<span style="font-size: 17pt"><span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="font-style: italic">Vortex Razor HD Ocular Redesign</span></span></span>
First, some background on where this review was born from:
Towards the end of 2010 and early this year there was a fair bit of discussion going around regarding the Vortex Razor HD 5-20x50 product update/improvement to the ocular design. The reported effect (beyond the minor cosmetics) included a much more forgiving “eye box” that allowed user a larger region to position their eye and still retain proper eye relief and sight picture.
This year I was given the opportunity to attend SHOT Show and spent some time with Vortex looking at their various products, particularly the Razor HD. I was in the midst of spec’ing out a new short action match rifle and decided to look at several different optics manufacturers since they were all easily accessible. Vortex and the new Razor was at the top of the list for what I could afford (price point at $2k or less) and with a plethora of features it fit the bill well.
The hesitation that I had was from reading reviews by owners that said the eye-box was rather tight and getting a good eye relief setup was particular. I spent some time talking to the tech guys at Vortex and was pleasantly surprised to see that they had heard the customer feedback and had a solution to the issue(s). Knowing the reputation that they had for excellent customer service and being as impressed as I was with the first Razor (that had the old design) I went out on a limb: I sold one of my other optics (a NF NXS 3.5-15x50 NPR1) and bought a second Razor to keep the same optics on my 2 primary match rifles.
So, here is where we are; two identical scopes, two generations of rings, one rifle.
The rifle being used for the test is my latest project, a 22” 6.5 Creedmoor. The specs are below:
• BigHorn Arms, Short Action Lefty cut for AICS mags
• Manners T4 with mini-chassis
• Shilen #7 contour 8tw 6.5mm barrel finished at 21.81” from breech-face to crown
• LR-Accuracy “F-Class” Bipod
• TacOps stock pack with foam cheek piece riser underneath
• Hornady brass and 140 Amax’s shooting 41.9gr of H4350 at 2.810” OAL
• 20 MOA BigHorn base
• <span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="text-decoration: underline">Razor HD with EBR-1 (MOA/MOA setup) and ARC Rings</span></span>
I have posted a separate review on the new ARC offering <span style="font-weight: bold">HERE</span> in an effort to keep the product reviews concise and on topic as much as possible.
Figure 1 – Test platform as the test was performed on the 400yd firing line
<span style="font-style: italic"><span style="text-decoration: underline">Fit and Finish:</span></span>
The two scopes are both nicely anodized, the color is consistent between the two and the turrets neatly match the tube color. The scopes each came with a sunshade (again, very consistent color) and a tube mounted level. The level is finished in a semi-gloss black anodize with a painted logo. Out of everything in the box, the level is my least favorite piece of the package for two reasons. The first being the simple cosmetic mismatch and the second is the manufacturing quality is inconsistent with the rest of the high quality on everything else. One of the levels actually broke mid-match. To their credit I called up Vortex the following Monday morning and the lady at customer service sent a new one with a postage paid, padded envelope to return the broken one. I was impressed with the support.
The feel of the turrets is very positive and crisp as well as the rock solid zero stop.
Adjusting the zero stop is simple and takes only about 60s after the user is familiar with the functionality. Something else that really stands out is the illumination setup on the scope. The illumination knob is setup so that there is an “off” position between each setting and it is user adjustable to discrete levels. The knob has also been rotated around the periphery of the ocular so that it cleanly clears the bolt handle on left handed actions as well as right handed rifles. It appears that Vortex has listened to the comments from users of several other designs and addressed them with this design:
• Easy user brightness adjustment in all conditions.
• Easy on/off manipulation to maintain a brightness setting in the field
• Bolt manipulation is not affected by illumination knob position.
The scopes are shown together in the figure below, the new ocular is mounted to the rifle with the old ocular present to show the cosmetic differences. Note that the diopter adjustment ring is wider on the new ocular, so to those second hand owners of Razors that do not know if they have a new or old ocular this is one of the easily seen, defining features.
<span style="font-style: italic">Figure 2 – Both scopes with corresponding rings</span>
<span style="font-style: italic">Figure 3 – Rifle with both optics out for some glamour shots</span>
The baseline repeatability of the platform is 3-shots in the 0.2-0.25 MOA and 5-shots regularly sub 3/8 MOA from the bipod/rear bag setup.
I used a plumb bob hanging from a door frame and a machinist level across the rail to level out the scopes before torquing them down.
