Would someone please explain the difference between the $2500 Nighrforce AtacR 5-25 x 56 and the $450 Vortex Venom which is also 5-25 x 56
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Cheap vs Expensive Scope
- Thread starter Ed Compton
- Start date
Quality of internal components and glass. Chinese versus Jap/US labor and engineering.
Glass, internals, durability, repeatability and precision. The only similarity is they're both 5-25x56. It ends there.
The low-end ones can cause a lot of eye fatigue after uses. I would avoid them.
field of view, eye box, light transmission, clarity of image, chromatic aberration, repeatability / usability (ease of use reindexing turrets) parallax range etc.
define a role and rifle it's going on. go from there.
define a role and rifle it's going on. go from there.
Where are you seeing that new price? Or are you talking about used?
Just take a look (outside) with a cheap vs expensive scope. You’ll immediately see the difference. Since it appears you’re new at this game I’ll keep it simple: cheaper scopes often look more hazy or “milky” and more expensive scopes tend to track better and have better feeling turrets, often with more features (locking, easy zero, etc).
Regardless, if comparing scopes you need to know how to set up the diopter for each scope, or unless you get lucky the image will be
.I had two out yesterday the $450 Venom and a $2500 Razor.
The expensive one has clearer glass to the edge...better turrent feel etc. And weighs a ton, it's very heavy.
But for normal shooting, especially at 100 yd group shooting the cheap one will work just as well as the expensive one, and sometimes produce smaller groups.
Infact the Venom works so well I purchased another, for general use.
Buy the Venom run the piss out of it...if it fails... send it in for repair, or replacement.
They have a great warranty.
I have a couple of heavy expensive ones to go with LR rifles. They tend to give more confidence, but the cheap ones get the job done all the time, too, for the majority of common shooters.
The expensive one has clearer glass to the edge...better turrent feel etc. And weighs a ton, it's very heavy.
But for normal shooting, especially at 100 yd group shooting the cheap one will work just as well as the expensive one, and sometimes produce smaller groups.
Infact the Venom works so well I purchased another, for general use.
Buy the Venom run the piss out of it...if it fails... send it in for repair, or replacement.
They have a great warranty.
I have a couple of heavy expensive ones to go with LR rifles. They tend to give more confidence, but the cheap ones get the job done all the time, too, for the majority of common shooters.
I have had good luck with some cheaper scopes. The athlon Midas tac for example was much better than I was expecting, had a PST gen 1 that worked good enough, and I won an Arken and it works as well.
I currently run 3 Burris xtr pros and have run Kahles before that and have looked through and shot with all the major scopes during matches.
In my limited experience with cheaper optics, all have tracked good for me.
The improvements I notice In the higher quality optics are as follow.
Edge to edge clarity
Resolution
Brightness and clarity
Turret feel (this is a feel not a performance thing in my book, the cheaper ones mushier turrets never caused issue for me)
Confidence that the optic wasn’t going to give me issues ( again, haven’t had an issue with the few cheaper ones but still)
Some features such as tool less turrets, race dials etc.
I currently run 3 Burris xtr pros and have run Kahles before that and have looked through and shot with all the major scopes during matches.
In my limited experience with cheaper optics, all have tracked good for me.
The improvements I notice In the higher quality optics are as follow.
Edge to edge clarity
Resolution
Brightness and clarity
Turret feel (this is a feel not a performance thing in my book, the cheaper ones mushier turrets never caused issue for me)
Confidence that the optic wasn’t going to give me issues ( again, haven’t had an issue with the few cheaper ones but still)
Some features such as tool less turrets, race dials etc.
Also, as you go up in price, you’ll notice the law of diminishing returns kicks in hard around $1000, harder still after $2000, and it mashes it’s foot in your butt past $4000. My opinion, of course…quibble with the numbers as you must.
For me, anyway, as price increases:
$1 to $1000: obvious huge gains in optically quality, turret feel etc as you spend incrementally more.
$1000 to $2000: chromatic aberrations start going away, you notice other image qualities being refined with you spending minimal time looking through the scope. Reticle differences start to matter more.
$2000 to $4000: harder to discern differences in optical quality without significant immediate side-by-side time behind competing scopes. Differences may appear in challenging conditions like heavy mirage, low light, and backlight. The reticle design, turret design & feel, eyepiece style, and close focus distance become very important differentiators. In others words, preferences start mattering more and more.
