Good morning everyone, this is John with gun.deals, today we're going to be taking a look at a little bit more of a budget option in the long range space in terms of optics, this is the Vortex Diamondback Tactical 6-24 first focal plane with the EBR 2C MRAD reticle.
Getting into full disclosure on the Vortex Diamondback 6-24, we have absolutely no relationship with Vortex whatsoever, they don't send us products, I don't believe I've ever spoken to anyone from Vortex, I paid my own money for this optic, I believe I got it for 3.99 at my local Shields. However, online if you look at a place that might be good at finding deals in the Tactical space, if you know what, I'm saying you can probably find it for the low 300-dollar range, which for a 6-24 first focal plane optic is a pretty good price.
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Product
Price
Store
MPN
UPC
VORTEX OPTICS Diamondback Tactical 4-12x40mm Riflescope with VMR-1 Reticle
$299.99
Sportsmans Outdoor SS
DBK-10025
875874008694
VORTEX OPTICS Diamondback Tactical 4-16x44mm FFP Riflescope - EBR2C (MRAD) Reticle
$399.99
Sportsmans Outdoor SS
DBK-10027
875874009608
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Getting into size/weight and some of the basics on the Diamondback 6-24, in terms of length it's about 14 and a half inches long, which is a pretty long scope, however, the weight comes in at 24.6 ounces I believe, which is actually fairly lightweight for a 6-24x50. So, in terms of size it's on the bigger size for sure, but in terms of weight it's actually not that bad given its magnification range.
Getting into features on the scope itself, starting off in the back here we have a diopter for adjusting the reticles to our eyes, everybody's eyes are a little bit different, so you want to make sure that that reticle looks very good to you. In front of that we have the magnification ring which goes from 6 to 24, so a pretty wide magnification range, even though it's only at a 4X, you get more expensive scopes that are six or eight X, like a 3.2, 18 a 3-24, so on and so forth, but 6-24 does work very well, especially in a more long range application as far. As the magnification ring itself goes, it's a 180 degree throw, very smooth, the machining on the magnification ring itself does work just fine. I believe you can get aftermarket throw levers for this if you need to be adjusting quickly. However it is nice enough if nothing special.
Moving forward from there we have our windage and elevation, which are exposed, they are in 0.1 mil increments with a few issues here and there. This is a mil reticle so we have mil turrets which match, so that is all good there. On the left hand side we have our Parallax adjustment, which will adjust all the way from 10 yards, which is very nice, you can use this scope very, very close, all the way out to Infinity. Funnily enough it goes to the 10 yard and then you have about another quarter turn or so before it actually hits it stop, but it doesn't go closer than 10 yards, that really does max out at about 10 yards in terms of how close you can focus. One thing to note is that at this price point Vortex is eliminating a illuminated reticle, so if you need that sort of feature you are going to be spending a little bit more money or going with a different manufacturer.
Getting into usability of the scope, that is going to be your eye box, your eye relief, and your field of view. In terms of your eye relief they quote 3.9 inches, which is pretty accurate, it is a very forgiving eye relief on the Diamondback 6-24, about 3.94/4.5 inches on the low end really as you increase in magnification that does tighten up a little bit. However, it's still probably about four inches. It is considerably tighter, this is a 30-millimeter main tube, 50-millimeter objective, 24 magnification, it's not the most forgiving eye relief/eye box at 24x magnification, but because its first focal plane if you're not in a very stable position you can always back that down a little bit and still have a very usable reticle.
Talking about the eye box it, like the eye relief, is also very good, so at the low end you have a very forgiving up, down, left, and right where you get a very usable image, and then at the high end, at 24x, that's where things get quite tight, so you're up, down, left, and right, it's maybe a quarter inch before you start to occlude your vision with the black ring. So, on 24x you do have a pretty tight eye relief and a pretty tight eye box and the rest of the magnification, the lower magnification range, it is very usable and very forgiving.
When we get to field of view this is where the Diamondback actually performs really well, at 6X magnification you have a field of view of 18 feet at 100 yards, which extrapolates roughly to about 110 from a 1x at 100 yards, which is very good. So, you actually do get a very good field of view at 6X, which is very nice, you get more information through the glass so you can see more at any given magnification and starting off with a very good field of view, means that as you increase in magnification you still retain a good amount of information, a good amount of field of view, how much you can actually see through the optic at any given magnification.
Unfortunately, this being the Vortex Diamondback, which I believe is Vortex's second lowest line, I believe you have the Crossfire, the Diamondback, then you have the Strike Eagle. A little side tangent here, my brother actually owns the Vortex Strike Eagle 3-18, before they discontinued it, that optic was actually pretty fantastic for the money, and actually does beat this in a couple ways, but this being the Diamondback this is a Chinese manufactured glass and a Chinese manufactured body, in fact I believe everything on the scope is manufactured in China. The glass quality is, it's all right, it's not bad by any means, it's a little dim, it's definitely not as crisp or clear as higher magnification scopes, in fact that behind me is the Maven RS.4 1800-dollar, Japanese everything on that scope, fantastic glass, this is all right, it's certainly par for the course in terms of high magnification Chinese glass, it doesn't look bad by any means, but if you're a glass snob you're definitely going to be left wanting a little bit in the raw clarity and glass quality department.
Last thing that we need to talk about on the scope itself before we get into performance and a couple of the issues that I've had with it is going to be the reticle. So, the reticle is the EBR 2C MRAD reticle, they also have a MOA version as well, and as far as the reticle goes it's basically perfect, I don't have any issues with the reticle whatsoever, it is a mil grid Christmas tree style reticle, you have one mil increments in the drops and I believe 0.2 increments in and the windage every one mil, which is a ton of information within the reticle.