<span style="font-style: italic"><span style="text-decoration: underline">Test Goals: </span></span>
The tests were designed to verify a few things:
1. Test the eye-box and overall “comfort” of the scope update for the user.
2. Test the claims of improved optical performance with the new design.
3. Before the test was performed I have shot each of these scopes in my first set of ARC
4. rings for a couple of matches and about 2 months to get some trigger time and comfort
5. with them.
6. Verify that the turrets on the Razors match their claimed subtension.
7. Verify that the reticle on the Razors match their claimed subtension.
To test #1 I spent a bunch of time simply shooting both scopes at various times on my rifles under a number of different conditions (bright, clear days; cloudy days; twilight; night shoots) and I did notice that during times when spotting and spending hours “on the gun” for a day I would develop some eye fatigue with the old ocular. A month later at a regular match I spent the same amount of time on the rifle (appx. 6hr during a day actually looking through the glass) both shooting and spotting and did not develop the same low grade headache and eye strain. It was relatively subjective but I was not able to think about a method to create a black/white comparison to generate meaningful numbers.
I did take the two scopes and compare them optically on the image below to see what kind of clarity, definition, contrast, etc. the my eye was able to discern. Here is the source of the image used:
Target Graphic Link
<span style="text-decoration: underline"><span style="font-style: italic">Optical Performance</span></span>
I used this optical bar chart to compare the optical clarity of the two scopes. To do this, I printed out a copy of this chart on a standard sheet of 8.5x11 paper and stapled it on the 100yd board at my club.
When this class of optics are compared, each person’s eye will show something different and the consensus will likely be different from different viewers. The reason that I chose to use a bar grid such as the one below is because it gives me something to compare the optics against with my eye. This assists making a definitive statement regarding optical clarity, contrast, aberrations, and other optical quality concerns.
Additionally, this level of glass there is a difference that can be discerned on a sunny, mirage filled day compared to an overcast day with little or no mirage. I tested them on 2 different days with better results on the cloudy day.
<span style="font-style: italic">Figure 4 – Clarity test gradient</span>
I did some reading on the Accurate Shooter forum when looking for a clarity comparison chart and decided to use the following method for comparing the optics with the chart shown above.
• All scopes were set at max power (20x) and 100yd from the board (laser said 101 from the objective bell)
• Place the rifle on bags and get the parallax adjusted properly
• Step back from the rifle and look around, just get my eyes acclimated away from the rifle scope picture.
• Sit down, look the optic and spend no more than 10-15s viewing the bars to find at which point they are no longer crisp at the edges
• Come off the scope and let my eyes readjust to the surroundings.
• Repeat for another 10-15s to verify the decision.
The existing design I found dead center “-2, 5”bar set was the limit for ideal conditions. I did notice that as the reticle was pushed off the bar set and viewing of the bars was not in the center 50% of the sight picture it began to blur and wash the color clarity. The black/white interface line began to show a red fuzz. On a bright sun day, “-2, 4” was the limit to where the mirage and contrast began to break down.
With the new ocular the results were better, the “-2, 5” bar set was much more easily discernable with my eye picking out the “-2, 6” bar set without much trouble. The sunny/mirage conditions set the limit at “-2, 5” I did notice that the chromatic aberration and clarity loss noticed when moving the reticle off of the bar sets was largely reduced until the last 10-15% of the sight picture at the edges of the picture circle. My feeling is that the improvement is definitely there.
The last item that I tested was a NF NXS 5.5-22x50 NPR1 scope. It is my old standard and I’ve been pleased with its performance and glass for several years, so I used it as the familiar “controlarticle”. Keep in mind that it is a SFP optic as well, not the FFP, nor does it have HD glass. The purpose is that I have used it with much success for a while and am comfortable with how it performs to compare the Razors to each other.
Just to be clear, I was expecting the Razors to outperform the control optic in many ways. If they didn’t handily do that then I would start to question why I should own them.
<span style="font-style: italic">The control results were:</span>
Bar Set “-2, 2” was the all-weather limit, on an overcast day with no mirage the limit is “-2, 4” at best. The contrast burn out with the “red fuzz” aberration shows up around 2/3 from center and progressively degrades towards the edge of the sight picture.
Conclusions from the “test grid”: The Razors outperformed the control glass handily. The updated ocular design is a good improvement over the previous version and I’m certainly going to have the “old” version updated.
