To all of you fans of Votex scopes. Have none of you ever looked through a low end Leupold scope?
A friend of mine handed me his 17 HMR with a 3-9 power Vortex to shoot a varmint at about a 100 yards away. The sight picture was so small (at the 9X setting) that I had difficulty finding the target through the scope.
No matter how far backward or forward I moved my eye from the scope, it was like looking through a pipe with a half inch wall thickness.
It was early morning which contributes to glare for all scopes, but was extremely bad looking through this Vortex.
My Leupold VX1 gives a full view of the target and does not suffer the glare like that Vortex did.
Either these Vortex scopes are over-hyped, or my buddy bought a Chinese counterfeit (which is becoming a big problem more and more with all scopes).
Not looking for trouble, just looking for opinions.

I have a Vortex Range finder, spotting scope and binos, my buddies leaupold and Nikon stuff is better, I should have spent the couple extra bucks on Nikon or Leaupold, I feel like Vortex is being way over hyped, probably better profit margins in Vortex. I am going to try and return the spotting scope, just not impressed at all, I feel their Binos are about as good as any others you get for 200 dollars though.

Everyone says that vortex has great customer service, but I've had such good luck with all my leupolds ive never had to deal with customer service. I will admit we deer hunted with a guy that had some of the hd vortex stuff and it is definitely on a different level. But it's also on a different price point.

I have had no troubles so far with the couple of Vortex scopes that I own although there is a lot of copycat items from China that may not have near the quality as the original!

Chris

I have never liked the vortex stuff, I think it is overhyped.

What product line of vortex was your friends scope? I have a few vortex scopes and the crossfire is not very good. The diamondback and viper are very good scopes for the money. I actually have a 3-9 diamondback that is a better scope than my 3-9 Leopold of the same price. If you are comparing a $150 scope to a $300 scope there shouldn't be anything to compare should there?

I have vortex, leupold, and Nikon scopes. Personally I like the Leupold the least.. Nikon is my preference, as I have several of them. For the money I think the vortex is a fine scope.. jmo

Their are diff classes of all these brands as far as cheaper scale vortex crossfire,and diamondback is not as good as Leupold vx1 or Nikon prostaff..on low end it's hard to beat the Nikon prostaff. But higher classes like leupold vx 3 and up and Nikon monarch and the vortex viper, The vortex is light years better in my opinion I have owned all of these and as far as the higher end Vortex has the market by a mile right now. But as far as under $200 those little Nikons sure are good and clear for the money.

I feel like the Leupold is way overrated. JMO

It sounds like the Diopter was way out of adjustment if it looked like u were looking through a tube.....?

Nope its the Vortex scope.. I ownLeupold and Vortex scopes.
My leupolds are better without argument
The Eye relief like you mentioned is a problem with the Vortex I owned and it cost the same as my Leupold vx2.
Maybe the Higher end vortex are better, but at that point I'm buying a VX6 or a Nightforce over any others.
The glass is clear and crisp and picks up good light, but the eye relief needs work IMO.

This has been my experience also, also I would climb over a pile of Nightforce to get to one Vortex Razor.

Yup looking through my Vortex scope is like looking through a roll of toilet paper. So hard to find your target.

Ok you are looking at an animal at 100 yards and you have the setting on 9 power ? OK

Which model did he have. was it a 1 in tube. A 40 mm ? a32 mm?

I have a 3x9 crossfire II and love it. Shoot it on my 700 bdl 270'. But that's why they make different brands some people like different things.

I had a 243 with a vortex. Loved it. Worked great. Tried a Leupold on a call 22 mag, and it is awesome too.

I'd buy either again, and don't recall the small sight picture mentioned.