I was underwhelmed given Vortex's history of over building and over packaging their razor line. Gone are the days of fully die cut, foam inserts. Industry standard white foam ocular bell and eye piece supports hold the scope in place against two solid stabilizing cut outs. Not a big deal at all, I have just become more accustom to the luxurious presentation of old.
The fit and finish is typical Vortex. Even coating on the one piece 30mm main tube, perfect in every way. I'm sure within a day or so after using it I will be able to report on its durability, I drop things. The lettering from stem to stern is readable and well applied. No surprise there.
Some hunters may find it a little more on the shiny side, but it's all personal preference and in my opinion, not enough to bust a hunt.
After the initial smiles and views of my garage wall wore off, I placed my Talley Mfg. Tactical rings in a level fixture I've made on my workbench. After checking the fixture for level and making a slight adjustment, I hand tightened the ring bases onto the fixture and laid my new Vortex scope in. No need to lap these rings. They are matched and serialized to their caps. Knowing my eye relief, it was easy for me to place the rings at the perfect distance apart. Once I had the base and scope level with one another, I tightened them down and placed the scope on another fixture I have mounted to a tripod. I have found that before I mount an optic to a rifle, I can get a better idea of the optical clarity etc standing and adjusting my relief as I go. It's also far less intimidating than a rifle since I have neighbors. Imagine a surveyor.
I have a known set of distances on my street that allow me 50, 100, 200 and 235 yard references. I feel that these are more than adequate for initial impressions.
The first thing I like to play with on a new scope is the diopter. I fully believe that without the correct setting to the shooters eye, the rest means nothing. I unscrewed, yes unscrewed, the diopter locking ring and began to twist. Only took a few seconds before it was clear and the reticle in focus.
The reticle. There has been a bit of grumbling about it. The LHT 3-15X50 offers a milradian reticle with the G4i BDC reticle. Imagine a German 4 reticle with subtensions. I personally love this reticle. I'm also a huge fan of the German 4. There are other reticle offered, but in this objective size, this is it for now. The 42mm objective model has a reticle that is more reminiscent of the Nightforce MOAR for reference. The Vortex LHT has an illuminated center dot. As a hunter who relies on dawn and dusk movement, it's a nice feature. Most of my hunters have illuminated rets and I prefer a simple dot. A dot draws the eye to the center and with the correct illumination setting, does not overpower the image. There is a line where too much illumination is a bad thing. Where that setting is depends on the end user.
The mag ring. The Vortex has a slightly stiff, but smooth mag ring that glides through 3-15 power. I fully expect this ring to get easier to turn as it is used. I plan on hunting this scope on a carbon rifle, so a stiffer ring could lead to my rifle shifting more than I like it to in the field. All in all, I have come to expect Vortex to challenge the end user on the mag ring in the Razor line. No surprises here, but a throw ring would be a good idea, especially in gloves.
Now I feel that the turrets are going to be a point of contention with most shooters. The top turret is where the T in LHT comes into play. I am a set and forget hunter. My max distances rarely go north of 300 yards so I am no stranger of a holdover. For shooters who need to dial their shots, this turret is fantastic for the price range. Pop up locking turret, tactile clicks, audible enough for a hunter and from what I can tell so far from a tripod test at 100yards, repeatable. A box test will be done when I can get range time. All in all, the elevation turret is a home run. So with good, we must have the bad. For this scope, it is the windage turret. Small, mushy and antiquated are three adjectives that come to mind. This is where the underwhelming side of the features comes in. The industry standard for reset has become a pop style turret. I prefer them. Toolless adjustments are a must for me, zero stop setting excluded. Simply less parts to lose. I'm going to say they could have done better, especially considering the amount of play between clicks on the windage.
The final impression before comparing the LHT to what I feel is it's closest competitor is image quality. Here, we have a stumble before the stride. The following will be describing image color, contrast, clarity and depth of field above 8x. Below 8x will be discussed at the end of this portion.
Image color is rich. A little more on the cool side of the spectrum, but as a woods hunter, I prefer that. Greens are true, blacks are dense and the red of a stop sign was striking. All in all, color is a home run above 8x.
Contrast at 8x and above is stellar. No difficulty distinguishing anything at 235 yards. Every leaf stood away from its neighbor. Great color separation and little to no chromatic aberration like we see in the Vipers.
The clarity from 8x to 15x with a slight mirage was fantastic for a sub $1500 scope. I wouldn't expect it to best a Schmidt unt Bender Zenith, but that's in another league all together. The average end user will not see an issue with higher magnification performance from this scope.
The depth of field is impressive. Very little flattening of image at distance. In my opinion, the depth of field in this scope above 8x is some of the better performance I have seen in this price point.
As I stated earlier, all of my observations were based on 8x and above. I will refrain from any more criticism until I do the side by side with the Leupold VX5HS 3-15x56, in my opinion it's closest competitor.
Included are four photos from my phone. My final review will include photos take. From a fix positioned digital camera.
Pay attention to the low power photos. The Leupold is the duplex reticle, the Vortex has the G4iBDC.
THANKS FOR READING MY RAW REVIEW! When the full review is ready, I will post it in its entirety.
Jason
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