I looked at a bunch of mid range rifle scope before I decided to give this one a try. It had all the features I was looking for such as a range finding illuminated reticle, rugged build, nitrogen purged body, fully coated optics, and backed by what I’ve heard to be an excellent customer service (hopefully I will never have to use it).
By the way, I didn’t include all the specs of the Vortex Viper PST 1-4×24 because that info is everywhere on the internet. My goal here was simply to share my opinions about the scope after handling it for a few days.
Let’s start with the box. The left side of the label illustrates the Vortex Viper PST 1-4×24 MRAD reticle, magnification, and lens size. The MRAD illuminated refers to the illuminated mil-radian based reticle, a very nice feature to have for estimating range.
The box. Nothing fancy: just a nice, sturdy box. I picked it up at a local store for $499.99. A fair price.
I also picked up a set of these Leupold quick release rings along with the scope. I know, some of you guru’s are saying, that’s not going to work. Well, you’re right, but more on that later.
The scope comes with (1) owner’s manual, (1) MRAD user guide, (1) cleaning cloth, and (1) accessory pack containing a battery, brass shims, and allen key.
View as seen from the front. Because it’s a low magnification scope, it doesn’t have the traditional bell shape at the front of the scope.
It appears that Vortex now ships this scope with a bikini style lens cover. I have nothing against the free lens cover since I always change it out with a Butler Creek flip cover.
I’m not a machinist, but from what I can see, the machining is nice. Notice the adjustments are in mils and clearly indicated on the turret heads. I noticed that the windage dial does not have the red fiber optic indicator likje the elevation dial. Not a big deal, just pay attention to the numerical markings if you’re dialing wind.
Elevation and windage dials DO move up and down as the scope is adjusted and is clearly marked, making it easy to see. Cheaper scopes, like the MILLET DMS-1, do not have this feature which I feel is critical. The elevation turret does have a red fiber optic indicator, clearly showing one full rotation for those huge changes. It’s one of those nice to have features that I, personally, rarely use.
Left side of the elevation turret. Notice the attention to detail that usually separates good scopes from the bad ones. I know it seems minor, but a company that is willing to spend the extra time and money for these details is more likely to not skimp on more critical areas.
The illumination dial is variable from 1-10. Notice how there are dots between the numbers? These are off positions, making it easy to go from, say the 7 setting straight to off. That way you don’t have to dial all the way down / up every time you turn the illumination on. The illumination itself was pretty interesting as well. Intensity settings 1-4 is designed to be used with NVDs and is not visible with the naked eye. From 5 on, the four (4) arches of the reticle lights up nicely almost forming a circle. This was probably designed for CQB application, since the milling reticle itself doesn’t light up at all. Also, the picture below shows the top of the illumination dial which is the battery compartment. You see the coin slot? You really need to use one when taking this cap off. The tolerances are so tight and it’s sealed with an O-ring. Another show of high quality.
Just to the picture left (real life front) of the illumination dial, you will find the magnification ring. Notice the nice knurling on the magnification ring, which turns very nicely with a nice amount of dampening. Not too easily, but consistently with a good amount of resistance.
Again, nice machining or casting on the power setting. Various points of the magnification are marked by raised tabs on the magnification dial.
The label that has so many folks disturbed. Yes, the scope clearly states “Made in Philippines.” From what I see so far, the quality of the build (from what I can tell without shooting it) is on par with my Leupold. The turrets feel different on the Vortex than on my Leupold. Less of a click, but still very positive, on the Vortex (my Leupold is about twenty years old and still holding strong). As for the reticle, it’s alittle hard to see. I have read elsewhere that if you have good vision it shouldn’t be a problem. Well, for me, the problem isn’t that I can’t see the reticle because I can. I just find it extremely hard to read the scale because it’s so fine! The reticle is so fine that you can easily reference targets out to 800m or so, but you can forget about counting tick marks.
It’s hard to tell in the picture because it’s a totally still image. But when your sitting behind the rifle, even from a supported position, there is no way to read and count those fine lines. For this reason, I prefer plain old the mil-dots.
I have also read somewhere that the illuminated reticle is not visible in bright day light. Could be true on a bright sunny day in the desert, but as you can see in the pictures below, it is visible (and very usable).
The reticle with illumination turned on at the 7 setting. The scope is facing into the sun, pointed at the shaded side of a bush, approximately 8 meters away.
Pointing at a small palm tree in full sun with the illumination set at full power. As you can see, the reticle is clearly visible even against a reddish background. Also, notice how bright the optics are. I observed very little light falloff. In other words, there was really no discernible difference (in terms of darkening) between what you see with the naked eye vs what you see through the scope. Great optical quality.
Conclusion: Is the Vortex Viper PST 1-4×24 worth the money? Hell yes. It’s a high quality scope that you can see and feel. I like the illumination and the dial that controls it. Unfortunately, I decided not to keep it. Using the Vortex Viper PST 1-4×24 for two days milling things out around my neighborhood, I decided it was going back. The reticle was just too fine for my liking. Even at 1x magnification, I found it slightly difficult to quickly get on target. For me, if the reticle was just a hair thicker, this scope would definitely have been the clear winner. I wish I had better eyes or Vortex made the reticles a hair thicker. I really wanted this scope to work for me.
RE scope mounts: Well, the mount does allow the scope to be fitted onto the AR nicely, however, I have the MagPul flip up rear sights and with this particular mount, the scope sits too low. Infact, about 15% of the view through the scope is blacked out. It ended up not mattering anyway because I ended up returning the scope.
Anyway, I hope this helped. If your in the market for a close to mid range scope and don’t have perfect eyesight, you may want to consider a different scope. Spoiler alert: I ended up putting the Vortex Eagle Strike on my AR and it’s worked out beautifully and I saved a few bucks in the process.
Cheers / John
