Bulldog0156
Well-known member
I just bought a vortex razor 11-33x50 spotter due to a darn good ebay deal. I did take it out to check the low light performance right after I got it, but overall I hadn't really had a good chance to get out and see how it performs until today. After buying a viper scope for my rifle this summer I was really looking forward to looking through the razor spotter. This morning I headed out to a spot where I've had good luck finding deer. It was about 10 degrees with a nice 15 mph breeze right in my face. I found a good group of deer and a nice spot to sit mostly out of the wind and got to work.
Through playing with the spotter a little at home I decided I wasn't really a fan of the fold-down eyecup, the twist up style is much more user friendly, especially if you wear glasses. Well, at 10 degrees, the fold down eyecup is really stiff and difficult to work. I had to take off my gloves to get the eyecup folded down, which isn't a huge deal, but still a bummer since the twist up style wouldn't be a problem. I am curious to see how the eyecup does over the long haul, I can see it stretching out if folded down for a long period of time.
Once I got the spotter situated, I was in business. The spotter is tiny and extremely light! At low power I found I was able to hold the spotter by hand and glass critters without shaking too much. I am by no means an expert on grading glass, but this spotter is nice! I decided on a packable size because I prefer to get away from the vehicle when I hunt, realizing I am going to loose some high power low light performance. Edge to edge clarity is very good, and focus adjustments are smooth and quick. I was able to operate the focus with gloves on without any problems. The power adjustment is smooth and easy to operate throughout its range as well. At full power, you can definitely tell the image dims (as expected), but the picture is still clear with no fuzziness. I did test its low-light capabilities last week after work and am satisfied that this spotter will perform up to the end of legal shooting light, and let's face it: If you need to use a spotter at the end of shooting light to judge a deer, you're not going to get to it anyways...
Time will tell, but so far I really like this spotter a lot. My only complaint is that it has a fold down eyecup instead of a twist up eyecup.
I was using a vortex summit ss tripod and think it's going to work very well paired with the compact razor. The tripod weighs a total of 1.8 pounds and can be adjusted down to a minimal height of just over 6" tall which will be awesome when it's necessary to spot from a prone position. I think this combo is going to work really well with a run and gun approach to finding critters.
Through playing with the spotter a little at home I decided I wasn't really a fan of the fold-down eyecup, the twist up style is much more user friendly, especially if you wear glasses. Well, at 10 degrees, the fold down eyecup is really stiff and difficult to work. I had to take off my gloves to get the eyecup folded down, which isn't a huge deal, but still a bummer since the twist up style wouldn't be a problem. I am curious to see how the eyecup does over the long haul, I can see it stretching out if folded down for a long period of time.
Once I got the spotter situated, I was in business. The spotter is tiny and extremely light! At low power I found I was able to hold the spotter by hand and glass critters without shaking too much. I am by no means an expert on grading glass, but this spotter is nice! I decided on a packable size because I prefer to get away from the vehicle when I hunt, realizing I am going to loose some high power low light performance. Edge to edge clarity is very good, and focus adjustments are smooth and quick. I was able to operate the focus with gloves on without any problems. The power adjustment is smooth and easy to operate throughout its range as well. At full power, you can definitely tell the image dims (as expected), but the picture is still clear with no fuzziness. I did test its low-light capabilities last week after work and am satisfied that this spotter will perform up to the end of legal shooting light, and let's face it: If you need to use a spotter at the end of shooting light to judge a deer, you're not going to get to it anyways...
Time will tell, but so far I really like this spotter a lot. My only complaint is that it has a fold down eyecup instead of a twist up eyecup.
I was using a vortex summit ss tripod and think it's going to work very well paired with the compact razor. The tripod weighs a total of 1.8 pounds and can be adjusted down to a minimal height of just over 6" tall which will be awesome when it's necessary to spot from a prone position. I think this combo is going to work really well with a run and gun approach to finding critters.
