Rifle Scopes Revisiting drop testing

Ultimately I keep hearing from multiple people I trust that nightforce is an out the only one doing harsh side impact testing and that they retain zero extremely well. Vortex is famous for not.
Well in my testing of equal level quality scopes of Nightforce and Vortex suggests both handle all impact well. So much is blamed on equipment without really good testing

I have been testing scopes for various companies since the late 1990’s. I don’t consider myself an expert but have a lot of user experience behind me

I reached out to high level contact at Vortex and asked. His reply was Vortex tests for impact from all directions. Plus Vortex scopes are also air gun rated. I believe Nightforce are also air gun rated

Seems your information is incorrect
 
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On the scopes. I mostly use the sniper type or target scopes these days so my impact testing is geared toward the heavy duty scopes

The only Vortex scopes I have tested of true hunting type are three of the Razor LHT FFP and one of the SFP scopes. Those scopes are doing well but sample size is obviously small

The Razor gen 2 and Gen 3 are tough as rocks and no shift in many many tests

Also I don’t do any TxE for Vortex or Nightforce these days. Just an Instructor and end user
 
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Well in my testing of equal level quality scopes of Nightforce and Vortex suggests both handle all impact well. So much is blamed on equipment without really good testing

I have been testing scopes for various companies since the late 1990’s. I don’t consider myself an expert but have a lot of user experience behind me

I reached out to high level contact at Vortex and asked. His reply was Vortex tests for impact from all directions. Plus Vortex scopes are also air gun rated. I believe Nightforce are also air gun rated

Seems your information is incorrect
Birddog said in thread all the burris scopes were airgun rates also.

Can you speak to the nature of the diffrence. I have read it is that they glue the lens to their fixture front and rear for air gun rated scopes, and they only put glue on one side before that.
 
Forgive my old brain but let’s try. It was explained to me twenty plus years ago
Basically they use a seal front and rear on the lenses for air gun rated. This also helps with all impacts. The seal is more than just a dab of glue and different companies use different methods

I believe it was Jeff Huber that explained it to
Me back when he ran Nightforce. He was a master of testing scopes. I believe it was a combo
Of synthetic seal and epoxy but not 100 percent sure on that
 
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This nonsense coming up somehow and I do not know in how many different ways I can say it.

ALL riflescope manufacturers that do any sort of testing in house, when getting the designs developed and approved for production, do a broad range of impact testing, including side impact. If there are issues with the design, that's where you find it.

Nightforce does. Vortex does. March does. Etc. Depending on the resources, they do it differently. Some have fancy two axis vibration tables. Some hammer them with a mallet. Some developed internal drop test machines where a scope mount is attached to a weight in different orientations and the whole things drops down from a few feet up (they do this stuff after hours because the whole factory vibrates).

This whole nonsense of apparently only Nightforce knowing the deep geometric secret of looking at a scope from different angles is just silly.

ILya
 
This nonsense coming up somehow and I do not know in how many different ways I can say it.

ALL riflescope manufacturers that do any sort of testing in house, when getting the designs developed and approved for production, do a broad range of impact testing, including side impact. If there are issues with the design, that's where you find it.

Nightforce does. Vortex does. March does. Etc. Depending on the resources, they do it differently. Some have fancy two axis vibration tables. Some hammer them with a mallet. Some developed internal drop test machines where a scope mount is attached to a weight in different orientations and the whole things drops down from a few feet up (they do this stuff after hours because the whole factory vibrates).

This whole nonsense of apparently only Nightforce knowing the deep geometric secret of looking at a scope from different angles is just silly.

ILya
Thank you. I appreciate it
 
This nonsense coming up somehow and I do not know in how many different ways I can say it.

ALL riflescope manufacturers that do any sort of testing in house, when getting the designs developed and approved for production, do a broad range of impact testing, including side impact. If there are issues with the design, that's where you find it.

Nightforce does. Vortex does. March does. Etc. Depending on the resources, they do it differently. Some have fancy two axis vibration tables. Some hammer them with a mallet. Some developed internal drop test machines where a scope mount is attached to a weight in different orientations and the whole things drops down from a few feet up (they do this stuff after hours because the whole factory vibrates).

This whole nonsense of apparently only Nightforce knowing the deep geometric secret of looking at a scope from different angles is just silly.

ILya
A lot of companies don't have equipment that can approximate some recoil profiles, such as the scar17. Steiner for example just goes out and shoots them, lol!

