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Rifle Scopes Razor amg question
- Thread starter brix8984
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They state that they were not able to source it from an American company and keep it at the same price point.
My take:
Given how many quality scopes are produced in Germany, the contracts to do reticles are likely far cheaper and of high quality. I'd guess that American companies are not tooled/skilled/efficient in volume to make them at the price/quality that Vortex was looking at for the AMG. Given that most American scopes are outsourced to Japan and the Pilly-peens
Given how hard they worked to make this a 100% American made scope, I doubt it was an easy decision.
My AMG is 100% American made.
My take:
Given how many quality scopes are produced in Germany, the contracts to do reticles are likely far cheaper and of high quality. I'd guess that American companies are not tooled/skilled/efficient in volume to make them at the price/quality that Vortex was looking at for the AMG. Given that most American scopes are outsourced to Japan and the Pilly-peens
Given how hard they worked to make this a 100% American made scope, I doubt it was an easy decision.
My AMG is 100% American made.
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Has this always been the case? I thought it was all made in the USA wow.
"Nearly every component in the AMG, from the index-matched lenses to smallest screw, is engineered, machined, and assembled in the USA. The only component from outside the USA is the German manufactured reticle."
"Nearly every component in the AMG, from the index-matched lenses to smallest screw, is engineered, machined, and assembled in the USA. The only component from outside the USA is the German manufactured reticle."
Some of the initial run were the US reticle but they had issues with the supplier and to keep quality up they went with the German supplier. It's the only part of the scope not made in the US now and the scope is marked accordingly.
It seems they are doing their best to keep them US made. Seems there's always one item they can't get US made. A rep told me at the outdoor show that the new holographic AMG sight is all US except one piece that was sourced from the U.K.
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Yes there is, the AMG scopes that have the reticle from Germany will indicate on the bottom of the scope: Scope made in USA with German reticle (similar to how it's identified on the UH-1 scope). At least that is what I recall from previous conversations with Vortex.
Too bad the switch to the German reticle didn't receive the same hoopla as all of the 100% made in the USA propaganda that went out at the release. After finally getting mine in hand it's a bit of a letdown.
Your scope is fine. Mine is the same. There weren't quality issues with the US reticles so don't worry about any issues.
Why? It's a great scope. It is still made in the USA by an American company and I would bet has more USA made parts including the glass than any other made in the USA scope. Not all made in the USA scopes are 100% USA parts. Don't concentrate on the one part that isn't made in the USA and concentrate on the rest of the scope that actually is.
I agree here 100%. They made a concerted effort and succeeded with 99.9% of the scope. I wouldn't worry about the reticle from Germany or the U.K.
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I would like (as Vortex) to have the scope made 100% in the USA but I don't think that a reticle made in Germany or UK should be a downside by any means. Those two countries have proven to be a heck of a good manufacturers for hundreds of years (way before us). Don't you agree?
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I'm not saying it's not a great scope, and I'm not outraged by any means, I just find the change to be unappealing. The scope is mounted, performing admirably, and I have no intention of getting rid of it. Call me old fashioned, but 100% means 100%. A "100% beef" burger that is in all reality 1% pig anus might still taste fine, but how tasty is it after you find out about that pesky little percentage. Vortex has updated their website accordingly but there are plenty of others out there that haven't been scrubbed. It was 100% made in USA until it became inconvenient or less profitable to remain that way. My disappointment is that it sure looks like more effort was made in promoting the 100% American aspect than keeping it that way. If I wanted German I could get a S&B, if I wanted Japanese a Nightforce would do just fine. I wanted American, I guess 99% will have to do.
Part of the big appeal of this scope for me was the 100% US Made aspect of it. While the fact that the later scopes have German reticles tarnishes that slightly, it's not a big deal, to me. The fact that they're making and coating lens elements here in the USA is a HUGE step. That's the heart of the optical system, and an area where the Germans and Japanese have led the world for a long, long time. It's good to get that technology back on American shores.
