Rifle Scopes Comparison between Gen 3 Razor and XTR Pro
- Thread starter tlsmith22
- Start date
I have..
We had a 27x ZCO, a Gen III Razor, a MK5, a Cronus BTR, and an XTR PRO all side by side at the range with buddies this past Saturday.
We had a 27x ZCO, a Gen III Razor, a MK5, a Cronus BTR, and an XTR PRO all side by side at the range with buddies this past Saturday.
I wish. Never got the Pro's. By the time Hewbrew Hammer got his, I already bought 2 G3's and a LHT, after having tried an XRS3 and a TT. I responded to a couple of WTB ads from people looking for old XTR3's with SCR2, thinking I'd sell one and try the Pro, but the highest offer I got was 1100, after having paid 1700 for the newest one in Oct and only used it twice. So, 600 loss and another 800 in price difference for the Pro... would cost me 1400 to upgrade from XTR3 to XTR Pro - still love the old XTR3's, so I'll keep them for now.
I believe @koshkin may have both but his in depth reviews can be a while. Burris has my 5.5-30 XTR III right now on warranty, if they can’t clean up the mag ring resistance I may swap it for a Pro.
And then..........??
ZCO #1
RAZOR #2
PRO#3
Mark 5 and Cronus......in the far distance?
Just an educated guess, on my part....as I haven't seen a ZCO or a Burris pro
My mag ring is smooth as butter
Hope they get you fixed up.
Finally seen the light......these Burris XTR 3 camera land specials are costing me money.
I'm stocking up.....nothing better in the field. I've seen them all
That's actually super close
So we had 5 guys and here's how we compared them. We slid the benches together, lined them up, everyone put their rear bag under their stock, and for the most part we looked at impacts on a 1000 yard plate. We did look at a couple other things later, but mostly the plate. We all adjusted diopters on each scope for ourselves. The area of focus ended up being an impact in the orange waterline painted on a white plate. The black starburst impact ended up knocking off a bit of orange paint and showing a tiny little bit of white paint under the orange. You really had to get the scope dialed in to see it.
The ZCO was better, obviously. The plate was a brighter white than what you saw through any other optic. It displayed the best brightness and clarity of all the scopes compared. Color was a hair more washed out than the Razor/Pro/Cronus. As a group we agreed there was no real drawback or weakness to this optic, except the price
..MAP is $4000Of the 5 guys in the comparison, two of us thought the Razor displayed a hair more clarity than the others. Three of us thought it was too close to call between the Pro and the Razor. Oddly enough, I felt the Razor was a little better, and the Razor owner thought it was too close to call. I thought the Razor cut the mirage just a little better and there was just a hint more definition in the bullet splashes. I really spent some time on the Razor getting the diopter and parallax set just right. And at the end that's what it looked like to me. As a group there didn't seem to be much love for the zero reset, and of the 5 scopes in our group, we disliked the Razor turrets the most. Which is a shame, because the Gen II turrets were fantastic. Not sure what happened here but they were mushy on this optic. Even the owner of this scope who liked it and was happy about his purchase felt that was his least favorite aspect. Overall though, this is a very nice upgrade to this scope. MAP on this scope is $3000
The Burris XTR Pro is very close to the Razor in clarity. Brightness and color are pretty lockstep. Both control CA very well and have good clarity. What I found most surprising is how close they actually are to the ZCO. There's not a large disparity there. The added brightness was noticeable in the ZCO, but clarity was surprisingly close. Mirage and target detail was very similar through these scopes. To say the Razor and Pro are 95% of the glass of the ZCO wouldn't be a stretch. The toolless zero on the Burris was pretty well liked, as was the turret swap, red/green illumination selection, and 3 reticle choices. There's good whistles and bells on the Pro. The only con we had, and I had to show them how to do it, is if you don't align the toolless zero hard up against the zero stop, you can get a slight misalignment in your marks. Other than that, the scope was pretty well-received. MAP is $2200
The MK5 and Cronus were unable to resolve the small white mark on the plate that you could see through the first three. The brightness on the MK5 was almost as good as the ZCO and the Cronus has very good color. But the both lagged behind the others in clarity and didn't really cut the mirage well enough to see the detail that the others did. These are older designs of course in comparison to the GIII and Pro. These are still great performing scopes, lots of Leupy shooters rack up wins with the MK5. And the Cronus has been on sale at ridiculously low prices. So the value is still there. They just lag behind a bit in an apples to apples comparison.
For the most part with only small differences, the group-think impressions of each of the optics were pretty much shared by everyone. Everyone sees things a little different, but in ranking them it was pretty simple. A few of us swapped the Razor/Pro around and few swapped the MK5/Cronus around. But the Cliff's Notes version is that they're all pretty nice optics for their price points.
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For practical perspective, street prices: Pro is X, G3 is X+500, ZCO is X+2000. I would have 6 Pro's right now if Burris had properly managed the rollout of the optic.
