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Rifle Scopes Vortex scopes must have an awful lot of problems

G

Gmountain

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Minuteman
Oct 17, 2013
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From what I read here, every time someone mentions a Vortex scope, they feel compelled to mention great customer service. That would lead one to conclude that they have had to use customer service. If that's the case, then while customer service may be great, the fact that everyone has to use it shows some real quality control issues.

Or are all those people just repeating what they heard on the internet and instead of saying that they have no real experience with Vortex customer service, just repeating it as though they know?
 
I have 8 Vortex products. Im yet to have any issues with any of them.

This is one of those things your damned if you do and damned if you don't.

Treat the customer after the purchase well enough that they feel like coming out publicly and praise you for your service, and some think "That's a great company" others think "They must have a lot of problems, because everyone raves about how well they treat you".

I guess the happy medium would be to treat the customer well enough that they are not completely pissed, but not good enough to want to sing your praises.
 
Well, you have two types of shooters, ones that have safe queens that never really push their equipment to the limits and ones that actually shoot and abuse their equipment. The ones who actually shoot buy, Leupys, S&B, NF and Vortex type scope equipment, I a pretty sure you will find the same comments on threads about these higher end scope talking about their CS. Its not that you will need but if you ever do you don't want any quibbling on a $1-3k scope repair and you don't want to wait months for it to be returned as most people don't have a lot of extra $1-3 k scopes laying around as back ups.

Oh an the chick at Vortex that answers the phone sounds hot and is friendly so it sticks ion these uber testosterone guys heads after they talk to her..
 
I did have a problem with a Vortex optic, in particular a Viper pst 6-24x50 scope... mounted it, took it to the range, sat down at the bench and set my magnification to what I wanted it to be. I then turned my side parallax know to focus my sight picture... nothing....the knob kept spinning and spinning with no adjustment. I called vortex and they next day aired me a box with shipping label, then next day aired me a brand new scope.... I was pretty pleased
 
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i have vortex products and do not by any means treat them to warm baths and walks on the beach. my razor has seen plenty of use and abuse for the past 2 yrs. at this point i am still very attached to this optic. i have not found a scope with a better reticle then the ebr-2. ymmv
 
I've wondered the same. I find it funny how they have a picture of a shooter / spotter team in their ads in magazines. I always think to myself "yeah right..those guys are not using Vortex stuff" lol

Edit. I don't know much about optics, but I'm trying to learn. I see now after reading for about an hour that they do make some pretty expensive stuff. While I don't think that military shooter / spotter teams would necessarily rely on them, it does look like they make some good products - for the price range.

When I made this post earlier this morning, the only optics I'd seen from them were the $100-$200 range stuff. I had no idea they had some $2k range pieces.

I apologize for making a generalized statement.
 
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it's the internet, so obviously everything you read is true...

I try to sift thru the BS and so far am very pleased with my PST, no matter what product there's always someone very loud on their soapbox...
 
I think they are a great scope for the money especially with the features you get for that price and at least if you have any type of problem you don't have to worry about spending more money to get your scope repaired.

I've been more of a Bushnell fan but mostly because of the Horus reticles and the 10y parallax on their 3-12.
 
I had an issue with my 4-16 PST. It seemed to have some sort of trash that would appear and disappear every few shots. Vortex sent me an overnight shipping label, rebuilt the scope and sent it back to me via overnight mail. I have yet to have any other issues with their products and now have a 6-24 PST as well. The 5-15 Midway special and the 2.5-10, I had no issues with either. Great products and in the event of an issues you will be taken care of!
 
I've had mine for a little over a year, cant say I've had any mechanical issues, tracking appears to be true. but I want to test it again sometime, maybe it's been two years.

The outside of the glass becomes slightly fuzzy at the highest mag setting, but I never use it anyways so it doesn't bother me.

For the money, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a better scope, I compared it to Leupold at the time and was underwhelmed buy the Leupold, which didn't appear as clear to me and didn't have half the features. Of course I was behind both enough at the time to make a great comparison, but I don't ever think "I should have gone with leupold"

I haven't had to use their CS.

Oh I had a 1-4 to, it may be one of my favorite scopes ever wish I would have kept it to throw on my 10/22 that thing was great.
 
