BigDMT
I recently found out that I drew a mule deer permit in a trophy area of Montana. I have been putting in for about 6 years in that unit and finally drew it 
It's only about a 5% success rate due to only 50 permits being issued each year.
In light of this great news, I knew I had to upgrade my spotting scope optics. I have been reading reviews left and right. One guy thinks this is better, one guy thinks that's better, other guys think this and that scope are equal...Oh my god! So I went to a sporting goods store to see for myself.
Being that I wanted something more compact for hiking with a backpack I was looking for a 65mm scope. I had been debating between the Vortex Razor HD Angled 16-48X65 spotter and the Swarovski HD ATS 20-60X65 spotter. The Vortex of course is only $1199 which is close to half the price of the $2200 Swarovski. So now it came down to the real test where I finally had both of them side by side. I want an angled body scope, but the two models I had available for review were straight body scopes.
First with the Razor I zoomed in to view a "Goodyear" sign on a tire shop about a half a mile away. WOW! Absolutely crystal clear edge to edge on all powers with excellent color reproduction and razor sharp detail. The dual focus wheels made focusing a breeze and offered a large window for clarity when turning the fine focus. Meaning it was easy to be a little "off" of perfect focus adjustment and still have a very clear usable picture with great detail.
Next up was the Swarovski HD unit. I zoomed her in on the same sign. WOW! just as clear and color just as nice, but really not any better from what I could tell with my eyes. pretty much exactly equal. I then turned the scope up to it's max power of 60X and that's when I was kind of disappointed. The focus was VERY touchy and the slightest adjustment too far in one direction or the other and the picture went to complete fuzz. This was apparent until I turned it below 50X. Very small window for focusing. On 60X, the picture also appeared a bit darker than lower powers with the color reproduction and detail not being quite as sharp. Still a very impressive picture for a 65mm scope, but I think the 60X magnification was a little much for the 65mm objective to handle. So I turned it down to approximately 48X to match apples to apples with the Razor and noticed that it still had a smaller focusing window than the Razor HD scope, although the picture was just as clear and sharp now.
Then I pointed them both to view the underside of a dark blue colored umbrella covering a patio table that was slightly tipped up. This was to test their ability to eat away shadows and show detail in a dark area.
The Swarovski ate the shadows away to show fine detail with no trouble in this test up to about 55X, but past that, the focusing and ever so slightly darker image became an issue again. At 48X power with keeping all things equal again, the Swaro performed with flying colors.
Then the Razor. Very nice indeed! Ate up the shadows easily and showed fine detail of the supporting poles underneath the canopy. I will admit that the Swaro, on the same power settings as the Razor, did give a very slight advantage to detail in the shadows, but I mean VERY SLIGHT. I had to look through them both multiple times to verify the minute advantage of the Swarovski HD.
Both had equally comfortable eye relief with their very large eyepieces.
Both have awesome customer service with no fault lifetime warranties, so equal there as well.
I personally liked the Razor more. Mainly because of the dual focus wheels. I loved how easy the Razor made it to focus in quickly on objects at all different ranges at any power level with a larger "sweet spot" using the fine focus wheel. The Swaro was very nice, but it just isn't what I expected at full magnification. I would expect a scope costing nearly $2200 to give top performance on all magnification levels. So I don't want a scope that I wouldn't want to use on all power levels. I'm sure the Swarovski 65 HD would perform much better with their renowned 20X-50X wide angle eyepiece, but that was not available to me at the time.
In conclusion, it was give and take, but I picked the Razor as the winner. The Razor performed flawlessly at all magnifications, focusing was a breeze, and low light area details were easily distinguished with excellent clarity. The Swaro held it's own very well in those aspects, but lacked a bit on it's highest power levels. The Swaro had a very very slight advantage in the shadows, but most definitely not an advantage worth paying an extra $1000 to have. Like I said, that shadow advantage was so slight that I wasn't even sure if I was actually seeing it and had to check and re-check several times to make sure. So if you're in the market for a compact pack scope, the new Razor HD 65mm scope is definitely a contender to run with the Alpha glass, but for a lot less money
It's only about a 5% success rate due to only 50 permits being issued each year. In light of this great news, I knew I had to upgrade my spotting scope optics. I have been reading reviews left and right. One guy thinks this is better, one guy thinks that's better, other guys think this and that scope are equal...Oh my god! So I went to a sporting goods store to see for myself.