That's actually super close
So we had 5 guys and here's how we compared them. We slid the benches together, lined them up, everyone put their rear bag under their stock, and for the most part we looked at impacts on a 1000 yard plate. We did look at a couple other things later, but mostly the plate. We all adjusted diopters on each scope for ourselves. The area of focus ended up being an impact in the orange waterline painted on a white plate. The black starburst impact ended up knocking off a bit of orange paint and showing a tiny little bit of white paint under the orange. You really had to get the scope dialed in to see it.
The ZCO was better, obviously. The plate was a brighter white than what you saw through any other optic. It displayed the best brightness and clarity of all the scopes compared. Color was a hair more washed out than the Razor/Pro/Cronus. As a group we agreed there was no real drawback or weakness to this optic, except the price
Of the 5 guys in the comparison, two of us thought the Razor displayed a hair more clarity than the others. Three of us thought it was too close to call between the Pro and the Razor. Oddly enough, I felt the Razor was a little better, and the Razor owner thought it was too close to call. I thought the Razor cut the mirage just a little better and there was just a hint more definition in the bullet splashes. I really spent some time on the Razor getting the diopter and parallax set just right. And at the end that's what it looked like to me. As a group there didn't seem to be much love for the zero reset, and of the 5 scopes in our group, we disliked the Razor turrets the most. Which is a shame, because the Gen II turrets were fantastic. Not sure what happened here but they were mushy on this optic. Even the owner of this scope who liked it and was happy about his purchase felt that was his least favorite aspect. Overall though, this is a very nice upgrade to this scope. MAP on this scope is $3000
The Burris XTR Pro is very close to the Razor in clarity. Brightness and color are pretty lockstep. Both control CA very well and have good clarity. What I found most surprising is how close they actually are to the ZCO. There's not a large disparity there. The added brightness was noticeable in the ZCO, but clarity was surprisingly close. Mirage and target detail was very similar through these scopes. To say the Razor and Pro are 95% of the glass of the ZCO wouldn't be a stretch. The toolless zero on the Burris was pretty well liked, as was the turret swap, red/green illumination selection, and 3 reticle choices. There's good whistles and bells on the Pro. The only con we had, and I had to show them how to do it, is if you don't align the toolless zero hard up against the zero stop, you can get a slight misalignment in your marks. Other than that, the scope was pretty well-received. MAP is $2200
The MK5 and Cronus were unable to resolve the small white mark on the plate that you could see through the first three. The brightness on the MK5 was almost as good as the ZCO and the Cronus has very good color. But the both lagged behind the others in clarity and didn't really cut the mirage well enough to see the detail that the others did. These are older designs of course in comparison to the GIII and Pro. These are still great performing scopes, lots of Leupy shooters wrack up wins with the MK5. And the Cronus has been on sale at ridiculously low prices. So the value is still there. They just lag behind a bit in an apples to apples comparison.
For the most part with only small differences, the group-think impressions of each of the optics were pretty much shared by everyone. Everyone sees things a little different, but in ranking them it was pretty simple. A few of us swapped the Razor/Pro around and few swapped the MK5/Cronus around. But the Cliff's Notes version is that they're all pretty nice optics for their price points.
I have two Razor Gen 3's............I actually like a little softer turret click. Not a huge Fan of the Super sharp tight clicks of some others. Mine are not "mushy".....although, I know there is some sample variance out there. Compared directly to my Gen 2 razors, I actually like the Gen 3 turrets better. (on my examples).
Shooting at 12x-20x..................
The glass quality is negligible between Bushnell XRS3, Burris XTR3 and Gen 3 razors, in my opinion. Gen 3 razor is "better", but not in any way that actually matters.
Above 20x.............the Gen 3 Razor is phenominal at cutting mirage, much as you noticed. It truly is an exceptional rifle scope at street prices below $2500 new.
However, these damn Burris XTR3's do everything i need 90% of the time. I also forgot how much I really, really, like the SCR-Mil reticle. It's been a few years since I've shot with that reticle (Steiner P4xi 4-16).
I'm going all in with the Burris XTR3 on most of my rifles now. I don't need or want a busy Christmas tree reticle. Compared directly to the Bushnell XRS3.............The Bushnell has a little less CA, a little more "pure white". Other than that, the standard Burris SCR reticle is nicer to me, field of view is better, and optically they are nearly identical. I'm just super glad that Doug is blowing these out. I've got two more 5.5-30x56 SCR Mil and Two 3-18x50 SCR Mil from Cameraland on the way right now.
And I imagine by the end of next week, I'll have a few more on the way.(IF they still have any...........NOTHING comes close for the money)
^Agree, I really wanted to standardize across all rifles with the SCR2.
I would agree with that. And I do know some people like that turret feel. Turrets and reticles are very much about personal preference.
A lot of comparison was on 25x, or as close as we could get the scopes to similarly line up at 25x. The G3 Razor actually looked like it was on 27/28x compared to the other scopes when the mag ring indicated 25x. But thats a non issue to the user. We just backed it down a hair for comparison purposes. And I agree the Razor cut mirage very well. That's where I gave it the nod over the Pro.