The fact that they had to outsource to Germany for reticles is just reflective of how much of that manufacturing capacity is no longer in the US. Hopefully, it opens the door for someone here in the US to start up a new business or add manufacturing capacity, and Vortex will be able to return to 100% American made parts in the scope.
The fact that they had to outsource to Germany for reticles is just reflective of how much of that manufacturing capacity is no longer in the US. Hopefully, it opens the door for someone here in the US to start up a new business or add manufacturing capacity, and Vortex will be able to return to 100% American made parts in the scope.
I just want to get my damn scope. 14 months and counting. Hey Vortex guys on the forum...how about getting a MIL version on over to Liberty Optics so I can get my scope. I believe I've waited long enough lol. I would greatly appreciate it. As for the reticles now being sourced from Germany, I couldn't care less.
I hate it when there is beef in my pig anus burger. Based on my experience with USA made scopes vs German scopes, this might be the better analogy.
That one made me laugh too!
I hear what everyone is saying about the 1% issue and admit I am somewhat baffled at Vortex's explanation for this, originally I thought Vortex was making everything in house; however, I believe they were outsourcing the reticle to another US company, maybe that company could not keep up with demand so they decided to find a company who could and ended up finding one in Germany. Let's realize that the German company is not manufacturing anything, all they are doing is etching the glass with the reticle design provided by Vortex; however, the glass itself is still manufactured and sourced here in the USA, the only thing the German's are doing is etching it with a laser. If I am mistaken someone in the know please let me know, but having the glass etched in Germany doesn't make the scope any less 100% American "made" if that makes sense. If anything, maybe this will open the door for a new company to form here in the US that does laser glass etching, or for the company that Vortex was originally using to boost their production capabilities.
That is funny but not the same. There are no scopes in the US that are 100% US parts and made. You have the one that is now the closest to 100% on both. This change was posted about in multiple threads over at the Scout Hide and wasn't a secret and isn't now. It's what had to happen to make the scope. Vortex went through a lot of work to get the facility up and going to manufacture this scope at their facility from the ground up. You can find a small change unappealing but to me what they did was pretty amazing and they should be applauded for it and not looked down upon for having to change one small piece.
I will tell you what I will do if you want. I will send you my earlier AMG which has the US made reticle so you can say you have a 100% US made scope. Send me yours and when I receive it I will send mine out. Offer is there so you will be happy.
But they've got German cooties on the scopes now after wr-etching on the glass. They might turn yucky like the scopes from the Optronika group now.
Ach du schreck!
An American made rifle scope!
Perhaps ze Yankees should ztick to making muscle cars zat cannot turn or stop, yes?
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Ja. Ehrlich...
To add to my earlier complaint on scopes, I don't think it matters where scopes are made. They all explode once you get too friendly...sometimes too friendly is beating it senseless against the rocks on the way down the mountain, and sometimes it's putting 10 rounds through it mounted on top of a 28lb .223 rifle.
I do look forward to using the AMG in all actuality. I just wish enough of them had been made that they were obtainable.
To add to my earlier complaint on scopes, I don't think it matters where scopes are made. They all explode once you get too friendly...sometimes too friendly is beating it senseless against the rocks on the way down the mountain, and sometimes it's putting 10 rounds through it mounted on top of a 28lb .223 rifle.
I do look forward to using the AMG in all actuality. I just wish enough of them had been made that they were obtainable.
But they've got German cooties on the scopes now after wr-etching on the glass. They might turn yucky like the scopes from the Optronika group now.
NICE!
I wonder if my 100% made in the USA AMG with USA reticle will be worth twice as much as the German reticle version, maybe I can sell it for $4400
NICE!
I wonder if my 100% made in the USA AMG with USA reticle will be worth twice as much as the German reticle version, maybe I can sell it for $4400
How much is your 100% beef, no pig anus contaminated meat worth to you vs. 99% beef, 1% pig anus meat?