+$4000: you’ve entered the rarified world where everything is really, really good. Minor differences become major decisions (in your head). Warranty support might make or break a decision. (Note: I’ve never looked through scopes in this price range. Opinion is based on reading on the Hide).
@Lowlight has stated in a video that you don't need to spend more than $2500 (new) to get a top end scope. You spend more for stuff you like or that your niche hobby/job conditions demand.
For me, anyway, as price increases:
$1 to $1000: obvious huge gains in optically quality, turret feel etc as you spend incrementally more.
$1000 to $2000: chromatic aberrations start going away, you notice other image qualities being refined with you spending minimal time looking through the scope. Reticle differences start to matter more.
$2000 to $4000: harder to discern differences in optical quality without significant immediate side-by-side time behind competing scopes. Differences may appear in challenging conditions like heavy mirage, low light, and backlight. The reticle design, turret design & feel, eyepiece style, and close focus distance become very important differentiators. In others words, preferences start mattering more and more.
+$4000: you’ve entered the rarified world where everything is really, really good. Minor differences become major decisions (in your head). Warranty support might make or break a decision. (Note: I’ve never looked through scopes in this price range. Opinion is based on reading on the Hide).
@Lowlight has stated in a video that you don't need to spend more than $2500 (new) to get a top end scope. You spend more for stuff you like or that your niche hobby/job conditions demand.
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For pure fuddery, nothing. For actual shooting, one is a proper tool with appropriate features and the other is an adjustable wrench you are trying to use as a screwdriver.
I rest my case.
A Chevette and a Ferrari both have four wheels and an engine. You just pay for the badge on the latter.
Most everything that is manufactured in China is on CNC machines. The government subsidizes industry, and manipulate currency to keep parts, and goods cheap plus lower wages, or slave labor, in some cases...Every major manufacturer takes advantage of that and use many of the same, small, made in China parts, on so called USA or Japanese goods... most all are infected with Chinese parts, throughout everything the world buys.
Example the cheaper Toyota car models have 80% of their parts made in China. So do Korean car models.The fewer, the made in China parts, on the vehicle, will more than doubles the cars price.
I almost had to go to China 17 yrs ago to set up CNC mills for our company, eliminating my CNC job, in the computer industry, by an American company. It didn't pencil out that time, because of costly Chinese government demands, and requirements, the initial investment was too high.
Today China can hold tight tolerences the same as anyone else equipped with CNC machines and robotics....if they desire to.
China has alot of cost cutting corners and policies for goods used by consumers, quantity not quality, to meet the demand prevails, when China is the world's manufacturer of goods.
Your newer Harley has Chinese parts too. Milwaukee Iron?
Example the cheaper Toyota car models have 80% of their parts made in China. So do Korean car models.The fewer, the made in China parts, on the vehicle, will more than doubles the cars price.
I almost had to go to China 17 yrs ago to set up CNC mills for our company, eliminating my CNC job, in the computer industry, by an American company. It didn't pencil out that time, because of costly Chinese government demands, and requirements, the initial investment was too high.
Today China can hold tight tolerences the same as anyone else equipped with CNC machines and robotics....if they desire to.
China has alot of cost cutting corners and policies for goods used by consumers, quantity not quality, to meet the demand prevails, when China is the world's manufacturer of goods.
Your newer Harley has Chinese parts too. Milwaukee Iron?
quality isn't the only reason people try to avoid chinese scopes
This has got to be one of the most fudd things I have read on the hide on at least a week... Think you will that trophy last time too... Gtfo with that bs line of thinking.
EO was selling "like new demos" of the ATACR 5-25 F1 MIL-XT for like 2 months and they never went out of stock. I'll let you draw the logical conclusion as to why that is. Could have something to do with the like-new demo Zeiss 6-36's they've been selling for $1800 for months now. But either way they do semi-often put some actual demos up for sale like the one below (except this one is MIL-C reticle). I bought one of the MIL-XT 5-25 ATACRs but ended up returning it and just getting another Razor G3.
