About a dozen of you beat me to it this morning in what may be one of the most highly anticipated pieces of kit in a while now. Many have struggled to make the SilencerCO Radius work (and many quite successfully too I should add) but with the rise of NV popularity amongst the shooting community it is a surprise that no other company has ventured to offer a sub $3k unit to the market. So kudos to Vortex for recognizing a gap and having the wherewithal to produce a viable weapon mounted LRF unit.
For most of you here on the Hide this announcement should be no surprise as several weeks ago someone spilled the beans and rumors began to explode about what, when, who, where and most importantly how much. Now that Vortex has officially announced this unit I am free to talk and share my opinions.
First off, this is NOT intended to be a thorough evaluation, that will come later, it is a first impression of what I think of the unit. Second, for most of you who know me on the Hide, I am typically known for optics reviews and while the typical LRF bino or monocular is an optic, this unit has no glass that you actually look through, so this kind of deviates a little from my area of expertise - so take my thoughts and perspectives here with a grain of salt. I've only had minimal time behind the Wilcox Raptar so will leave comparisons to these expensive units to the "pros" who have experience with them. Take my impressions as someone who has little experience with WM LRF units in general and maybe I can help some newb's here with understanding how this unit could be of benefit to you. Third, I have a bunch of videos I took along the way as I've decided to venture out into the U2B world and I hoped to publish my first video with this release but I am out of state on a business trip that is taking up most of my free time so we'll have to just start with my written summary (which I do much better at than I do video anyway).
Let's start with the box and unboxing. Vortex sends this unit in a very nice package that reminds me of the AMG 6-24x50 experience, it is almost Apple like with regard to quality, but to be honest, I could care less, Vortex could send this in a brown packaging box wrapped in bubble wrap and I'd be just fine, the box ends up going into storage and never to be seen after initially pulling everything out. That being said, I will say that they are packages within packages and you need to make sure that you pull out all the packaging because at the very bottom there is a final package containing some targets with reflector strips you will need to align the LRF with your scope (I missed this at first pass and had to go back looking for it after reading the manual).
Lets talk about the button layout. Forward most on the unit (from shooter position) is a left right / up down quad layout with a center button. This center button is what you can use to range if you do not have the bluetooth remote connected (or it's battery goes out). I found this position awkward as I had to reach way forward and wish it was switched with the rear most button which is used as a dedicated wind button. Maybe future iterations will be more like my Nikon Z8 where I can program any button to do almost anything I want, but it's certainly not a deal breaker. The button that finds its way in between wind and range is the settings button and by the way you can set almost everything independently from the app including your rifle profiles and ballistics. There is also the bluetooth remote which has the same layout as the forward German cross with left right/ up down and center range button, missing are the settings and wind buttons.
The unit is "big" and looks to be some kind of injection molded plastic that would likely get scratched up if you decide to accidentally drop test the unit on concrete, but would likely absorb some of the impact similar to how a nice phone case does when you drop your $1200 phone (often). Just think of it as this unit already comes with its own built in protective case
I want to talk about the display, it is an LCD type display with an optional backlight. I want to emphasize optional as you do not have to turn on the backlight, so for NV hunters who wear NOD's you should be able to see the display on the back without getting blinded by even the minimum backlight setting (there are 5 settings if I remember correctly but none of them are low enough for NV). For pictures here I turned on the backlight as it was easier to see the display but in actual use I did not need the backlight most of the time. The font size is pretty tiny but because the unit sits forward enough of the erector even with my presbyopia I was able to see the numbers fairly well looking up from the back of the scope. The display will auto adjust from horizontal to vertical left and vertical right which is pretty slick because you may decide to mount this on the side of your chassis rather than on top. Many will ask about delay from the time you click the range button to the time the solution is displayed on screen and I have not yet received an official number from Vortex but I can say there is more delay than my Vortex Razor 4000 GB monocular unit; however, I did not find the delay to be a hindrance because it was quick enough that by the time I clicked to the time it took to look up from behind the scope the solution was already displaying on screen.
The Impact 4000 comes with only one mounting solution for the unit itself - picatinny. To tighten to your rail are 1/2" driver nuts and Vortex even provides a nifty tool but I found this tool awkward to use, so attaching a 1/2" driver to my Fix-it stix was the best solution and Vortex does recommend you torque the nuts down to 45 in-lb each. I do wish Vortex had a QD lever option and maybe someone will come out with a QD kit down the road which I'd much prefer over the 1/2" nuts.
