^^^^^

Easy. The folks who tout the wonderful "lifetime, no fault warranty, unlimited" have failed to recognize they ALREADY paid for the replacement cost in the retail price of the item.

Vortex simply includes 'their' cost to replace the item in the retail cost to the consumer.

In order to do that (at the price point of the optic) they have to sacrifice quality to some extent.

I would rather pay more for an optic with better quality than to have an inferior product replaced (supposedly for free).

Vortex makes both cheap and decent quality scopes in their line up. But in either case....don't be duped by the warranty hype. You already paid for the replacement. Vortex is just hoping you won't need to use it...and most folks won't.

Personally, the one Vortex product I bought years ago (Viper PST) had to go back twice before I got one that is only 'OK'. Nothing about the warranty left me feeling warm and fuzzy. Not top tier optic in their line, but not a cheap version either.

I have only used the cheaper stuff from them but I have never had a single issue with the 10 or so scopes I have used. I’m a simple zero at 100 and set it and forget it. I will keep buying them when I need a scope, I also buy from Optics Planet and have never had a single issue, maybe I am just lucky.

I get how pricing works...here's my question. If you are the guy pricing these scopes and according to some posters...every Vortex scope breaks, then how many new scopes can you price into the initial cost? I don't care if you paid for 10 new scopes with the initial purchase. They still would eventually go under replacing scopes because they all break, right? Or you price it at 10 hoping folks just give up after 8?

The point is still valid regardless of pricing and markup...

They wouldn’t survive if their quality was that bad. Even if they had a 100% mark up like clothing. They still couldn’t do it.

Most people won’t use their products hard enough to test durability any ways, I doubt I ever buy another vortex scope, better tested durability out there

When these manufactures spec these products/scopes let say. Warranty/repair criteria are factored in the total cost of goods sold. Each gate they progress through, ie concept, design, materials, assemble packaging as well as shipping to name a few are all factored in. What's the criteria Vortex and other manufactures use is up to them to define. No product is designed with 100% cost replacement/repair in mind. The company's reputation would tank and shooters and hunters wouldn't use or purchase there products/scopes. Everyone here has there likes and dislikes on products. I'm not a Savage fan, doesn't mean they don't a quality product. One bad experience can sour the taste of a user and some will let everyone know the product is unreliable and sucks. Leupold, Vortex, Zeiss and Swarovski and others all have their place in the market and customer base. They didn't get to be leaders within this industry by designing bad/poorly designed products. Vortex caters to hunters on there low, mid range scopes. These hunters aren't going into the field to push the limits and abuse there equipment. They want a reliable scope that's going to perform as advertised. If something happens they want it repaired under warranty. High end hunts, competitors and military special forces have different criteria when it comes to their optics. Manufactures build the grunt specs into the higher end products. These are going to get abused and they have to take the abuse. When you watch a Marine Corp sniper instructor take off an old Unertl 10X or US Optics MST-100 replacement get taken off a rifle. The instructor drives a nail into a board with the scope. Remounts the scope and shoots for group. That's grunt proof.

For someone to say these manufactures can't produce any scope that wouldn't track as advertised is nonsense. Again, they wouldn't remain in business. Purchase what you like and pay what you feel is reasonable in your mind. If something happens you want the assurance it will be repaired under warranty or replaced if it's so old they don't make and have parts for them.

Nobody said they can't. The fact is in many cases they DON'T. Tell me all those many Leupold scopes I've had---like the ones that would move POI three inches when I gave it five clicks---were tracking properly. Tell me I did not see what I saw.

I have three Leupold's that work and track as they're supposed to. My longest shot with my VX-6 3-18X44mm was 1087 yards. My POI was 15" low. At that distance I'll take it! I guess my question is, you said, "Tell me all those many Leupold scopes I've had---like the ones that would move POI three inches when I gave it five clicks---were tracking properly. Tell me I did not see what I saw". Why did you continue to purchase Leupold scopes if they weren't working for you? Sounds silly to me to keep purchasing them when they all failed. You had to have liked something about them.

They have millions of customers who are completely satisfied with there scopes. They've got to be doing something right!

And there are a ton of customers that have absolutely had them fail at the wrong time. I had one fail last year, 10 miles in to the wilderness on last day of a hunt. I will only buy scopes that have been independently drop tested and passed.

Like I said about vortex most people won’t use a scope hard enough to find the failure point, but there is a segment that hunts outside just a Texas lease every year….

When leupold produces video of impact tests like Night force they will have my attention until then same boat as majority of vortex line, use with caution

Your 200 yard zero, and your 15" low at 1087 yards tells me you don't know what you're doing. And you don't know what good scope tracking really is.