Like New Nightforce ATACR 5-25x56 F1 ZS .1mrad Illum PTL Mil-C C579
FREE SHIPPING on Like New Nightforce ATACR 5-25x56 F1 ZS .1mrad Illum PTL Mil-C C579
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I agree with this. I find after about $2500 there is diminishing return on investment. I personally can't tell the difference in glass from a Athlon Cronus to a ZCO
Ahhh yes, the “open the box , shut the box, sell as demo” deal.EO was selling "like new demos" of the ATACR 5-25 F1 MIL-XT for like 2 months and they never went out of stock. I'll let you draw the logical conclusion as to why that is. Could have something to do with the like-new demo Zeiss 6-36's they've been selling for $1800 for months now. But either way they do semi-often put some actual demos up for sale like the one below (except this one is MIL-C reticle). I bought one of the MIL-XT 5-25 ATACRs but ended up returning it and just getting another Razor G3.
Like New Nightforce ATACR 5-25x56 F1 ZS .1mrad Illum PTL Mil-C C579
FREE SHIPPING on Like New Nightforce ATACR 5-25x56 F1 ZS .1mrad Illum PTL Mil-C C579www.eurooptic.com
All of the above. But the biggest issue is contrast And color. Lens Coatings are very proprietary, and the best of the high end scopes have the best coatings. For example, S&B matches its coatings to the color of the glass, so that each batch of scopes are all the same, color wise. Their coatings give clear, consistent, color and contrast. There are other fine scopes in their category, but all are top of the line expensive.
My son and I went on a Club varmint shoot on private land. We were shooting ground squirrels at 3-400 yards that other guys couldn’t even see, due to us having superior optics.
My son and I went on a Club varmint shoot on private land. We were shooting ground squirrels at 3-400 yards that other guys couldn’t even see, due to us having superior optics.
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Ahhh yes, let's not forget that wonderful Schmidt & Bender lens coating...
When you are looking through scopes at the store, and you keep swapping back and forth from S&B.....Zeiss.....S&B...
If China is able to cnc mill aluminum and grind/polish glass like Japan and Germany then why are all the top tier scopes made in Japan and Germany?
As a person that has owned vortex strike eagles and even an HST at some point I would say save your money and try to get at least a PST G2. The diminishing return thing is real but that starts at the very top. when it comes to optics buy once cry once is the law.
They’re not of course. China only sells knock offs. Even if a factory is “owned” by a reputable company, not Chinese the factory still only makes knockoffs of the original product.
Why then does the same also generally also apply to cnc machines. If you want good go for Japanese or from someplace that speaks German.
For nearly 40 years I was involved with being the US Rep for a Swiss machine manufacturer of equipment used to slice silicon into wafers for semiconductor and then later photovoltaic use. Around 2010 the Chinese starting ramping up production of solar cells and were buying the machines by the dozen. The swiss company even built a new production facility and hired dozens of people to keep up with the demand. Then they canceled the orders....there were probably a dozen or more machines at a million+ a pop in the process of being built. For a while they finished them in the hopes of selling to other customers. They ended up in the shipping crates and sitting in a field next to the factory for about a year, and then were scrapped. It nearly put the company under. As it turns out the Chinese Govt decided they had enough "samples" they could reverse engineer the machines. The Chinese don;t play fair and could give a rat's ass about patents or copyrights, or even contracts. They use you until they don't need you. I avoid Chinese products whenever I can. Unfortunately it's sometimes unavoidable.
Venom like is like looking through...
Honestly, once you start shooting with good glass you can't go back. You're completely spoiled in a single day of shooting.
It's like drinking Woodford or Makers Mark regularly and then trying to switch to 10 High. It just tastes bad, and you can't get over how bad it tastes even if you want to like it because it's $10 a fifth.
I use the cheap Venom and the Razor HD, side by side shooting, on the same day.
Yes there is a difference, but they both work for the intended purposes.
And why I purchased another Venom.
The heavy, expensive scope is not needed or desired on the light 18" 338 RCM AR 10.
Here, its a good test vehicle, with 25x on tap for checking accuracy of handloads, on the AR10.
And that works for me.
Yes there is a difference, but they both work for the intended purposes.
And why I purchased another Venom.
The heavy, expensive scope is not needed or desired on the light 18" 338 RCM AR 10.
Here, its a good test vehicle, with 25x on tap for checking accuracy of handloads, on the AR10.
And that works for me.
Attachments
Chinese scopes appear to be made better than Boeing planes.
Boeing is taking a few plays from the Chinese communist party play book... cutting corners, quality issues, leading to safety issues, all pushed by management, for larger profit...and whistle-blowers end up dead.
