Vortex Diamondback 4-12x40 AO

[JLB]

As above, ladies & gents.

Recently purchased from 'Riflecraft'. Start with the box, pretty thin cardboard which already looked quite dog eared when it arrived, very little in the way of shock absorbing material inside just two pieces of styrofoam sat in the bottom, nothing to encompass the scope in transit along with the usual plastic bag & silica gel sachet. Out of the box the scope is very well finished, kinda grey/black in colour. Parallax adjustment ring turns smoothly, focuses on full mag (tested) down to 12 yards for my eyes. Mag ring feels a little rough at the moment but I'm hoping it will smooth up with more use. Depth of field is quite poor for hunting, which I bought this scope for, and you have to adjust the parallax quite a lot to keep things in focus above 8 mag, this is not necessarily a bad thing as it could be used as a rough rangefinder to some degree. Adjustment clicks are really quite mushy for want of a better word, which doesn't instill confidence in the ability to hold zero, especially if you intend to dial your points of impact (I don't) & so far it has been fine in that respect. The 'Glass' is good for the money, put up against a few scopes I have at my disposal it is brighter than an old school Bushnell Trophy, but not quite as bright as a Burris Fullfield II, it does have a better field of view than both of those though. The BDC reticle is very reminiscent of the Hawke MAP reticle, but I would suggest not much good for anything less than .223 given the sub tensions between aim points are quite large. Would I buy another one ? Jury's out on that one due to the mushy adjustment clicks, glass wise it is really close to the Fullfield II in performance for less money, time will tell I guess as to how reliable it will be, but with a lifetime warranty it's probably worth giving one a go.

John