I have an older (first gen?) Vortex 1x Prismatic and I absolutely love it. I have to buy another one but unfortunately it looks like they don't make them anymore. They have been replaced by the new "AR Prism". So my question is:
Any one have one these new AR ones? How do you like it?
or more importantly ...
Any one have one of the new ones AND one of the older ones? How does it compare? Which one do you like more or which one do you think is better?
Thanks

OK so I needed another 1x prism for a new build and so since they don't make the old one anymore I decided to get the new AR one. I figured, after all, how much different could it be? The optic part of it has to be the same right? So what they they changed the mount and battery type, the glass and everything else that I like about the original version must still be the same ... right? Wrong, at least maybe.

Right off the bat I started to notice a few things:
They were "install marks" on the bottom of the sight where it looked like it had been installed and removed from a rifle already. But I thought hey, sometimes those are just manufacture marks right? I mean this is not a turnaround on a return or a refurb ... right?

It is nowhere near as bright as the older version. I thought maybe that was due to the different battery type so I tried to ignore it and make believe that it was OK.

Then I noticed that the AR reticle seemed smaller. So again I thought maybe they made it smaller for some reason and I tried to ignore that too.

But then I started to notice something worse. When I looked at things with both eyes open the magnification was wrong. Way wrong. With the old version it was almost perfect 0x. Both eyes open resulted in two almost identical images. But this new AR version resulted in 2 completely different size images. My first thought was that the scope view was probably slightly magnified. Sucks but I guess I wold have to deal with it. But as I looked closer I noticed no, it was exactly the opposite! The scope was reducing everything! It was like negative 1x. It was making everything farther away/smaller! Totally not cool. And this might account for why the reticle "appeared" smaller. Maybe it was not smaller but just being shrunken by the reverse magnification of the screwed up glass.

So now I am just starting to think that I must have gotten a bad one and this can't possibly be how the new AR version is supposed to be. My assumption is that it must be more like the old one than different at least eye wise, so I am going to finally (after 3 perfect Vortex scopes) test their warranty and try sending this one in to be replaced. Something has to be wrong with it.
Unless someone in here that has one tells me "no, that's is how the new ones are". Which would really really suck.

Does it have a diopter?  Sounds like it needs to be adjusted.

OK, forgive my ignorance but what is a diopter?
Do you mean the focus of the ocular lens so that the reticle is in focus? If so then yeah I did that but that did not change improve anything. Other than the focus of the reticle of course.

That is what its there for.

On a 1x scope adjusting that will actually change the perceived magnification.

I thought what it was there for was to focus the reticle?
So you are saying that the reticle focus ring (that is what Vortex calls it, not me) IS the diopter?
Again forgive me if I'm misunderstanding you because they say that that ring is for the purpose of getting the reticle to be in focus. It says nothing about using it for magnification. If as you say "that is what it is there for" then why would they call it a reticle focus ring?

And on my older version 1x and 3x prisms this does not happen.

I did some reading and I understand now what you're saying. The diopter is the focus setting (one and the same thing). I tried it all different ways and all different distances and still I think this one might be messed up in comparison to my others. I contacted Vortex and they are letting me send it in to see if it is messed up or if my eyes are Awfully nice of them I think. Hopefully they tell me that this one is indeed messed up because if it is fine and this is the way this is supposed to be then either this thing totally sucks in comparison to the older version or my eyes are way more screwed up than I think they are. We'll see.
Thanks for your input though. Forced me to go look some stuff up that I needed to know.

I have an AR version and think it is less than 1X as well.  I will have to look at it again after work and see if the ring changes the view.  I would like to know what Vortex says about your scope.   If you don't mind can you pm me with results? Thanks

I will do better than that. I will post back here with my results.

I mean I hate that they went to buttons instead of the dial; I prefer the dial. I don't like the new battery compartment that you can't reach. I prefer the old battery. If it ain't broke don't change it. But honestly those are all quibbles as long as the optic part of it stayed the same. My thoughts were that the optical part of it would probably be exactly the same as the old one. If it were then I could deal with all of the "improvements". But I get the feeling that the optics has changed somewhat.

But hey, I am jumping the gun here. Could be I just got a bad one. No one is perfect. I have 3 Vortex scopes and they are all perfect. I was bound to get a squib sooner or later. Maybe I just got one is all. Remember it is nowhere near as bright as my old ones either. Unless that is a result of switching to a different battery, it should not be like that and could be indicative of a problem.

Could also be that my eyes just suck worse than they can compensate for But if that were the case then I feel like it would be with my older ones too. I will let you know though.

A bit off the subject, but I suffer from the same eye problem and have been doing a search for an answer.
The Vortex Tube is OK, but I want more. So was looking at Leupold's LCO and ran across the DI Optical FC1.
Seems that the Military Chanel did a 20+ min. Youtube on it and was very favorable.
Yet I can find NO input about it on here.
ANYONE have input?

I have and like both, but the nod goes to the new AR version. I like the slimmer profile and the readily available battery.

BOTH let me see a nice crisp reticle with my crappy eyes.