Being that I wanted something more compact for hiking with a backpack I was looking for a 65mm scope. I had been debating between the Vortex Razor HD Angled 16-48X65 spotter and the Swarovski HD ATS 20-60X65 spotter. The Vortex of course is only $1199 which is close to half the price of the $2200 Swarovski. So now it came down to the real test where I finally had both of them side by side. I want an angled body scope, but the two models I had available for review were straight body scopes.
First with the Razor I zoomed in to view a "Goodyear" sign on a tire shop about a half a mile away. WOW! Absolutely crystal clear edge to edge on all powers with excellent color reproduction and razor sharp detail. The dual focus wheels made focusing a breeze and offered a large window for clarity when turning the fine focus. Meaning it was easy to be a little "off" of perfect focus adjustment and still have a very clear usable picture with great detail.
Next up was the Swarovski HD unit. I zoomed her in on the same sign. WOW! just as clear and color just as nice, but really not any better from what I could tell with my eyes. pretty much exactly equal. I then turned the scope up to it's max power of 60X and that's when I was kind of disappointed. The focus was VERY touchy and the slightest adjustment too far in one direction or the other and the picture went to complete fuzz. This was apparent until I turned it below 50X. Very small window for focusing. On 60X, the picture also appeared a bit darker than lower powers with the color reproduction and detail not being quite as sharp. Still a very impressive picture for a 65mm scope, but I think the 60X magnification was a little much for the 65mm objective to handle. So I turned it down to approximately 48X to match apples to apples with the Razor and noticed that it still had a smaller focusing window than the Razor HD scope, although the picture was just as clear and sharp now.
Then I pointed them both to view the underside of a dark blue colored umbrella covering a patio table that was slightly tipped up. This was to test their ability to eat away shadows and show detail in a dark area.
The Swarovski ate the shadows away to show fine detail with no trouble in this test up to about 55X, but past that, the focusing and ever so slightly darker image became an issue again. At 48X power with keeping all things equal again, the Swaro performed with flying colors.
Then the Razor. Very nice indeed! Ate up the shadows easily and showed fine detail of the supporting poles underneath the canopy. I will admit that the Swaro, on the same power settings as the Razor, did give a very slight advantage to detail in the shadows, but I mean VERY SLIGHT. I had to look through them both multiple times to verify the minute advantage of the Swarovski HD.
Both had equally comfortable eye relief with their very large eyepieces.
Both have awesome customer service with no fault lifetime warranties, so equal there as well.
I personally liked the Razor more. Mainly because of the dual focus wheels. I loved how easy the Razor made it to focus in quickly on objects at all different ranges at any power level with a larger "sweet spot" using the fine focus wheel. The Swaro was very nice, but it just isn't what I expected at full magnification. I would expect a scope costing nearly $2200 to give top performance on all magnification levels. So I don't want a scope that I wouldn't want to use on all power levels. I'm sure the Swarovski 65 HD would perform much better with their renowned 20X-50X wide angle eyepiece, but that was not available to me at the time.
In conclusion, it was give and take, but I picked the Razor as the winner. The Razor performed flawlessly at all magnifications, focusing was a breeze, and low light area details were easily distinguished with excellent clarity. The Swaro held it's own very well in those aspects, but lacked a bit on it's highest power levels. The Swaro had a very very slight advantage in the shadows, but most definitely not an advantage worth paying an extra $1000 to have. Like I said, that shadow advantage was so slight that I wasn't even sure if I was actually seeing it and had to check and re-check several times to make sure. So if you're in the market for a compact pack scope, the new Razor HD 65mm scope is definitely a contender to run with the Alpha glass, but for a lot less money