As I stated earlier, I was willing to accept that negative trait because of what I perceived to be the positive characteristics.

When they sent out a couple of yahoos in flat-billed caps to tell the whole world there are no tracking problems with their scopes, I was done with the brand.

So, you have three Leupolds that track like they're supposed to (in YOUR perception), therefore all Leupolds track properly. Got it.

My buddy and I rented the Joshua Creek Ranch 1000 yard range last fall. They have steel targets at 400ish, 600ish & 800ish yards. The 1000 yard target ranged on our Sig Kilo range finders at 1087 yards. I forgot the exact distances but have them in my log book. We have a Garmin Xero doppler radar system. I use Bryan Litz's Applied Ballistics program. We inputted all the variables, velocity, BC's, scope height & all the environmental. My scope tracked within a click +/- at 400, 600 & 800ish yards. Yeah it tracked according. At 1087 yards my POI from my POA was 15" low. I'll take it. There's a new 1430 yard range in Lipan Texas that has opened. We'll be joining it and shooting some really long distances this spring when he comes out to turkey hunt. We'll be recording everything we shoot there in our log books.

I just purchased a new GPO Centuri 3-18X44i scope last fall. My initial tests out at the ranch have been outstanding. The optics are great and seems to track as expected. I'll be testing that rifle out on my .300 WSM out to 1430 yards this spring. Should be fun. Yes, I'm very happy with Leupold scopes. My boys have Vortex on there hunting rifles. They're the simple hunter, Go to there stand and shoot a hog or deer. Usually within 150 yards +/-. They work great for them. One just moved from his Vortex 1-6 to a Vortex 4-24 Strike Eagle as he wanted more magnification. They'll never touch the turrets except to sight in. We do shoot a lot out here. They've maintained there POA/POI for all the years we've shot them. We're not constantly redoing zero's.

I was a Leupold fanboy until I tried to dial. One (VX-5) was close to right. The other (Mk-5) would start drifting shot after shot. I bought the Mk-5 thinking I was stepping up from the old SS 5-20, and it was in glass, but it sure taught me a lesson. I did hunt this past week with an old Vari-X II gloss. Set and forget, it does the job.

I've been in and out from chasing sandhills muleys and haven't read the whole thread. Can someone tell me which side is winning this argument?

I am losing the argument because when I thought most of my Vari-X IIs, Vari-X IIIs, VX-IIs, VX-IIIs, and VX-3s had wonky adjustments that did not work as intended, I just didn't know what I was doing. An optical engineer says so.

LOL!

I don’t know but I wish this would be pinned up top somewhere so they don’t feel the need to argue of the same chit every month.

If someone could find out which company is most profitable, maybe we'll know. That's where the real game is won. Not the game I play, but as Jerry Jones once said, "Money's what makes the monkey dance". Like Vortex, he has a bottom tier product but is killing it when it comes to raking in $.

I’ve never used a NF, do y’all think all models are better than average ?

You if you post up a 30” with 10” back forks

I’ve been in Lanai at the pool all day

There are pluses and minus’s to all 4 NF lines/series, durability is close to the same across the lines .

NF, March, Trijcon and Maven R1.2 have all done well in drop tests consistently

I use to like them a lot, but they just lost their edge and value dropped. Kind of like leupold in 90’s

The initial viper and razor lines were made by LO, just like NF, Trijicon, Bushnell LHST , and where price point leaders. Company got big, change MFG faculties around and got less competitive. I do think they still have value in upper end bino’s and spotters but I think they are no longer price point leaders. They are now Luppy 2.0 with a better spotter line

Brought up inches again...

1 MOA at 1087 yards is 11.38", at the target.

A miss by "15" low" is a miss by 1.32 MOA

That is a big miss. And it is unacceptable poor tracking.

When the Heat Stoke Open ran for years, just outside Camargo, OK. There were many stages beyond 800 yards. One was called "One MOA". It started at 800 yards, and stopped at 1200 yards. A 1.32 MOA miss mow would have generated other shooters as well as fellow competitors making mention to the guy missing that low. It's a big miss.

If I missed with an SS 5-20X, a Bushnell 3.5-21X ERS, or a NF ATACR 5-25X, it was a left to right miss, which is the wrong wind hold, which is not the fault of the scope. It was my fault.

If I have the faintest understanding of angular measurement, that is five clicks of SUCK.

Friend killed one other day like that from Panhandle scored 190.

I did an independent drop test on my Trijicon Ten Mile Hx mounted on my day time 22 Creedmoor last week…..it failed. Dropped it from about 18 inches on a hardwood floor and it was off 4 inches left and 2 inches low. Re- Zeroed it and next day killed 11 coyotes.
Checked it today for tomorrows hunt all is still good 👍