Also yes, many test to low side impact, 175gs or so.

Back in the day, the nxs1-4 was the only lpvo scope tested that withstood significant side impact, and Jeff Huber used this experience when bringing the Kahles k16i line to America.

As to March, not a fan. When or if they break, has to go back to Japan. And they do. Vortex? Not a fan. Plenty of posts on why regarding zero retention, etc. They seem to fare poorly in drop tests also. I do t have an opinion on the new 3rd gen 1-10, though, yet.

Leupold? Theyre not bad, but I've not kept up with them. They do allow 3% reticle cant last i checked though, which is pretty gnarly.
 
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Forgive my old brain but let’s try. It was explained to me twenty plus years ago
Basically they use a seal front and rear on the lenses for air gun rated. This also helps with all impacts. The seal is more than just a dab of glue and different companies use different methods

I believe it was Jeff Huber that explained it to
Me back when he ran Nightforce. He was a master of testing scopes. I believe it was a combo
Of synthetic seal and epoxy but not 100 percent sure on that
Jeff has a passion for scopes and scope design. Does anyone know if he is still with Kahles?
 
Well in my testing of equal level quality scopes of Nightforce and Vortex suggests both handle all impact well. So much is blamed on equipment without really good testing

I have been testing scopes for various companies since the late 1990’s. I don’t consider myself an expert but have a lot of user experience behind me

I reached out to high level contact at Vortex and asked. His reply was Vortex tests for impact from all directions. Plus Vortex scopes are also air gun rated. I believe Nightforce are also air gun rated

Seems your information is incorrect

Tested how?
 
On the scopes. I mostly use the sniper type or target scopes these days so my impact testing is geared toward the heavy duty scopes

The only Vortex scopes I have tested of true hunting type are three of the Razor LHT FFP and one of the SFP scopes. Those scopes are doing well but sample size is obviously small

The Razor gen 2 and Gen 3 are tough as rocks and no shift in many many tests

Also I don’t do any TxE for Vortex or Nightforce these days. Just an Instructor and end user
I wonder about the Vortex Razor HD2. Some people love them, some hate them. I know instructors who have found they won't hold a zero after 3k rounds or so. Small wander, like 0.2mrad. Yet some people like yourself like them. I never owned one, just had friends who did. One of them broke (image blurred bad randomly, couldnt be refocused), and he sold it after they replaced it. May be batch to batch variance for all I know. Also Im unsure if they revised the glue for their fiber optic in the 2. I have not heard of an hd3 1-10 having issues yet. I hope they drop the amg 1-10 commercially soon as Id like to check it out. Its polarizing apparently. Some people rave about how good it is optically and other people view it as a definite step down from the current civvi 1-10.
 
My testing is what I have done for twenty plus years and passed and failed about an equal number of scopes from various manufacturers Not writing it all out

The AMG 1-10 is in my opinion the best 1-10 made. I have several 1-10 Razors which are very good but the AMG is my favorite
 
A lot of companies don't have equipment that can approximate some recoil profiles, such as the scar17. Steiner for example just goes out and shoots them, lol!

Also yes, many test to low side impact, 175gs or so.

Back in the day, the nxs1-4 was the only lpvo scope tested that withstood significant side impact, and Jeff Huber used this experience when bringing the Kahles k16i line to America.

As to March, not a fan. When or if they break, has to go back to Japan. And they do. Vortex? Not a fan. Plenty of posts on why regarding zero retention, etc. They seem to fare poorly in drop tests also. I do t have an opinion on the new 3rd gen 1-10, though, yet.

Leupold? Theyre not bad, but I've not kept up with them. They do allow 3% reticle cant last i checked though, which is pretty gnarly.
With the SCAR17, just about everyone goes and shoots them whether they can replicate the profile or not. That's just a weird gun. Everyone goes and shoots stuff in addition to laboratory testing, whether it is a SCAR or some ultralight 300WSM boltgun.

Razor Gen3 1-10x is not a fiber optic illuminator.
The gluing technique for the fiber on the RG2 LPVO was revised at some point by LOW (probably more than once).

Back in the day of the 1-4x NXS, Nightforce was instrumental in working with LOW to figure out how to make scopes reliable. The entire industry benefitted from that. That was a couple of decades ago. It is a different world now.

The rest is just bullcrap that has been addressed previously ad nauseum.

ILya