Vortex Binos - Viper HD or Razor HD

[j_schooten]

I'm in the market for a new set of binos. I am set on Vortex mainly because I have a spotting scope and rifle scope of theirs and I love them. Also the warranty is second to none. However, I'm stuck on whether to go with the Viper HD and save some cash or go with the Razor HD for an upgrade in price.

Any thoughts? appreciate some feedback to make my decision a little easier

Thanks

[spoiledsaskhunter]

I'm really happy with my vipers but there must be some reason for spending the extra money......I've never looked through the razors

[dukla]

I would love to be able to afford a set of Razor, having said that I have used my buddy's Viper HD and they re pretty decent as well. Would love to do a side by side comparison.

[Jjolg123]

I suppose it depends no your style of hunting. Myself id say 70% of it is spent behind optics. If your investing into hunting id put the most of what i spend into Bino's. As for the difference, will you be able to tell, probably not unless you look through better glass.

I had the razor at one point when they were cheaper and they were pretty good. When i purchased them i went through a few different vortex options and they were night and day above any of there other products.

[covey ridge]

I bought the Viper and really like them but one would have to be blind not to notice that the Razor is superior.

If I had to do it over again I would buy the Viper because there are many other things out there I would buy instead of the best binocs on the market.

[Bganz]

I'm a huge fan of my vipers as well. I'm no expert, but when looking through my uncles Razors compared to mine, it wasn't revolutionary to me anyways. Definitely lots of other things I'd spend the extra money on. From the research I dug up when I was searching the Viper HDs are some of the best glass you can get for the money and comes with the great warranty.

[brewster29]

I spend hours glassing and need top quality clarity.
I did not like my viper 10x42 HD binocs very much. I found I was always trying to focus them to get a sharp image- which I never was satisfied with.
I splurged on Swarovskis even though I thought the Razors were about as good optically. You won't regret the best binocs. Buy one, cry once.

[406gto]

If get chance although sometimes hard to do, usually only at private Sporting Store's, do a comparison, Leica, Kowa, Swavorski, Ziess yes more expensive but if already touching $2300-2400 on an Optic better off to wait and apply another $1-1500.00 and never Look Back, there is a reason above Optic's are where they are for Glass, and All of them have the Lifetime warranty, they dont Ship there Glass to other Countries to Build & Assemble, these are Optics you can hand down once the time come's. I too have had some Optic's from differant Manufacture's including the Vortex company, there Scope's, Spotting Scope's, Bino's ARE NOT CONSISTANT, there Nice but they are Not even close to above mentioned. Just my opinion

[3blade]

I have the viper hd 8x40s. For my purposes, which is glassing within 400 yards and usually half that, the majority of the time they work well. Now if you hunt mostly mountains or wide open prairie where you are spending a lot of your time behind glass, it's worth the extra cash to go top of the line swaro, Zeiss, etc. with optics you definitely get what you pay for.

[RUM]

I've had the Razor 10x42s since 2012, and been quite happy with them. Can't give you a direct comparison to the Viper, but logged a lot of hours behind them over the years and no complaints with the glass quality. I sent them back for some minor warranty, the rubber armour was lifting on a couple corners. This was handled quickly and they even threw on some new lens covers since I was missing one that was stripped off in some devils club along with my flesh!

Are they the same quality as my buddies Leica or Swarovski I've looked through, nope, but they are also about $1K less which is nothing to sneeze at and I don't feel they are $1K behind in quality.

[Bearbreath]

I have compared both those binos, but don't own either. The razors were sharper for sure. If your in the mountains glassing sheep all day the extra clarity of the razors would be nice.

I had the viper spotter for a bit and upgraded to the razor. Huge difference there.