I'm going to chime in on the Vortex issue and share my opinion. May I say from the start, this is my OPINION...

I am not a Vortex fan. I have owned one of their products and will never spend a dime of my money on another. The scope that I owned was not clear to my eyes, wasn't very good in low light, and to me, it was cheaply built.

My biggest beef with Vortex as a company?

They are a pretender, a "want to be", in the optics industry. They want to be in the league with other higher end scope manufacturers, but the cold, hard fact is they don't manufacture most their products.

As far as I can tell, they claim to manufacture only one product in their entire line-up. That would be the Razor HD AMG scope, that is allegedly made in Wisconsin. This is a scope that retails in the $2,499.00 to $2,999.00 price range. Not real affordable for the average hunter.

The rest of their products are made for them by other scope manufacturers, that slap the "Vortex" trade name on them.

Razor - Made in Japan
Viper - Made in the Philippines
Diamondback - Made in the Philippines
Viper Red Dot Series - Made in China
Diamondback Tactical - Made in China
Strike Eagle - Made in China
Crossfire - Made in China

You guys wonder why so many problems occur with many of their scope models? Just look where many of them are being built. This is a company that has built their reputation on their warranty. It's a good thing they have the warranty policy that they have. Sooner or later their junk will fail.

Yep, in my opinion, they are the little brother in the optics industry. Kinda like Aubarn is to Bama...

They aren't worthy enough to carry the jock straps of Luepold, Meopta, Zeiss, Swarovski, S&B, and many others.

All of which, are companies that build their OWN products, in their own manufacturing facilities.

Rail on me if you want, this is truth about their manufacturing, and I already stated the rest was my opinion.