I have purchased new Tract bino's with the Schott glass and was so impressed with the optical performance that I sold my Swaro's. I then purchased the Tract rifle scope and I have been blown away. I have had or tried most of the top end glass and Tract is as good , if not better. After some research , I did not know that the Schott glass is the glass supplier for the worlds top scopes. The difference is the coatings that each company use, hence the closely guarded coatings secrets. I did not know just how much middlemen (dist) added to the cost of optics. If you have not considered Tract, I have been sold on them. Lets hear from others that have made the move and tried Tract.
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Rifle Scopes Tract Scopes and Binos ?
- Thread starter troupe
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Schott is just the distributor. The gridding, polishing, etching, and probably the most important thing, the lens coating is the thing and that varies from company to company. Good to know their binos are good though.
I make the levers for Tract. Admittedly I never slapped any of the scopes on a rifle, but the glass was nice on the ones I was sent for testing.
There is a article out there some place that I had read that Schott supplies Swarovski ,S&B,and Meopta with the glass.
Schott supplies more companies with glass than you can count on a thousand hands (meaning it is a lot). Just because you see "Schott" does not immediately infer quality or that the Tract Optics will compete with alpha class scopes. I reviewed and purchased the Tract Toric 4-20x50 last year and was highly impressed for the price. Turrets had some play but tracked true to 1000y, illumination was the brightest I've seen in daylight, resolution was very impressive and on par with higher cost scopes, the scope is a short design (made by LOW). What I didn't like - for a 30mm 5x scope it sure is heavy at 34oz, the glass exhibits quite a bit of CA, the aforementioned wiggle in the turrets, elevation tops out at 20 mil and the reticle is a plain .5 mil hash that gets the job done but doesn't really excite me. If the "cons" don't matter much to you, you'd be hard pressed to find a better optic at this price, in fact, I think the Toric offers the most bang for the buck of any scope in its price class today.
Here's the full review
Here's the full review
I had a Tract Optics 8x42 bino( the model before they put Schott glass on), i was not impressed, it is no better than my athlon ares 8x42 side by side, nowhere near the glass quality of my Swarovski SLC. So i returned it. I was in the photo business, in my other life, i used linhof technika and hasselblad swc/m cameras for work, so i am picky on glass quality.
You maybe right troup, but the old model is sold to me as new with the Schott glass and locking eye piece from the company , it came as the old new stock per schott model lacking locking eye piece( for almost same price). One would not know if theirs is the current model or the older one safe for the locking eye piece, the old and new model looked the same from outside. They even weight the same, hence, i think they did not change the optical design on the bino. Some of the top end bino's do not say using schott glass, such as Nikon EDG. You can have schott glass and still have poor image quality. You may not need schott glass to have top quality scope or bino( my mamiya 7 80mm lens does not have Schott glass, but the image quality blow away my hasselblad 500cm 80mm zeiss lens. which has schott glass). I wold not give them another chance since they sort did a bite and switch on me. I called on them, all they said is to return it for refund, which i did. What Swaro bino did you have Troupe? i have 10x42 slc made in 2012 and 7x42 made in 2002. The Tract bino 8x42 was too far behind as far as image quality goes compared to my two Swaros, i hardly can believe exchanging to one schott glass on the Tract 8x42 will make them World class bino. Compared to my two Swaro's, the Tract 8x bino lacked both contrast and resolution, also the tract's color is more cool( bad for nature or birding) than neutral. Against back light, the Tract image is washed out, while SLC10x still shows a lots more detail. Then there are factors such as you get what you pay for. Cameraland was running a Steiner 8x44 wildlife XP bino for $450, now, that was a great deal.
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I had the Swaro EL's. For the money difference I will go Tract. there is also some very good Japanese glass out there. Swaros are world class no doubt, but not for 4 times the money. Granted, I am not a professional, just a working cop on a cops budget. Tract for me.
Troup: i agree, the Swaro SLC is not 3 times as good as Tract, i do believe the tract 8x is worth about what they ask for it $650 to $700 ish. OTOH, one can buy a second hand newer model 10x42 Swaro SLC for 1k or so. As i said before, in most cases and times, you get what you pay for. As time goes on, Chinese glass are improving fast and mid priced/quality Japaneses glass will have a harder time to ask the price they command now. Also in many cases, top Japaneses made glass are as good or better than the euro ones.
Schott makes glass and has several grades they sell. I think they have started an Asian factory also.
Glass is important but grind and coating are as well. Luckily pretty much anyone can tool up to grind very precise prescriptions and coatings are part of getting in to the optics game so you don't have to be a major player to tool up for coatings.
I think LOW is making the scopes and they are set up very well for everything involved in scope making so it's not a surprise that they can make a very good scope, the only surprise is the cost.
Glass is important but grind and coating are as well. Luckily pretty much anyone can tool up to grind very precise prescriptions and coatings are part of getting in to the optics game so you don't have to be a major player to tool up for coatings.
I think LOW is making the scopes and they are set up very well for everything involved in scope making so it's not a surprise that they can make a very good scope, the only surprise is the cost.
Looks like it’s time to buy another one. I bought a Tract Toric HD back in the summer. I was so impressed with the scope I bought another one a few weeks later. The two friends who have used my rifles were so impressed they each ordered one too. My only complaint with them is the lack of a Christmas tree reticle which they have fixed. I have a few high end scopes but as nice as the Tract is I have a hard time buying another high dollar scope. I just don’t think there is anything else out there in the same price range that even comes close. Add to that I like my Tract as much or more than my scopes costing 2-3 times as much and buying another is a pretty simple decision for me.
They should have had that reticle at the release.
They said they did the plain MRAD model for hunters but they had the MOA version for that.
As much as I would like to get another with the new reticle, I have a couple scope purchases ahead of it in line.
I'm stuck with my treeless reticle for a while.
They said they did the plain MRAD model for hunters but they had the MOA version for that.
As much as I would like to get another with the new reticle, I have a couple scope purchases ahead of it in line.
I'm stuck with my treeless reticle for a while.
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