Gmountain said:
From what I read here, every time someone mentions a Vortex scope, they feel compelled to mention great customer service. That would lead one to conclude that they have had to use customer service. If that's the case, then while customer service may be great, the fact that everyone has to use it shows some real quality control issues.
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You're making an assumption that customer service is used AFTER the sale. Scott Parks, the Vortex rep is a great guy and a great guy to talk to about scopes. If you're looking at Vortex and have questions, you can call Scott and ask. If you're wondering what makes Vortex better than their competition, you can call and ask. If you have a general scope question, Scott is a great resource. So customer service does not equal problems. It equals customer service and all in entails.
 
Vortex scopes aren't manna from heaven, but they do provide exceptional value at their price point. This explains their popularity (and there's nothing wrong with that), and their popularity isn't necessarily indicative of their Tier-Oneness (Razor notwithstanding).

While problems clearly exist, I kinda wonder if the quantity of stories about problems stems from the volume of scopes they sell relative to the competition.

I own two Vortex HS-T scopes. They aren't to the level of a HDMR but work fine for my purposes, leaving a substantial sum for reloading components, which means more rounds downrange, which means better skill and more hits.
 
Mike said:
You're making an assumption that customer service is used AFTER the sale. Scott Parks, the Vortex rep is a great guy and a great guy to talk to about scopes. If you're looking at Vortex and have questions, you can call Scott and ask. If you're wondering what makes Vortex better than their competition, you can call and ask. If you have a general scope question, Scott is a great resource. So customer service does not equal problems. It equals customer service and all in entails.
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No, I'm making an assumption that all these people are repeating stuff without actually having personal knowledge. For instance, if you've talked to Scott
Parks, great, you can tell your experience. But if other people have not talked to him, they can't say that and then they are just repeating what they have heard, but they have no personal knowledge about it. That's my point here. I'm sure Vortex is a fine scope, but based on all of the people talking about how great their customer service is, you would think it has a lot of problems. People should write about what they know, or at least qualify it by saying they "have no actual experience, but have heard..."
 
I don't think your logic completely applies. I have had a Razor for a few years, zero problems. I do not recommend the PST line to friends any longer. A while back I suggested a PST to an individual, on my recommendation he purchased one, the reticle rotated about 5 degrees when the magnification ring was turned. I recommend things in good faith, this one cost me my word, not going to happen again. I do still own and shoot PSTs, no problems with mine.
 
Gmountain said:
they are just repeating what they have heard, but they have no personal knowledge about it. That's my point here.
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I see your point. It looks like you called out Vortex specifically but that doesn't seem to be the case. Unfortunately, probably a majority of the advice given here is from "what I've heard" being passed off as personal experience.
 
Mike said:
I see your point. It looks like you called out Vortex specifically but that doesn't seem to be the case. Unfortunately, probably a majority of the advice given here is from "what I've heard" being passed off as personal experience.
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I'm not trying to single out Vortex, it just seems that I see it a lot with Vortex posts.
 
I had a problem with my viper pa scope and it was fixed quick. For the price and features I'll continue to buy them. Personally Im not gojng to put them on anything stouter than a 308 for PST and under line. I own 5 of their scopes and all of them have been great for the price. If you want to hammer nails with your scopes vortex isnt the brand to go with but for what 99% of the people on here use their rifles for they will fit the bill as long as youre not worried about having a gucci scope to show off to the other guys at the range. Ill take a cheaper great valur scope that allows me me trigger time so I dont end up like the guys with more money than brains who shoot 3" groups with their 6k rifle.
 
Seems like there is a lot of optics snobbery around here lately. Not everyone can afford Nightforce, S&B, Premier, or March. For those that can't the Vortex and SWFA branded scopes are good options. Everything beyond that, particularly the battlefield-reliability-pound-nails-zombie-attack scenarios, is just a bunch of dick pulling.
 
Gmountain said:
If that's the case, then while customer service may be great, the fact that everyone has to use it shows some real quality control issues.
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That idea is flawed. If having to use customer service on multiple occasions based upon something breaking from hard use then you better throw any number of manufacturers and vendors here in that pool since I've broken a ton of shit ranging from US Optics to Bushnell. And the second issue and most important is the fact that a lot of people don't mount their scopes properly to begin with but are quick to blame the scope manufacturer and not themselves because "I've been mounting scopes for 100+ years blah, blah, blah..." and that may be the case but like many things they've been probably doing it wrong for 100+ years but got lucky up to a point. I can't even count the number of scopes I've seen that people paid decent money and then turned around and put the glass in cheap rings on even cheaper bases.
 
Gmountain said:
I'm not trying to single out Vortex, it just seems that I see it a lot with Vortex posts.
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It's called a bandwagon and you jumped on it. Btw... that whole statement is contradictory.
 