An additional point that I did notice was when I was trying to get a “through the scope” picture of the EBR-1 reticle. With the old ocular it took me a solid 3-4 minutes of messing around before I managed to get one, whereas the new ocular it only took me about 15s and 1 try. Not important, but an interesting observation nevertheless.
<span style="font-style: italic">Figure 4 – EBR-1 MOA reticle at appx 15x</span>
The rest of the tests are standard. I performed a subtension test on the reticle and a large box test on the turrets.
<span style="font-style: italic"><span style="text-decoration: underline">Box Tests</span></span>
The box test was performed at 25yd because I do not have the facility to run a 100 MOA vertical string test at 100yd (104+” string from zero). At 100 MOA of turret travel I had induced 0.4 MOA of left wind and 99.1 MOA of vertical travel for the ‘old ocular’ scope.
The ‘new ocular’ was 0.3 MOA right wind and 99.4 MOA of vertical travel.
While that isn’t perfect, keep in mind that is less than 1% of error over 100MOA of travel for BOTH scopes. Even with a 6.5 Creedmoor a 100MOA shot puts a bullet out to approximately 1850yd from my rifle. At 1850yd with a 6.5 CM I would be flat out lying if I said that the scope caused a miss on a 1 MOA target.
Horizontal travel was run to 40 MOA at 0, +15, +30, +45 MOA elevation and I found no travel issues with either optic.
<span style="font-style: italic">Figure 5 – Small box test: 45MOA vert x 20 MOA horiz</span>
Dial the scopes back to zero/zero and I was rewarded with 1 hole in the paper. Return to zero was perfect.
Overall conclusion: Passed with flying colors for turret use.
Reticle subtension was 2 shots fired for each scope after the turret travel test. First shot @ 100yd zero. Second shot was 30 MOA vertical dial and then travel measured with the reticle.
Subtension Test Conclusion: Both reticles are as near as I can see a 26 caliber bullet hole at 100yd.
<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="text-decoration: underline"><span style="font-style: italic">Overall Conclusions:</span></span></span>
Vortex Optics has a fantastic product, the new ocular is definitely an improvement to an already great scope. The combination of HD glass, a long feature list, excellent adjustment range and overall fit and finish puts this product in the top tier of scopes that I have used and owned. I am quite satisfied with my choice of new optics and I will be scheduling a shipment for the ocular update to my first Razor immediately.
Thank you Vortex for a great product, keep up the good work.
First, some background on where this review was born from:
Towards the end of 2010 and early this year there was a fair bit of discussion going around regarding the Vortex Razor HD 5-20x50 product update/improvement to the ocular design. The reported effect (beyond the minor cosmetics) included a much more forgiving “eye box” that allowed user a larger region to position their eye and still retain proper eye relief and sight picture.
This year I was given the opportunity to attend SHOT Show and spent some time with Vortex looking at their various products, particularly the Razor HD. I was in the midst of spec’ing out a new short action match rifle and decided to look at several different optics manufacturers since they were all easily accessible. Vortex and the new Razor was at the top of the list for what I could afford (price point at $2k or less) and with a plethora of features it fit the bill well.
The hesitation that I had was from reading reviews by owners that said the eye-box was rather tight and getting a good eye relief setup was particular. I spent some time talking to the tech guys at Vortex and was pleasantly surprised to see that they had heard the customer feedback and had a solution to the issue(s). Knowing the reputation that they had for excellent customer service and being as impressed as I was with the first Razor (that had the old design) I went out on a limb: I sold one of my other optics (a NF NXS 3.5-15x50 NPR1) and bought a second Razor to keep the same optics on my 2 primary match rifles.
So, here is where we are; two identical scopes, two generations of rings, one rifle.
The rifle being used for the test is my latest project, a 22” 6.5 Creedmoor. The specs are below:
• BigHorn Arms, Short Action Lefty cut for AICS mags
• Manners T4 with mini-chassis
• Shilen #7 contour 8tw 6.5mm barrel finished at 21.81” from breech-face to crown
• LR-Accuracy “F-Class” Bipod
• TacOps stock pack with foam cheek piece riser underneath
• Hornady brass and 140 Amax’s shooting 41.9gr of H4350 at 2.810” OAL
• 20 MOA BigHorn base
• <span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="text-decoration: underline">Razor HD with EBR-1 (MOA/MOA setup) and ARC Rings</span></span>
I have posted a separate review on the new ARC offering <span style="font-weight: bold">HERE</span> in an effort to keep the product reviews concise and on topic as much as possible.