I will watch that video thank you.
Vortex has my scope right now. Haven't heard from them yet but like me they were probably BBQing yesterday so I'll give them a few days to get the sauce off their fingers

Yeah I tried it every which way and if I got the reticle clear the target objects were tiny. If I got the target objects clear and proper size for both eyes open then the reticle was way fuzzy.
Now if I put on my glasses I could get both perfect but of course that defeats the purpose of a prism because I could use my glasses and a red dot is perfect too.
I was tending toward the scope being a bit off rather than user error mostly because my other Vortex prisms don't do that. They are the old style though. But if the new AR one has the same glass then it should be the same.

We'll see.

No knock on Vortex but I wish I cold see a PA Cyclops side by side with the Vortex AR. But few stores have a Vortex AR in stock to look at and fewer still have anything PA, let along the new Cyclops.
And, of course the Cyclops does not have green and the Vortex does. And sometimes I like green.

Just an update.
Got an email from Vortex stating that they checked out my scope and don't see anything wrong with it but just to make sure they are sending me a brand new one. On one hand I am happy to be getting a new one. On the other hand if I get the new one and it's the same then that means that it is my eyes. Or just that particular model I guess.
I'll report back when I get it.

Top notch customer service though. They could have told me to go crap in my hat but they did not. They could see that I would be happier if I got a new one and they stepped up. I am very happy regardless of the outcome.

Final report:
Got it back (thank you Vortex) mounted it and ran outside to look around. I have not had a chance to shoot it yet. Hopefully this week.

First impressions are that it looks slightly better than the first one. I think I might attribute this to the "oil change" phenomenon. You know, when your car feels like it is running better after an oil change. So I'm thinking that the slight improvement might be attributable to the fact that I "feel" better about it. But then again it might actually be just a tad bit better. These things can vary slightly I would assume.

Overall though it does seem to be the same. Either I can have the distant object in perfect focus or the reticle, but not both. At this point I am starting to think that my astigmatism must just be a pretty bad variety. With my glasses on it looks like the cats PJs. But without them I have to settle for a crisp target with a slightly fuzzy reticle or a fuzzy target with a crisp reticle. So I am setting it for a crisp target and slightly fuzzy reticle. That seems to be the best trade off.

The range report will really tell though. Overall I am as happy as I can possibly be. Many thanks to the people at Vortex for helping me to diagnose this. As politely as possible they helped me to figure out that my eyes are way messed up ... which I'm guessing the guy at Vortex wanted to tell me day one but didn't. I am sold on their customer service. Although they might not want to sell me anything else

Hey OP I just saw this post, yes I do have both old and new version of the Spitfire.  Image through the old version looked flat and no apparent "negative magnification" when adjusted to my eye (-5.75/+1.0), same for the old Leupold Prismatic.  However, the new AR Prism definitely has a "negative magnification" to it regardless of the diopter position.  I shot the SMM3G this year with the new one instead of the old version and was not too happy with the weird view, target arrays at 100 yds looked like they were at 150 yds, and the ones at 350 out to 500 yds, well...looked like they were quite further away than what my range finder shown.  Short range hosing stages didn't make any difference but long range stages were a bit weird with the left eye view different than right eye (through the optic) since I shoot w both eyes open.  Haven't thought about sending it in, not sure what Vortex can do about it but you just confirmed for me that new one isn't as good as the original version.

Note - I don't use illumination so didn't really care what button/battery the optic uses.

Yeah, right? I don't know what they changed but definitely something. Since I got the new one I played around with it all day (to the point where my arms are tired). And I have to say that the old versions I have don't seem to do this. With the new AR the only way to get everything in focus results in a reverse magnification effect.

But I have found that you can mitigate it somewhat.
1. Where you mount it. The old version doesn't seem to have the same effect so it seems to be less sensitive to mounting it back far, closer to the eye. The new AR seems to need to be closer to the eye.
The old version had one screw, the new AR has two screws. Since the screws go through pic rail slots this limits how far back you can mount the AR.

2. Adjust the focus on the target, not the reticle. As I said earlier, I can either get the target in focus or the reticle but I can't get both. I find that if I get the distant target in focus then with both eyes open everything looks beautiful. Clear, crisp and everything is the appropriate proportional size. It's like there is nothing there and the reticle is just floating in beautiful clear invisible glass. Of course the reticle is double image and slightly fuzzy.
But if I get the reticle clear and crisp then the target is slightly blurry but worse than that with both eyes open I see 2 separate images and they are different sizes.

When shooting I find that the slightly out of focus reticle doesn't matter much at close range. The generous size of the reticle allows you to put it in a close up target quickly and bang it fairly dead center. Far away targets I can play around with and get the center dot fairly crisp enough to make some pretty accurate shots if I take my time. I don't do a lot of distance shooting with this gun so distance is not a big deal for me. If it was I would get a different scope. With magnification probably.

Exactly what I don't have in competition, we're on the clock and no time to refocus this new Spitfire won't do. Since I use the dot for target hold over and hold over measurement, it needs to be sharp.  Make or break deal in 3-gun is usually the long range rifle stages. Going back to the Leupold until I can find something else.