I love my PST, but I'm poor and don't know any better. so.....

Sent from my LG-E980 using Tapatalk
 
I have owned no less than 7 different Vortex Optics scopes, spotters, and binos. Most of my rifles now have PST's on them, and I have never needed Vortex's warranty service. I shoot at temps over 100 F at high altitude, to -27 C at sea level, and even the plain Viper returns to zero after adjusting out to 800m.

I have broken an S&B PMII's Side Focus, and that was a warranty headache.

We had a guy who was attending our Precision Rifle Clinic up at BoomerShoot. The day before he left, he dropped his rifle, scope first, onto the cement and damaged the scope. Vortex next-day aired him a new one to the hotel so he would be able to attend the clinic and enjoy the annual event.

That's customer service.
 
I own 3 vortex scopes and have had 0 issues with them. They aren't safe queens either. I think they are AWESOME optics for the price and while I've never had to contact them about warranty issues I know it will be hassle from because I've heard nothing but great things about them. Even if I could afford a "nicer" more expensive optic I would probably stick with vortex. Any company that will stand by their product regardless of how it broke is awesome.
 
Ive just acquired a Vortex Viper PST 6-24x50 FFP and am very haoly with it. The price is pretty darn good at $1000 considering the features and quality of the glass. I plan on upgrading to the Razor HD and swapping this optic over to my .308 down the road next year sometime.

Bottomline, I never listen to the forum losers that talk crap for no reason other than being a douchebag. Those are usually the guys that get outshot by someone with "crappy" setups and they cant figure out why.

To each their own, as long as they get to shoot their gun and make noise and kill paper, let em do it and quit bashing.
 
Flea21 said:
Ive just acquired a Vortex Viper PST 6-24x50 FFP and am very haoly with it. The price is pretty darn good at $1000 considering the features and quality of the glass. I plan on upgrading to the Razor HD and swapping this optic over to my .308 down the road next year sometime.

Bottomline, I never listen to the forum losers that talk crap for no reason other than being a douchebag. Those are usually the guys that get outshot by someone with "crappy" setups and they cant figure out why.

To each their own, as long as they get to shoot their gun and make noise and kill paper, let em do it and quit bashing.
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So what you are saying is that because some people value true quality above price, they are douchebags and bashers, paper shooters and safe queens. Gotcha.
 
phreakmode said:
So what you are saying is that because some people value true quality above price, they are douchebags and bashers, paper shooters and safe queens. Gotcha.
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And somehow you managed to extract that extravagant little gem from his statement. They have a term for that... It's called a Freudian slip.
 
A liitle while back I posted about the Viper PST 1-4 I had convinced a friend to buy, and how disappointed I was that there was a black fleck on one of the internal lenses.
Several longstanding members gave me a bunch of crap about it; claimed that I was trolling (I have no agenda here, just relaying my experience), that I had should not expect more given the price point (a $500 optic, really... how much do I have to spend to get a product that has been properly assembled/inspected), etc. I guess I upset a Vortex owner or two.

I helped my friend sight in the rifle a few weeks ago. By then I had forgotten about the foreign object inside, and he didn't bring it up. He showed off the optic to a few other guys that were present, I sighted it in at 100 yards, and he ran a bunch of ammo through the rifle. The scope has a lot of features for the price point. I wasn't nuts about the resolution, but all I had to compare it with was a USO SR-8s, not really a fair comparison. I'm still recommending this scope to friends who are in the market for a full featured CQB to medium engagement gun sight. I know that if Mike ever wants to get it fixed, Vortex will take care of it.

I recently bought a demo Razor HD spotter from SWFA's samplelist.

It shipped with everything except the scope caps, and the price was right, so I didn't mind. I contacted Vortex and explained the situation; I full well expected to pay for the missing accessories but they wouldn't hear of it, and shipped me all the caps (lens covers, plug for the scope body eyepiece hole, etc.) for nothing, and fast.

The spotter is pretty damn good, too.

Very good products and great CS.

Joe
 
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People say S&B, USO and NF also have great customer service. Doesn't mean constant problems. You are making a great assumption which is wrong. That said if you did have a problem they do fix the problem promptly. I have had 3 5-20 Razors, a Razor II 1-6x and a Recon R/T and no problems.
 
_Broke_ said:
And somehow you managed to extract that extravagant little gem from his statement. They have a term for that... It's called a Freudian slip.
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I am not smart enough to understand, a Freudian slip has sexual connotations, I am failing to see that.
 
