Vortex Red Dots And Magnifiers
The Aimpoint T-1 is the optic of choice for many Law Enforcement agencies and is taking an increasing hold on the World’s militaries. However, not everyone can afford its high price tag. Quality optics manufacturer Vortex presumably saw the hole in the market and came up with a near clone of the T-1 at a huge reduction in price. The Vortex SPARC is visually very similar to the Aimpoint T-1 and shares its parallax free operation beyond 50 meters. Amazingly, $199 not only gets you the sight but also a mount to fit Weaver and Picatinny mounts with two height adapters to enable either absolute or lower 1:3 cowitnessing on the AR15 platform. VORTEX even throw in a 2X magnifier, although this is of limited utility. The whole unit is ultra rugged and features a choice of red or green 2 MoA aiming point with multi-coated lenses. It is water, fog and shock proof. The trade-off is battery life. Two CR2032 batteries give 120 hours of continuous operation, so you can’t leave the unit switched on indefinitely as you can with the Aimpoint T-1.
Not content to come up with a T-1 clone, they also make an Aimpoint M2 and M3 lookalike in the form of their VORTEX Strikefire red dot sight. Using the familiar 30mm tube format the Strikefire has the same multi coated lenses and water, fog and shock proofing via o-rings. It comes with a single 30mm Weaver or Picatinny mount, flip ups and 2X adapter. It is powered by a CR2 battery and has a 100 MoA range of adjustment compared to the SPARC’s 90. The Strikefire comes in two versions, the red dot tactical version comes with a high mount for the AR15 flat-top platform. The hunting version comes with a lower mount for hunting rifles with Weaver bases and is dual red/green capable. Battery life is 130 hours with the red dot and 420 in green at the highest brightness setting.
Both Eotech and Aimpoint make top of the range magnifiers for their red dots. Not to be outdone, Vortex again stepped up to the mark. Again coming in at much lower than their competitors, the Vortex 3X Magnifier uses the same multicoated optics and can be supplied on its own or with a swing mount for an amazing $229. Designed for use with all the big name red dot sights, the Vortex 3X magnifier will also serve well behing Vortex’ own red dots. Alternatively install it on a loaner or truck gun.
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