Double Naught Spy
New member
We had an interesting scope failure today at the range...
Had a couple of buddies over to shoot today. One wanted to chrono some of his reloads and check accuracy. He was shooting a Thompson Center Encore rifle with a Vortex Crossfire A0 6-24x50 scope, model Cfr-Ao11-MDT.
http://www.vortexoptics.com/product...x50-ao-riflescope-mil-dot-illuminated-reticle
The scope has a MSRP of $250. It was purchased in January of 2010 for $100, plus another $42 for mounts and shipping for a total of $142. So this is not a high dollar scope, but it was purchased, in part, because of some of the positive reviews Vortex scopes have received. This scope had only been mounted on this rifle and had a total of about 200 rounds through it when we finished.
I asked how the owner liked it and he said that it was a purchase he would not repeat. He found that the glass quality wasn't great and that the focus went from 15-150 yards over the majority of the adjustment distance with 150 to infinity being just a very short 1/4" of adjustment which he said made getting decent focus beyond 150 yards difficult. So the scope had been relegated to plinking and testing purposes. Turns out, the scope is something of a large size high power short range scope. So the shooting commenced.
Today's tests were of .308 reloads. A few rounds after my conversation with him, I was taking pictures of the guys chrono-ing and spotting for zero when I heard "I think I broke my scope." Sure enough, under recoil, the rear objective of the scope opened right up and resulted in several things coming loose inside. Needless to say, that ruined any further testing with that gun for today. The owner is not pleased at all. When last I left him, he said he would be contacting Vortex to see what they could do about what happened.
What happened? I don't know that we know for sure. It looks like a gas seal holding the rear objective came loose, freeing the lens, resulting in what you see in the images. However, what specifically made that happen along with all the other parts coming loose inside isn't evident from what we could see.
I have seen a few optic failures over the years, mostly reticles coming loose inside the scope, but this was a new one on me.
Had a couple of buddies over to shoot today. One wanted to chrono some of his reloads and check accuracy. He was shooting a Thompson Center Encore rifle with a Vortex Crossfire A0 6-24x50 scope, model Cfr-Ao11-MDT.
http://www.vortexoptics.com/product...x50-ao-riflescope-mil-dot-illuminated-reticle
The scope has a MSRP of $250. It was purchased in January of 2010 for $100, plus another $42 for mounts and shipping for a total of $142. So this is not a high dollar scope, but it was purchased, in part, because of some of the positive reviews Vortex scopes have received. This scope had only been mounted on this rifle and had a total of about 200 rounds through it when we finished.
I asked how the owner liked it and he said that it was a purchase he would not repeat. He found that the glass quality wasn't great and that the focus went from 15-150 yards over the majority of the adjustment distance with 150 to infinity being just a very short 1/4" of adjustment which he said made getting decent focus beyond 150 yards difficult. So the scope had been relegated to plinking and testing purposes. Turns out, the scope is something of a large size high power short range scope. So the shooting commenced.
Today's tests were of .308 reloads. A few rounds after my conversation with him, I was taking pictures of the guys chrono-ing and spotting for zero when I heard "I think I broke my scope." Sure enough, under recoil, the rear objective of the scope opened right up and resulted in several things coming loose inside. Needless to say, that ruined any further testing with that gun for today. The owner is not pleased at all. When last I left him, he said he would be contacting Vortex to see what they could do about what happened.
What happened? I don't know that we know for sure. It looks like a gas seal holding the rear objective came loose, freeing the lens, resulting in what you see in the images. However, what specifically made that happen along with all the other parts coming loose inside isn't evident from what we could see.
I have seen a few optic failures over the years, mostly reticles coming loose inside the scope, but this was a new one on me.