On top of that, they've done something very interesting in the center of the reticle, so rather than having a floating dot or some sort of hash or a duplex in the center, in the center you actually have 0.06 mils, which is very precise of negative space, meaning that there is simply nothing in the reticle, so nothing to obscure your target, so if you did want to dial with the optic you have this very small, very precise window of nothing in the center to make very crisp, very precise shots with. So, as far as the reticle goes I don't really have any issues with it whatsoever, it is more than precise enough for its intended application, 24x magnification, you could take that out to a mile if you really wanted to, and in closer than that it is more than precise enough for 99.9% of applications.
Getting into using the scope and some of the issues that I had with it, I should say that I use the scope a couple different ways, the first one was just using the reticle for everything, so no dialing, windage or elevation, just using the reticle for all of my holds out to 650 yards on this 6-millimeter 6 Arc. It should be noted that I was using this exact same gun and ammo a couple weeks ago with a different scope, a much nicer Maven scope with absolutely no issues, it was a laser beam out to that 650 yard mark. This time, however, with the Vortex Diamondback 6-24 I did have a couple issues. I didn't really have any issues when I was using the reticle itself, so I was doing all the holds within the reticle, no dialing, but I also wanted to use it with the exposed windage and elevation turrets as they are zero resettable and I imagine they are intended to be used and also the reticle does have that very nice negative space in the center, which is precise enough to take very nice shots out to long range, so I did want to give the turrets a try. The problem is that either the reticle is not accurate or much more likely the turrets are not accurate whatsoever.
The turrets themselves, and I didn't mention this earlier because I wanted to kind of combo it in with the issues, the turrets are some of the worst feeling turrets I have ever used, they have a lot of wobble within them, so they're locked down, they're tight, but they just have a lot of wobble in between the clicks. On top of that, it's mushy, you can hear them, you can feel them a little bit, but they're just mushy and ugly, they're kind of gross feeling almost in a weird way, especially when you come from a nicer optic and then down to this, they just feel bad.
Feeling is very subjective and ultimately not that important on like a super budget scope, the problem is that they're just not accurate, so for instance when I'm using the reticle, say at like 18 magnification, it's a first focal plane reticle so it should be accurate throughout the entire magnification range, I believe at 650 yards with this ammo that I was using, which is Hornady Black, I was holding about four and a half mils high and like 0.4 mils of wind at 650 yards, so I decided okay I'm just going to dial it. These are supposedly in 0.1 mil increments, which is about 0.318 MOA, if you're more familiar with MOA, that should be more than precise enough, you just dial up four and a half mils and you should theoretically be on target.
However, in this case I would be six feet high and to the left, and then I would dial back down the appropriate amount of mills, at least according to what they are labeled, and then I would be low two feet and to the right or something, I would dial my windage and it would shift way further than it was supposed to, so either the reticle is off, which is possible that the reticle is just off where it's supposed to be, so instead of say four and a half mils at four and a half mils it's actually in reality five and a half mils or something like that, so I'm dialing the accurate amount on the turrets, but the reticle itself is just giving me incorrect information as far as what the actual size and distance is. The more likely culprit is just these turrets that just don't feel good whatsoever, and there's just a lot of slop in them. My theory currently is that there's just so much slop between the clicks that each click is actually somewhere between 0.15 and 0.25 mils, which is a huge amount of air and I don't believe they're very consistent either so not a big fan of the turrets, that is an issue.
One thing to note about that is if it is a legitimate manufacturing error, a problem with this specific scope is that Vortex has a fantastic no-questions-asked warranty, so if it is a actual legitimate problem with this scope, like it's defective in some way, they'll replace it for free, no questions asked whatsoever, that is possible, however, with the sample size of one that I have here these turrets are pretty bad and not all that usable. The reticle is perfect basically, I have no complaints with that whatsoever, it's very precise, gives you a ton of information, the problem is going to be the glass quality is a little bit lackluster and the eye box and eye relief, at the top end if you did want to be all the way at the top end, which you're paying for it so you'd probably like to use it, is pretty darn tight, not unusable, but pretty darn tight, and with limited glass quality let's say it's just not my favorite.
For about 300 to 400 dollars there are a lot of scopes in this price range, you have a lot of the Primary Arms SLX line, which has the ACSS reticles, which you might prefer more or less in certain circumstances, but most people would probably like some of the additional features in there, you're also probably going to be getting an illuminated reticle, even at this lower price range. It is a bit of a tough sell when the turrets don't seem to work properly whatsoever, that could be an issue with this scope specifically, but this is the scope that I'm reviewing and it is a little bit of a downer. While the field of view is objectively very good, the reticle is nearly perfect, at least for me, the biggest downsides are going to be usability at the top end and then the turrets just aren't really there and then there is no illumination as well , though illumination isn't quite as big of a deal to me personally, when I'm doing long range target shooting I'm not doing like tactical style shooting at dusk or anything like that, so I don't really need the illumination, but if that's a feature that you want you are going to have to look elsewhere.
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This is still a Vortex optic and it does come with Vortex warranty so that is a plus, that peace of mind there that they're always going to replace it for you can be nice. However, this scope in and of itself at this cheap price range with a high ER magnification is just a little bit of a mixed bag, not necessarily something that I would recommend to everyone, however, if you find it 300 dollars, maybe even sub 300 dollars that could be a pretty good budget option if you want to use the reticle and not dial with the turrets.
One thing that I'll mention here at the end of the review, this is using a right on 30-millimeter QD mount, which is quite nice, I don't have any issues with this whatsoever, I don't believe this was causing any issues, I've used this on other expensive scopes as well without any issues or loss of zero or inconsistencies in terms of point of impact, so I don't believe it's the scope whatsoever, everything is torqued down appropriately as it should be, and I've had really good luck with this mount in a bunch of different scopes, so I don't believe that is the issue.
