In today’s article, Joe Woolley reviews the Vortex Razor HD 12×50 binoculars. How well do these optics work in the field to spot and identify game during a hunt? Woolley gives us his take.
How many of you like good war movies? I am willing to bet that many of us have dialogue memorized from classics like “The Longest Day”, “A Bridge Too Far” or “Saving Private Ryan”.
Have you watched “Band of Brothers” lately? There is a scene during the telling of Easy Company’s involvement in the Market Garden operation, and one part has one of the paratroopers warning a British tank commander about a German tank right around the corner.
Incredibly, after the commander learns about the danger, he immediately orders his tank forward. When questioned about this, he answers (paraphrasing here), “If I cawn’t see him, I cawn’t shoot him!” Good guys get blown up right after that.
But he brings up a good point. If we can’t identify something absolutely, we shouldn’t be shooting at it. While I sincerely doubt that too many of us are worried about a tank vs. tank engagement any time soon, there are any number of circumstances where we need to be absolutely sure of what we are about to shoot.
The first and, perhaps, most obvious need for Joe Citizen is going to be while hunting. Staying within local game laws and best management practices can require the precise identification of a target animal. Texas, for example, requires that the minimum size for a whitetail buck be an inside spread of the antlers at 13” or greater. A quick guideline is that the antlers will be as wide as their ears when spread flat.
I’ve seen any number of occasions when I needed good glass to verify I was shooting a legal animal. I’ve also talked to many friends who hunt on a lease where they target specific animals only. If they aren’t absolutely sure it is the right deer, they don’t shoot.
We had a situation on a cull hunt where the ranch manager wanted us to shoot 3 ½ year or older 9-point bucks. Since we wanted to be invited back on the next year’s hunt, we were very careful as we spotted potential targets.
The Right Tool
After a couple of challenging years watching for the right deer, I decided to upgrade my binoculars last fall. Current wisdom advises buying the best glass you can afford. That old “Buy Once, Cry Once” thing seems to hold pretty true.
As I did my research, I found the path leading back to a couple of my favorite brands, with Vortex getting the final nod. They pride themselves on having a quality product at just about every price point. What fit my budget best was a pair of the Razor HD 12×50’s with an MSRP of $1,600.
The feature list for these binoculars is impressive. The HD in the description stands not for “high definition,” but rather “high density.” Such HD glass can include various heavy metals that allow outstanding optical clarity in a lighter-weight package. These use index-matched lenses to correct color across the entire visual spectrum.
They have phase correction, which is a coating to help improve resolution and contrast. Then, they are coated with Armor-Tek to help prevent scratches. The exterior has a rubber-type coating to provide more protection and a secure grip.
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Vortex makes the Razor HD series in 8×42, 10×42, 10×50 and 12×50. I settled on the 12×50’s as I wanted to get my binoculars to perform two different jobs. Perhaps (perhaps not) a hair on the high end of the magnification range for deer hunting, they served me well on a West Texas hunt. There is a lot of open space there, and I was more worried about seeing animals coming in than trying to spot an ear or a nose in an East Texas forest.
I also used to at least pretend to be a PRS (Precision Rifle Series) shooter and always tried to help as a Range Officer when possible. One of the primary tasks of an RO is to spot hits on distant targets. Though we sometimes see spotters using binos with magnification in the 15 to 18x range, 12x is still very popular. I have a good Vortex Razor HD spotting scope (do we see a pattern here?) that I use for finding holes in targets out to 300 yards. We always use steel at the PRS matches with distances that only start at about 350 yards.
Binocular vision provides a more 3D view of the space and frequently allows us to see the trace, which is the disturbed air created by the passage of a bullet. When we see the trace, we stand a much better chance of knowing we have a hit or a miss. If we know where we miss, we can fix the next shot and get a second-round hit.
There are few better feelings in the shooting world than to fire a round at a 1,000-yard target just to hear the RO announce “impact!” when your shot connects with the steel. The binos, and the wider field of view, also make it easier for the Range Officer to transition from target to target if they are spotting for multiple target stages.
In Practice
My new 12×50’s are light weight at just under 29 oz., less than 7” tall and about 5” wide. I found them small enough to glass with extensively from the blind, yet still easy to carry. I also mounted the binoculars directly to one of their tripods with a pedestal. The stability was excellent.
Our hunt took place about a week before Christmas. Ridiculous, even for West Texas, we were dressed in t-shirts for most of the trip. The big does seemed to be hiding, but smaller does and a number of bucks were out.
The Vortex Razor HD’s provided a substantial improvement in my ability to judge deer over the binoculars I retired. With them, I was able to pick a 9-point shooter out of the herd when I would have needed to let the smaller 8-point or a larger 10-point go. Those were the rules.
The combination of the Vortex Razor HD 12×50’s and a trim Springfield Armory Redline in 6.5 CM netted me three deer on that cull hunt. The freezer is full, my wife is happy, and life is good.
Check out the Vortex line. I am willing to bet they have one for your budget.
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