So you've got the unit out of the package and mounted to your diving board or chassis, now what? The unit MUST be aligned to your scope, if you do not follow this procedure you will find yourself lasing the wrong things constantly. There is a visible laser that can be activated which must be done both externally (see image above) as well as in the settings. I thought this laser would be visible enough to see through the scope at 100 yards but I was wrong, I could not pick it up no matter what finagling I did with the rifle position and POA, so I broke out the nifty reflective strips and dots and taped those to my target and found them to be surprisingly beneficial in figuring out where the visible laser was hitting. The adjustments for left/right and up/down of the visible laser (as well as the indexed IR laser used for ranging) is done by using a flathead screwdriver, there are no protective covers and there are no clicks, you just turn the dial and visibly watch the adjustment through your scope. The adjustments are very smooth but almost too easy, I worry they could somehow get bumped off even though they are inset, we'll have to see if this holds true over time.
There's an App for that... for both the Razor 4000 GB and the Impact 4000 GB Vortex is using a phone App called GeoBallistics, for those living under a rock, Vortex bought the GeoBallistics ballistic solver company a while back, so those who swear by Applied Ballistics may be disappointed; however, I have it on good authority that both GB and AB are in very close alignment so it is doubtful that anyone could ever accuse GB of missing a shot (though we usually love to blame missing a shot on almost everything but the dope behind the scope
). The App is decently laid out but could use some work for user friendliness; however, I will say that the ballistic solution page is one of the best I've seen with regard to ease of use and layout. I'll try to update this thread later with some additional images.
For range time I decided to head out to my local range (Element Training Complex) just outside of Holt Florida as they have a very nice 1000 yard range setup with multiple steel targets all over the place. I figured this would give me the best opportunity to put the Impact 4000 to the test. I also mounted the unit onto my LMT MWS using my 14" (pinned and welded for 16.1") 308 barrel, I figure the 308 AR-10 would give the Impact quite the beating from both recoil as well as the heavy BCG slamming back into battery. I must say, playing with the Impact 4000 brought a smile to my face as I lased, looked at solution, dialed and sent my shot downrange all very quickly - you've heard the term point and click, well this is the shooting communities version of point and shoot - it was that easy. Everything was going beautifully until the 600 yard range and when I went to lase the 800 yard target I was getting readings of over 1000 yards???? Oh no, did the Impact not actually take the impact my LMT was dishing out? It was the end of the day and the range was closing and so I decided to pack up and later test if mount came loose or anything like that. But on my drive home I figured out what happened. Can anyone else guess what happened (hint: it was user error - remember the dope behind the scope). Let me explain one more time, I lased the 600 yard target, dialed my solution, fired... then I lased the 800 yard target it instead of 800 it was over 1000??? Anyone? Some of you probably saw my error almost immediately. The WM LRF unit is calibrated to your scopes zero, and I failed to return to zero on my elevation, so when I centered on the next target my scope was around 5.5 mils off so my Impact 4000 was accurate but it was now pointing 5.5 mils above the 800 yard target which happened to be the berm behind at just over 1000. Lesson learned and hopefully I won't make that mistake again (well let's be honest, I probably will but this time I'll know exactly what I did wrong). So let my mistake help you and get it into your muscle memory to re-zero your elevation turret after each shot.
There's one other thing I'd like to touch on. The Vortex Impact 4000 GB is able to connect to other BT enabled devices like the Kestrel meter; however, it is a one way connection, meaning that the Kestrel can only send wind (optionally atmospherics as well) but the Impact 4000 does not send range, direction or angle of inclination data to the Kestrel. So for those of you who have Leica .com units or Sig Kilo units and prefer having the LRF unit send data to the Kestrel and allow the Kestrel to display the ballistics solution (if you have a ballistics version of the Kestrel) you will be disappointed. I do wish Vortex offered 2-way communication, as I do not like to be dependent upon my phone/app for external display. It's not the end of the world and simply my own personal bias but thought I would share that with you. During this range trip I did not have time to play around with Kestrel connection but will do that soon and let you know if I find anything different.
Outside of my own mistakes, I am really happy with this unit. Yes, I wish it was smaller and lighter, but if you really want smaller and lighter you can pay 2-3x as much for that. Being the first "affordable" WM LRF unit since the SC Radius and being able to range further (possibly more accurately) and have the benefit of built in ballistics and being able to update profiles easily through the app, along with the forever VIP warranty from Vortex I think this unit will prove to be a top seller for those needing or wanting a WM ranging solution.
I look forward to trying to get my first U2B channel up and running and providing some video insight as well as this initial writeup. If there is anything specific you'd like me to test or if you see any error in any of my testing above please let me know as I'm always looking to learn.
UPDATE 10/05/2023:
From Vortex about the different range options Normal/ELR: Normal is programed to get a solution as quickly as possible while still returning an accurate range on the majority of targets most users will be ranging. ELR is for longer range smaller targets. You will notice ELR will take longer to get a range. This is because the unit is sending many more laser pulses in ELR mode. It is different than best vs last in the Fury's.
UPDATE 12/01/2023:
Beam divergence = 0.2 x 2.0 MRAD, a 45° angle. The reason for the angle is so it can be both top and side mounted.