Figure 1 – Test platform as the test was performed on the 400yd firing line
<span style="font-style: italic"><span style="text-decoration: underline">Fit and Finish:</span></span>
The two scopes are both nicely anodized, the color is consistent between the two and the turrets neatly match the tube color. The scopes each came with a sunshade (again, very consistent color) and a tube mounted level. The level is finished in a semi-gloss black anodize with a painted logo. Out of everything in the box, the level is my least favorite piece of the package for two reasons. The first being the simple cosmetic mismatch and the second is the manufacturing quality is inconsistent with the rest of the high quality on everything else. One of the levels actually broke mid-match. To their credit I called up Vortex the following Monday morning and the lady at customer service sent a new one with a postage paid, padded envelope to return the broken one. I was impressed with the support.
The feel of the turrets is very positive and crisp as well as the rock solid zero stop.
Adjusting the zero stop is simple and takes only about 60s after the user is familiar with the functionality. Something else that really stands out is the illumination setup on the scope. The illumination knob is setup so that there is an “off” position between each setting and it is user adjustable to discrete levels. The knob has also been rotated around the periphery of the ocular so that it cleanly clears the bolt handle on left handed actions as well as right handed rifles. It appears that Vortex has listened to the comments from users of several other designs and addressed them with this design:
• Easy user brightness adjustment in all conditions.
• Easy on/off manipulation to maintain a brightness setting in the field
• Bolt manipulation is not affected by illumination knob position.
The scopes are shown together in the figure below, the new ocular is mounted to the rifle with the old ocular present to show the cosmetic differences. Note that the diopter adjustment ring is wider on the new ocular, so to those second hand owners of Razors that do not know if they have a new or old ocular this is one of the easily seen, defining features.
<span style="font-style: italic">Figure 2 – Both scopes with corresponding rings</span>
<span style="font-style: italic">Figure 3 – Rifle with both optics out for some glamour shots</span>
The baseline repeatability of the platform is 3-shots in the 0.2-0.25 MOA and 5-shots regularly sub 3/8 MOA from the bipod/rear bag setup.
I used a plumb bob hanging from a door frame and a machinist level across the rail to level out the scopes before torquing them down.
<span style="font-style: italic"><span style="text-decoration: underline">Test Goals: </span></span>
The tests were designed to verify a few things:
1. Test the eye-box and overall “comfort” of the scope update for the user.
2. Test the claims of improved optical performance with the new design.
3. Before the test was performed I have shot each of these scopes in my first set of ARC
4. rings for a couple of matches and about 2 months to get some trigger time and comfort
5. with them.
6. Verify that the turrets on the Razors match their claimed subtension.
7. Verify that the reticle on the Razors match their claimed subtension.
To test #1 I spent a bunch of time simply shooting both scopes at various times on my rifles under a number of different conditions (bright, clear days; cloudy days; twilight; night shoots) and I did notice that during times when spotting and spending hours “on the gun” for a day I would develop some eye fatigue with the old ocular. A month later at a regular match I spent the same amount of time on the rifle (appx. 6hr during a day actually looking through the glass) both shooting and spotting and did not develop the same low grade headache and eye strain. It was relatively subjective but I was not able to think about a method to create a black/white comparison to generate meaningful numbers.
I did take the two scopes and compare them optically on the image below to see what kind of clarity, definition, contrast, etc. the my eye was able to discern. Here is the source of the image used:
Target Graphic Link
<span style="text-decoration: underline"><span style="font-style: italic">Optical Performance</span></span>
I used this optical bar chart to compare the optical clarity of the two scopes. To do this, I printed out a copy of this chart on a standard sheet of 8.5x11 paper and stapled it on the 100yd board at my club.
When this class of optics are compared, each person’s eye will show something different and the consensus will likely be different from different viewers. The reason that I chose to use a bar grid such as the one below is because it gives me something to compare the optics against with my eye. This assists making a definitive statement regarding optical clarity, contrast, aberrations, and other optical quality concerns.
Additionally, this level of glass there is a difference that can be discerned on a sunny, mirage filled day compared to an overcast day with little or no mirage. I tested them on 2 different days with better results on the cloudy day.
<span style="font-style: italic">Figure 4 – Clarity test gradient</span>
I did some reading on the Accurate Shooter forum when looking for a clarity comparison chart and decided to use the following method for comparing the optics with the chart shown above.
• All scopes were set at max power (20x) and 100yd from the board (laser said 101 from the objective bell)
• Place the rifle on bags and get the parallax adjusted properly
• Step back from the rifle and look around, just get my eyes acclimated away from the rifle scope picture.