Boeing is taking a few plays from the Chinese communist party play book... cutting corners, quality issues, leading to safety issues, all pushed by management, for larger profit...and whistle-blowers end up dead.
I've owned everything from cheap Chinese early PA scopes( which sucked and failed) to a vortex viper gen 1 pst(broken right out of the gate, sent back to Amazon the next day) another vortex viper which was great, a NF NXS, gen 2 razor, tangent theta, a couple Lpvo, and maybe a few I've forgot.
I did get kind of unlucky with the first viper, but the glass was stunning for the price. blew away everything I had viewed through up to that point. then came the NF and it's glass was easily just as good as the vortex, maybe a hair better. other things about it were definitely nicer.
gem 2 razor is about the best value for a used scope I've come across. I think I gave 1400 for my g2 razor and it's fantastic.
I paid entirely too much for my TT. glass is noticeably better than the other high end glass I've played with but often not by much.
all in all, get a good cheap scope is my opinion, unless you're just rolling in cash, in which case I definitely recommend TT and ZCO. if money matters at all at least check out the gen 2 and gen 3 razors.
I did get kind of unlucky with the first viper, but the glass was stunning for the price. blew away everything I had viewed through up to that point. then came the NF and it's glass was easily just as good as the vortex, maybe a hair better. other things about it were definitely nicer.
gem 2 razor is about the best value for a used scope I've come across. I think I gave 1400 for my g2 razor and it's fantastic.
I paid entirely too much for my TT. glass is noticeably better than the other high end glass I've played with but often not by much.
all in all, get a good cheap scope is my opinion, unless you're just rolling in cash, in which case I definitely recommend TT and ZCO. if money matters at all at least check out the gen 2 and gen 3 razors.
One week he speaks as if he knows what actually happened on scene at a critical incident in Texas because some news channel said so. Another week he knows why a couple SEALs drown in the Arabian Sea because he "heard it from someone." Now he's an expert on Chinese Manufacturing.
Oh and he has pie plates he shot 35 years ago as proof why he knows more about ammunition manufacturing that......well.....ammunition manufacturers.
All while being a literal geriatric in front of a computer on a forum.
Aside from optical performance, workmanship, reliability under adverse conditions, quality control, and tracking errors over larger ranges, there isn't a lot of difference between the two.
To be fair, due to the ambiguity of the OP original post, my suspicion is that is a troll post. No specifics about any scope features or mention of how the scope is to be used.....
Different tools exist for different tasks and you have done that with your two samples. While I would disagree personally with your choice for the AR, it is your prerogative to make yourself happy and only yourself.
You haven't lived until you've owned a Mercedes. An older Mercedes is worse.
Mine went up for sale after my mechanic replaced a part that cost more than this econobox.
Relating this to the discussion, at one point you could buy a handmade 190SL for $5600.00. Fast forward to today, when the Chinese make a fortune they'll step around one of their cars to get a Merc.
Going forward in retirement, you can "shoe horn" this in bet. the 2 above.
80% of what the Mercedes is to me w/o some of the $4000 parts, for about 50% of the price....
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This reminds me when I (accidentally) deeply offended this chick who was waxing on and on and on about her and her husbands amazing car. I think it was an Audi C3 sedan. Trying to remember what it looked like, I searched online and said something like, “Oh yeah, it looks a bit like a Ford Probe.”
Wasn’t trying to be a dick! Lololol.
What a name…Probe.
It was really weird to find a chick who was so passionate about a particular (and boring!) German car. Didn’t have any kids, wasn’t going to, was a corporate professional, husband must’ve brainwashed her lol
Also:
Audi R8 - replica (based on Ford Probe) - 6SpeedOnline - Porsche Forum and Luxury Car Resource
Audi - Audi R8 - replica (based on Ford Probe) - but be warned, it can hurt ur eyes hilarious...
www.6speedonline.com
The Japanese do that too. I worked for a company that made Photo-mechanical and acid etching machines. they tied up our machine in customs for like 3 months. (reverse engineering time).
they claimed the never did that. 3 years later I get a phone call asking me what kind of "ball screw" was on the machine. (as memory recalls it was warner swasey 1 inch diameter with a .200 pitch and had the ball return housing.)
Needless to say, that company I worked for is out of business.
