I don't have a Vortex Gen I or Gen II Razor to compare the brown ETR to, and it's been awhile since I've seen one up close, so can't comment on that. But based on memory of what the Vortex scopes' color anodizing looked like, I'm going to say the ETR has more of a bronze tint than either of them. That's why I'm thinking to use air dry burnt bronze on the rings. I took the above photo with the Nikon D5000's flash unit, so the colors on my monitor look pretty true. Regardless of the color match, I'd be willing to bet that you're going to like the Ares ETR. I've yet to shoot a match with mine, so don't know how the open center/dot reticle is going to work on steel that's been shot a bunch since it was painted. But if there's much mirage, or you're shooting several targets spread out over an area, you're going to have the magnification set down around 10x-16x, and won't be seeing the floating dot anyway. In that case, the open center of the reticle will make a good aiming point, so dot or no, it won't be an issue. The glass on mine is very, very close to at least as good as the Cronus I first compared it to, though that was the oldest Cronus I own. Need to get back down to the range with that older Cronus, a newer pre-BTR Cronus, and the BTR Cronus I have on my V-22 to get a better idea how the ETR's glass compares to the Cronus.