Rob,
I want to be clear that my tone is easygoing if a little ornery, keyboards fail to enunciate or inflect properly and the wrong tone can be received too easily. You do a fantastic job representing the companies that sponsor you, the 'Hide, and shooting sports in general. I hope you take my wise-assery with a dump truck load of salt, because it's just that. I figure I can't be the only poor fool disappointed with the switch, and perhaps help the good folks at Vortex to see that it does matter to some of us, perhaps resulting in eventually getting back to having it fully executed in the USA. This is the best scope I own, and I worry what you hear is "I can't see fucking shit outta this thing, somebody got a bunch of sauerkraut on the reticle!", when what I'm saying is "It stinks that they announced one thing and delivered another". Too often when the going gets tough people (and companies) reach for the easy button. Hopefully someone got an earful for making an announcement that had to be walked back. Words are cheap, (hell even I can use them) delivering results with accountability is a much tougher row to hoe. I'm well aware my opinion has such tremendous value that I would need to include at least $5 along with it to get a cup of shitty hipster coffee from some guy with a man bun wearing skinny jeans and a scarf. Please take my comments in red with the appropriate levity.
I want to be clear that my tone is easygoing if a little ornery, keyboards fail to enunciate or inflect properly and the wrong tone can be received too easily. You do a fantastic job representing the companies that sponsor you, the 'Hide, and shooting sports in general. I hope you take my wise-assery with a dump truck load of salt, because it's just that. I figure I can't be the only poor fool disappointed with the switch, and perhaps help the good folks at Vortex to see that it does matter to some of us, perhaps resulting in eventually getting back to having it fully executed in the USA. This is the best scope I own, and I worry what you hear is "I can't see fucking shit outta this thing, somebody got a bunch of sauerkraut on the reticle!", when what I'm saying is "It stinks that they announced one thing and delivered another". Too often when the going gets tough people (and companies) reach for the easy button. Hopefully someone got an earful for making an announcement that had to be walked back. Words are cheap, (hell even I can use them) delivering results with accountability is a much tougher row to hoe. I'm well aware my opinion has such tremendous value that I would need to include at least $5 along with it to get a cup of shitty hipster coffee from some guy with a man bun wearing skinny jeans and a scarf. Please take my comments in red with the appropriate levity.
How far would a pig anus hamburger go toward helping to make you whole again? Here in parts of NC, people would be VERY angry if they found out even 1% of their pig anus hamburger had beef in it.
Though around these parts we call pig anus hamburgers... pork butt sandwiches. I'd offer to mail you one, but between UPS delivering late and USPS losing mail for weeks at a time, you might not appreciate it as much as you would fresh out of the Big Green Egg.
I would not dare put sauerkraut in your sandwich regardless.
I would have been very disappointed if my 100% American scope I paid/preordered back in late 2015 turned out to have German DNA somewhere in there so I understand where you're coming from. From your perspective, it was a kind of bait-and-switch. Understandable. Unfortunately, not everyone can deliver everything even they want. It's obviously it's own black eye to Vortex to have to announce the German reticle thing. I don't think it would make sense for them to have announced they way they did KNOWING that they were going to transition to the German etched reticle. I am personally curious if the transition was made due to cost savings or the inability to get the quality they wanted/required from an American source. Clearly it wasn't due to the vendor not being able to handle the workload.
That said, it's important to not belittle Vortex's effort to do what other companies are not willing to even try for. It would have been easier for them to have outsourced the AMG design to LOW/Japan and reassembled the same way they do the RG2 & come in at a lower price point with higher volume and more profit. That they're TRYING to start a new division and line of American made scopes is pretty ambitious. Some would suspect it's simply to hold onto trade secrets in manufacturing.
They're currently making SIX per week. 6
That's a lot of profit they're leaving on the table, so the reputation boost they get from the "100% American Made - 1% pig anus" scopes they make better be worth it for them in the long run.
In the end, 99% is a helluva lot closer to to a true 100% (non pig anus) American made scope than any other company has accomplished.