I have never had a single issue with any Vortex products that I have owned. The "ONLY" thing that I have found that I don't care for, is the 50 yard focal range for .22lr use.

DK
 
I've got a crossfire 4-12 on a 10/22 that rides in the back of my truck full time. I haven't re-zeroed in over two years since I put it on there... just pull it out to take care of a snake or dillo every now and then and put it back. Can't ask for a whole lot more than that IMO.
 
_Broke_ said:
Then you should work on your reading comprehension and cognitive reasoning abilities.
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Fantastic idea. While I improve those abilities, I suggest you improve your ability to participate in a technical discussion with meaningful input.
 
I had a pst and it shot fine. Tracked good and never gave me any problems. I bought it used here on the hide and when I decided to move up to better glass and was ready to sell it I noticed some debris on the inside of the lenses so shipped it to vortex and had it back good as new in a week.
When I was trying to decide which brand to go with when I upgraded this CS was one of the reasons I went back with vortex. I don't care what brand you buy stuff breaks. Or worse you break it. My thinking was during the shooting season if I broke my scope I could send it in and be back in the game in a week or two. I've heard repairs take longer with some of the other brands and most won't cover damage due to abuse. Vortex covers anything.
I now own two razors and couldn't be happier.

As far as the PST line I think they are great especially for their price point and I continue to see them outshoot more expensive scopes.
 
phreakmode said:
Fantastic idea. While I improve those abilities, I suggest you improve your ability to participate in a technical discussion with meaningful input.
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And of course your input has been both meaningful or even relevant... When you're done being a hypocrite feel free to pull your head out of your ass.
 
I'll chime in...I have used vortex customer service. I had a razor that brand new out of the box had some scratches on it. Cosmetic, wasn't a real big issue, but I called them up anyway just to see what they would say. Before I hung up the phone they had ups on the way within 4 hours to my house to pick up the scratched scope and a brand new one on my doorstep in 2 days. Scope has performed very well to say the least. Anytime I've had questions someone has always answered the phone or my emails, service related or just technical questions.

I have another high end scope that won't be mentioned but reaching customer service has not been easy to say the least. Just trying to get someone on the phone and not listening to advertising gets old after 3 or 4 phone calls.

I do appreciate the availability and reassurance that Vortex will be easy to get a hold of and is on the customers side. I don't expect to use their customer service for my razors unless I somehow run over it with my truck. Even then it will probably be ok.
 
I think it means you have 12 post now , you joined in oct. and start a controversial post to pad your cout. whats for sale gmountain? real original. lemme guess you wanna argue and rack up some more post
 
procovert45 said:
I think it means you have 12 post now , you joined in oct. and start a controversial post to pad your cout. whats for sale gmountain? real original. lemme guess you wanna argue and rack up some more post
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Ha! There ya go, I never thought about that people do that just to sell their garage sale crap! Youre Right!
 
procovert45 said:
I think it means you have 12 post now , you joined in oct. and start a controversial post to pad your cout. whats for sale gmountain? real original. lemme guess you wanna argue and rack up some more post
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What in the world are you talking about?
 
procovert45 said:
13
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You know, I posted a pretty straightforward question. Plenty of people took part in the discussion. You apparently can't deal with that.

Frankly, I don't understand you. If you don't want to play, go view another thread. Instead you want to come in here and demonstrate your mall ninjaness, which you have done with great aplomb, I grant you. Let's face facts though- you are a young kid, full of internet testosterone, and you are trying to show your internet chest thumping prowess. Enjoy yourself. Beats looking at comic books in your mom's basement. When you are ready to have a real discussion about internet behavior, feel free to come to the grown-ups table. Until then, go play in another sandbox.
 
14

you got me, im skeered. im going to go play video games....later, mom just brought some cheetos
 
_Broke_ said:
And of course your input has been both meaningful or even relevant... When you're done being a hypocrite feel free to pull your head out of your ass.
Click to expand...

Before both of you spun out...

phreakmode said:
I don't think your logic completely applies. I have had a Razor for a few years, zero problems. I do not recommend the PST line to friends any longer. A while back I suggested a PST to an individual, on my recommendation he purchased one, the reticle rotated about 5 degrees when the magnification ring was turned. I recommend things in good faith, this one cost me my word, not going to happen again. I do still own and shoot PSTs, no problems with mine.
Click to expand...
 
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