We did some comparisons at 16x where several of us spend most of our time, but it definitely doesn't show the separation as well. So to a PRS shooter spending 90% of their time at less than 20x, you have to make that value decision of do you really need to spend alpha glass dollars.
The thing that I continue to discover since I first got my Pro back in December and have now had a chance to play with the new Razor, is that $2000 to $2500 optics are SERIOUSLY encroaching on the $3k to $4k optic performance levels. On the XTR Pro thread there are guys dishing off K Series Kahles and ATACRs and buying XTR Pros. I wont earn any points with the NF guys, but in several side by sides I've thought my Pro was neck and neck with the ATACR. Meaning to my mind, the Razor is even a hair better. Both for less money.
I run Tangents on my PRS rifles but I am wanting this for a Vudoo for PRS 22 matches. I still have 3 ATACR scopes on hunting rifles and also had a 7-35 ATACR and a ZCO. I think the ZCO is a fantastic optic and only gave the nod to the Tangent for the turrets and the JTAC reticle. I have played around with the Gen 3 Razor and I too agree it is a very nice optic for the money, just not crazy about the turrets. The Pro has my eye because I always liked the XTR3 and the Pro seems to be getting even better reviews. I am almost 100% certain I am going with the PRO if I can find one or am able to get one within the next few weeks. I can update people on my thoughts when I have one on my rifle to check it out for myself.
I was not at Shot Show so I didn't get to see the PRO in person but others from CS Tactical did and was impressed with what they saw on the show floor. We just might consider carrying Burris again if the sample variation and QC is consistent on these models. As we posted just before the XTR III launch, we had a production sample that was not very good optically. We asked our Rep at the time if it was a defective model and he said it was not. On the hide I've seen positive reports on the XTR III overall so I assume that ours was a dud, I've spoken with customers since they were released and received a mix bag of reviews. We will get our hands on a production sample of the Pro and see how it stacks up against the current rivals 
It would be nice to see you guys give the Pro a chance. Burris has really upped their game these past few years. The XTRIII was their first step into a market they had never participated in before. It's been a very successful optic for them.I was not at Shot Show so I didn't get to see the PRO in person but others from CS Tactical did and was impressed with what they saw on the show floor. We just might consider carrying Burris again if the sample variation and QC is consistent on these models. As we posted just before the XTR III launch, we had a production sample that was not very good optically. We asked our Rep at the time if it was a defective model and he said it was not. On the hide I've seen positive reports on the XTR III overall so I assume that ours was a dud, I've spoken with customers since they were released and received a mix bag of reviews. We will get our hands on a production sample of the Pro and see how it stacks up against the current rivals
Now they've taken everything they learned while producing the XTRIII in house for the past 3 years to make the Pro. It has great features and very nice glass, at a very competitive price. It's going to do well.
Tell Dan to come shoot the match in Grand Junction in a couple weeks. He can look through mine
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It would be nice to see you guys give the Pro a chance. Burris has really upped their game these past few years. The XTRIII was their first step into a market they had never participated in before. It's been a very successful optic for them.
Now they've taken everything they learned while producing the XTRIII in house for the past 3 years to make the Pro. It has great features and very nice glass, at a very competitive price. It's going to do well.
Tell Dan to come shoot the match in Grand Junction in a couple weeks. He can look through mine
I think he might be at that match depending on his shoulder
Was the lack of consistency of the XTR III dependent on where it was being manufactured and is this addressed for that model now?
They have moved the new generation of illuminated XTR III overseas for production and then inspected here. The XTR Pro is manufactured here in their Greeley, Co facility.I think he might be at that match depending on his shoulder
Yeh, that's a tough one for me to talk to. It seems my experiences are a little different than yours.I think he might be at that match depending on his shoulder
The XTRIII I've been following the past 3 years has been pretty solid. What I know about the optic is there were some inconsistencies in the first runs. These were a brand new optic designed from the ground up in Greeley, being produced in a brand new production facility in Greeley. So there were some early issues.
After that, they really nipped it in the bud quickly. And following this optic avidly on multiple forums and in all the shooting circles I can honestly say the very large majority of XTRIII owners are pretty happy. This scope has only been produced in Greeley Colorado. No other facilities. The XTR3i has moved production to the Phillipines and the XTR Pro is now being produced in Greeley.
It hasn't been perfect. No scope is. I've seen a few posts here on the Hide where fellas got some CA in theirs, but those posts or issues have need extremely low in comparison to sales numbers. There was an 18 month period there where you couldn't hardly get the XTRIII. They were selling as fast as Burris could make them. And rate of return to customer service is very low on this optic.
I suspect you saw one of the early releases or maybe got some feedback there. It's impossible to judge another person's equipment experiences. But I know in regularly talking to the manufacturer and pretty much everyone I meet who has one, not to mention the multitude of people here on the Hide who have made positive posts, the scope has been a solid performer.
I really think the Pro is going to be even better.
Can you comment on the quality of the new XTR iii illuminated from Philippines vs the original US made ones? I own the 5.5-30 US made one but I am looking to pick up a 3.3-18 for a hunting rifle and debating the illuminated one vs used US made.
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