I'm probably most looking forward to the Gen 2 AMG scopes, just to see how far they can get from where they are now. S&B glass has been the benchmark for a long time. Minox gets to start from a Premier prescription according to what I've read, and Tangent Theta was smart enough to buy what was left of Premier and merged features between the Heritage line and their own with the current scopes being the result. Curious to see what American manufacturing can come up with to compete against such established competition.
Generally, American companies are very innovative, with Japanese companies quickly polishing and perfecting the small details in others' designs. The Chinese almost but never quite catch up quickly by reverse engineering and ignoring all intellectual property rights (often with full government backing). Stereotypes, yes.
With Vortex deciding to keep their secrets and manufacturing methods in-house, I am excited to see them compete in a slow motion race between the USA & Europe (because Romania) to create & manufacture the best rifle scopes.
I am not sponsored, paid, or supported by Vortex. I just happen to really like their Razor & AMG lines of products & customer service.
Though around these parts we call pig anus hamburgers... pork butt sandwiches. I'd offer to mail you one, but between UPS delivering late and USPS losing mail for weeks at a time, you might not appreciate it as much as you would fresh out of the Big Green Egg.
I would not dare put sauerkraut in your sandwich regardless.
I would have been very disappointed if my 100% American scope I paid/preordered back in late 2015 turned out to have German DNA somewhere in there so I understand where you're coming from. From your perspective, it was a kind of bait-and-switch. Understandable. Unfortunately, not everyone can deliver everything even they want. It's obviously it's own black eye to Vortex to have to announce the German reticle thing. I don't think it would make sense for them to have announced they way they did KNOWING that they were going to transition to the German etched reticle. I am personally curious if the transition was made due to cost savings or the inability to get the quality they wanted/required from an American source. Clearly it wasn't due to the vendor not being able to handle the workload.
That said, it's important to not belittle Vortex's effort to do what other companies are not willing to even try for. It would have been easier for them to have outsourced the AMG design to LOW/Japan and reassembled the same way they do the RG2 & come in at a lower price point with higher volume and more profit. That they're TRYING to start a new division and line of American made scopes is pretty ambitious. Some would suspect it's simply to hold onto trade secrets in manufacturing.
They're currently making SIX per week. 6
That's a lot of profit they're leaving on the table, so the reputation boost they get from the "100% American Made - 1% pig anus" scopes they make better be worth it for them in the long run.
In the end, 99% is a helluva lot closer to to a true 100% (non pig anus) American made scope than any other company has accomplished.
I'm probably most looking forward to the Gen 2 AMG scopes, just to see how far they can get from where they are now. S&B glass has been the benchmark for a long time. Minox gets to start from a Premier prescription according to what I've read, and Tangent Theta was smart enough to buy what was left of Premier and merged features between the Heritage line and their own with the current scopes being the result. Curious to see what American manufacturing can come up with to compete against such established competition.
Generally, American companies are very innovative, with Japanese companies quickly polishing and perfecting the small details in others' designs. The Chinese almost but never quite catch up quickly by reverse engineering and ignoring all intellectual property rights (often with full government backing). Stereotypes, yes.
With Vortex deciding to keep their secrets and manufacturing methods in-house, I am excited to see them compete in a slow motion race between the USA & Europe (because Romania) to create & manufacture the best rifle scopes.
I am not sponsored, paid, or supported by Vortex. I just happen to really like their Razor & AMG lines of products & customer service.
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I was lucky enough to get to spend a couple hours out at Vortex this morning (I'm in Madison on business, and had a morning free). Something that became enormously clear was that the folks at Vortex truly care about the experience their customers have with their products. The whole company is organized around supporting the customer. It's truly impressive. It's not often you get to meet the president of a company when you're just some schmuck touring their facility, but everyone in the place was warm and inviting.
