I picked these up off a hide member several months ago. Ive been struggling with the use of spotting scopes for match use and hunting both of which I am heavily involved in, especially this year since I drew two tags in Arizona. I already owned a set of Razor HDs in 10x40 but they were lacking the magnification for 500+ yard spotting. My hunting partner picked up a set of of the 12x50 UHD and shortly after I got acquired the 18x56 set. Now a spotting scope can fill the needs of a hunter or shooter easily, although to me a spotting scope has two draw backs. First being field of view with the single eye piece. Second was the absolute size and weight of most spotting scopes. Now if you are expecting me to say these are as high quality as a pair of swaros, that is not the case. Now I cant say im an optical engineer(clearly not) also I am not swayed by "influencers oppinions" but I have been spoiled with good glass and wont settle for a $300 pair of diamondbacks and rather just try products out to form my own oppinion. The low light capability of the UHD line is pretty phenomenal, easily picking out Couse deer before the sunlight even touches them. The ability to see the slightest movement even thru some heavy brush is just breathe taking and made me feel like Ive cheated my self for way to long with low magnification optics, the resolution and contrast is a 9/10 way better than the Kibab 18s. Ive owned a Leupold gold ring 12-40 but anything past 20 magnification seemed useless and dark and the eye strain from staring thru a single eye piece was annoying and never was able to spot a hideing animal. The resolution of the glass in the gold ring was just to subpar for hunting to me. Now I know there are guys with Leupold Mk4 and goldrings just laying hate every day...just not this guy. The contrast, clarity of the UHD definetly makes it the best binos that Vortex offers. Where they give the lead to Swaro is with the edge clarity and the contrast of the optics, colors just pop out so well in Swaros. Now I am going to go back and bat for Team Vortex, obviously their VIP warranty is hard to beat especially since I seam to beat my optics to death. But their pouch/carrier was a 90% knock out of the park. You can chose to use the pouch as a chest rig or remove the straps and strap it to your pack. 18x bino are not very usefull with out the use of a tripod (no shit). 10 and 12's are much better suited for off hand glassing. Pouch comes with an additional zipper pouch you can mount forward of the bino pouch to carry spare munitions or admin supplies such as pens or your hunting tag. Where they failed on the pouch especially with the 18's was the cover which is hard to set securely over the binos and Idont have 100% faith it wont slip off while maneuvering under Mesquite or Juniper tree's. Thats my quick spout about the UHD line your looking for a quality set of binos but not yet willing to shell out the cash for Swaros, Leica or who ever else makes magical glass. I attached some phots of Couse deer that ranged from 340 yards to 660 yards.