• Sit down, look the optic and spend no more than 10-15s viewing the bars to find at which point they are no longer crisp at the edges
• Come off the scope and let my eyes readjust to the surroundings.
• Repeat for another 10-15s to verify the decision.
The existing design I found dead center “-2, 5”bar set was the limit for ideal conditions. I did notice that as the reticle was pushed off the bar set and viewing of the bars was not in the center 50% of the sight picture it began to blur and wash the color clarity. The black/white interface line began to show a red fuzz. On a bright sun day, “-2, 4” was the limit to where the mirage and contrast began to break down.
With the new ocular the results were better, the “-2, 5” bar set was much more easily discernable with my eye picking out the “-2, 6” bar set without much trouble. The sunny/mirage conditions set the limit at “-2, 5” I did notice that the chromatic aberration and clarity loss noticed when moving the reticle off of the bar sets was largely reduced until the last 10-15% of the sight picture at the edges of the picture circle. My feeling is that the improvement is definitely there.
The last item that I tested was a NF NXS 5.5-22x50 NPR1 scope. It is my old standard and I’ve been pleased with its performance and glass for several years, so I used it as the familiar “controlarticle”. Keep in mind that it is a SFP optic as well, not the FFP, nor does it have HD glass. The purpose is that I have used it with much success for a while and am comfortable with how it performs to compare the Razors to each other.
Just to be clear, I was expecting the Razors to outperform the control optic in many ways. If they didn’t handily do that then I would start to question why I should own them.
<span style="font-style: italic">The control results were:</span>
Bar Set “-2, 2” was the all-weather limit, on an overcast day with no mirage the limit is “-2, 4” at best. The contrast burn out with the “red fuzz” aberration shows up around 2/3 from center and progressively degrades towards the edge of the sight picture.
Conclusions from the “test grid”: The Razors outperformed the control glass handily. The updated ocular design is a good improvement over the previous version and I’m certainly going to have the “old” version updated.
An additional point that I did notice was when I was trying to get a “through the scope” picture of the EBR-1 reticle. With the old ocular it took me a solid 3-4 minutes of messing around before I managed to get one, whereas the new ocular it only took me about 15s and 1 try. Not important, but an interesting observation nevertheless.
<span style="font-style: italic">Figure 4 – EBR-1 MOA reticle at appx 15x</span>
The rest of the tests are standard. I performed a subtension test on the reticle and a large box test on the turrets.
<span style="font-style: italic"><span style="text-decoration: underline">Box Tests</span></span>
The box test was performed at 25yd because I do not have the facility to run a 100 MOA vertical string test at 100yd (104+” string from zero). At 100 MOA of turret travel I had induced 0.4 MOA of left wind and 99.1 MOA of vertical travel for the ‘old ocular’ scope.
The ‘new ocular’ was 0.3 MOA right wind and 99.4 MOA of vertical travel.
While that isn’t perfect, keep in mind that is less than 1% of error over 100MOA of travel for BOTH scopes. Even with a 6.5 Creedmoor a 100MOA shot puts a bullet out to approximately 1850yd from my rifle. At 1850yd with a 6.5 CM I would be flat out lying if I said that the scope caused a miss on a 1 MOA target.
Horizontal travel was run to 40 MOA at 0, +15, +30, +45 MOA elevation and I found no travel issues with either optic.
<span style="font-style: italic">Figure 5 – Small box test: 45MOA vert x 20 MOA horiz</span>
Dial the scopes back to zero/zero and I was rewarded with 1 hole in the paper. Return to zero was perfect.
Overall conclusion: Passed with flying colors for turret use.
Reticle subtension was 2 shots fired for each scope after the turret travel test. First shot @ 100yd zero. Second shot was 30 MOA vertical dial and then travel measured with the reticle.
Subtension Test Conclusion: Both reticles are as near as I can see a 26 caliber bullet hole at 100yd.
<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="text-decoration: underline"><span style="font-style: italic">Overall Conclusions:</span></span></span>
Vortex Optics has a fantastic product, the new ocular is definitely an improvement to an already great scope. The combination of HD glass, a long feature list, excellent adjustment range and overall fit and finish puts this product in the top tier of scopes that I have used and owned. I am quite satisfied with my choice of new optics and I will be scheduling a shipment for the ocular update to my first Razor immediately.
Thank you Vortex for a great product, keep up the good work.