I talked briefly with them about the German reticle. It sounds like they've investigated the living heck out of every manufacturing avenue here in the US, and simply couldn't find someone with the capacity to produce the reticle to their standards in the volume they need. They didn't offer specifics on what they were unhappy about with the original US based vendor, but it was clear that vendor couldn't keep up in a way that worked for Vortex. I think they'd be pleased as punch if a vendor emerged, but the technology that's used to produce the reticles is not something commonly found outside of computer chip manufacturing - and the tech used for the reticles is a couple generations old (read: the machines simply aren't in the US anymore to any great degree). So, it's a tough nut for them to crack. Sounds like they thought they had it done, and it just didn't work out.
If you could see the space they're packed into right now, you'd see why production is a little compressed. They're planning a move to a larger facility at some point this year, and that will hopefully allow them to increase manufacturing capacity (because they'll have the space for it). They get an awful lot done given the space they have to work with.
I talked briefly with them about the German reticle. It sounds like they've investigated the living heck out of every manufacturing avenue here in the US, and simply couldn't find someone with the capacity to produce the reticle to their standards in the volume they need. They didn't offer specifics on what they were unhappy about with the original US based vendor, but it was clear that vendor couldn't keep up in a way that worked for Vortex. I think they'd be pleased as punch if a vendor emerged, but the technology that's used to produce the reticles is not something commonly found outside of computer chip manufacturing - and the tech used for the reticles is a couple generations old (read: the machines simply aren't in the US anymore to any great degree). So, it's a tough nut for them to crack. Sounds like they thought they had it done, and it just didn't work out.
If you could see the space they're packed into right now, you'd see why production is a little compressed. They're planning a move to a larger facility at some point this year, and that will hopefully allow them to increase manufacturing capacity (because they'll have the space for it). They get an awful lot done given the space they have to work with.
Yes I understand the disappointment of the German reticle but it was done for a reason. Not cost saving but quality and delivery times, which every customer is concerned about as well. Vortex does not like to talk bad about other companies so no specifics will be given on exactly why the change took place. Reticles are NOT easy to make. There are very, very few companies in the entire world capable of making glass etched reticles, especially illuminated for the FFP, which are exponentially harder to make. Since the original vendor wasn’t coming through Vortex looked at their alternatives and didn’t find a single vendor in the US that could make the type of reticles they needed at their quality level. Vortex went to a place that was proven making great reticles in Germany and they do awesome work. If another US vendor pops up that can do it I know Vortex will certainly give them a shot as they were very proud and set on having a scope 100% made here in the US Taking reticle making in-house would not be easy for them so it's not an option. It would takes years and many millions of dollars to do it right and I am sure no one wants to wait that long for their scope.
So for now you still have the most US made scope available even if it is 99%.
So is my 100% made in the U.S. AMG inferior to the 99% with the German reticle or does this have more to do with production time?
No it is not inferior. Any AMG that was sent out the door was held to the same high standards and inspected. There was no quality issue with the US made reticles. Production time was a big factor so do not worry about your scope.
I got both of my AMGs that have German reticles and when I saw the label on the box I just shrugged it off. If you have any experience in the US manufacturing industry in the past 10 years it is fraught with empty vendor promises and a general disregard for meeting customer schedules. It's a damned shame and I completely understand Vortex's need to export the 1 part they couldn't reliably make in-house. We are our own worst enemy. I would be surprised if they aren't working with the (narrow) margin they're getting from these scopes and developing a means of lasing some glass in Wisconsin as we speak.
Yes, they advertised a 100% USA-made scope. They aren't any more and clearly state the only non-USA made part is the reticle. Find another scope with as much US content.
Yes, they advertised a 100% USA-made scope. They aren't any more and clearly state the only non-USA made part is the reticle. Find another scope with as much US content.
Wow! Only six AMG scopes a week ? That's all they can put out currently ? I guess I will have to consider something else here soon.
You guys sound like anal BMW motorcycle riders, the frikken scope is more American built than a Harly dam Davidson.
I saw a lot more scopes in progress than six when I was there (I didn't count, but it was clearly more than six). I don't know if that's still an accurate number?
