I like this company and appreciate all the products vortex has came out with and their designing scopes around feedback from tact and LR shooters. about a month ago I sold an ar10 in 6.5 cm to a friend it had a viper pst 6-24 mrad sfp on it. I really liked this scope. About the same time I decided to try out a sightron s3 6-24 lr-moa2 tact. scope. The clarity and knob design was better on the pst i found out. This surprised me as I have 3 8-32 s3 and they are all extremely good in the color rendition and clarity. I traded that scope off to swfa for another viper pst6-24 sfp mrad. The day before it came in is when I sold the ar to my friend, he loved the scope also. Anyway, I mount up my new scope in tps tsr rings and notice that when the mag ring is rotated the reticle rotates with it also 5+ degreesin both directions. Never had a shot on it and it was a new scope.
I called vortex the next day and was treated very nicely, the customer service lady was shocked and transfered me to Scott or Sam. Can't remember which but visited with them for 10 minutes or so. When I got off the phone I felt reassured about my selection in optics manufacturers. So sure that I ordered another viper just like the first 2 from Euro optics with an AICS. Then my buddy calls, this scope has water droplets on the inside. Come to find out that they are only visible at 6x, never had the scope dialed down less then 12x, they are above the reticle. Did some research and appears it might be turret lube. I tell him no sweat, they are great to work with and they will have it cleared up in no time. I do not know if he has contacted vortex yet. I got my new scope from Eurooptics in and mounted up, guess what same reticle issue as the scope at vortex. Tig a pic rail to angle iron and put scope on it to lock down in a vise. the reticle would cant 1/2" at 100 yds measured from the 3mrad mark above and below the reticle. Nothiong like changing powers, adding 1/2moa accidently, using holdovers at LR.
I must mention that when I talked to the CS and Sam/Scott, wish I could remember, I told them exactly what was going on, nothing vague. Change power and reticle cants in the direction of the power change. I wrote this down on the repair sheet that was sent with scope. I received the first scope back, mounted up on my fixture and guess what same deal, canting reticle. That scope has been sold so some other person can deal with it. I did let them know about it and did take a good loss on it. I was treated nice by everyone but the scope was not repaired. The note that came with scope said reticle replaced and purged. I have 2 rifles that still sit here with no glass on ithem because I can't trust the reticle cant issues. I do have a bushnell HDMR G2DMR inbound tomorrow
Do you guys actually have a fixture to test this type of failure? I would think it would be good to have something like this to test scopes randomly. 2/3 of the viper pst 6-24 mrad sfp scopes I got had the reticle issue and the other had spots on the interior lenses. I don't really want to send this one back if it is just going to have the same problem when it gets back like the first canting reticle scope I sent in. I do not mean to sound like I am ripping on vortex I still have a hs4-16 that I like and is solid scope, probably is worth more then what you charge for them. I know the vortex fanboys will assualt me probably over this but oh well.