Failed Execution - Vector Frenzy Plus (Sig Romeo 8T Clone)

Good morning, everyone, this is John with gun.deals, today we're going to be taking a look at the newest offering from Vector, this is their Vector Frenzy Plus.

Full disclosure on this overview optic is that Vector did not send this to me, I actually paid for this one with my own money, so I didn't get access to this product early, I did actually buy it from their Chinese Warehouse, so I did have to wait a couple weeks for it to come in, but I do believe this is still one of their earlier models to come off their assembly line as I bought it basically right when it was available.

Wikiarms.com Search Engine Results

Want to see your products here? Click this link.

No deals found for this data entry. Try other filters.

Powered by Wikiarms.com

This is the newest option from the Vector Frenzy lineup, this is the Frenzy Plus but not the pistol Frenzy Plus, this is the rifle Frenzy Plus, even though they share the exact same name and window size for some reason, they really should work on their branding just a little bit to give that some separation. As of right now I don't know what the body is made out of, it is not listed on their website, but I imagine it's either going to be 6061 or 7075, neither would make that much of a difference since the design relies upon an external shroud/shield to protect the optic from, well, me.

The shroud itself mounts via 8 bolts in the lower half of the optic, which in theory will take the impact energy away from the glass and more into the mount of the optic itself. In terms of size and weight, as you can tell, it is a big chunky optic, but it comes in at 10.5 ounces, which isn't too terribly heavy for an optic in this size category, I believe the Sig Romeo 8T is somewhere around 14 ounces for a very similar form factor. Window size of the optic is pretty generous at 31x26, so for you big window enjoyers, I myself am one as well, this will look quite nice.

On the right side of the body we have windage and elevation, which are exposed but protected by the shroud. On the left hand side we have our illumination controls, and our dedicated night vision button, more on that later. Up front we have our dual AAA battery trays. Why AAAs? I have no idea! I know, in other parts of the world, AAA batteries are easier to find than CR123As, but we will get into some of the issues related to those a little bit later on. Battery life is rated for 50,000 hours, and that is combined with an auto on/off system, and AAAs are very cheap and easy to find, so replacing batteries every year shouldn't be an issue.

Talking about the mount for just a moment, it is a QD lever with a detent adjustment knob on the opposite side, it actually works quite well and the substantial crossbolt doubles as a recoil lug as it is squared off, so altogether not a bad system. To release the QD you will need to unlock it first via the small tab attached to the lever itself. That can be a little bit annoying to actuate, but I would rather it be difficult than be able to hit it too easily and have it come off when you don't mean for it. This Frenzy Plus optic is equipped with a multi-reticle system and it is interesting.

The base model only has a 3 MOA dot, but the model that I have has a 3 MOA dot and three different versions of a 65 MOA outer circle. You can get just the dot and the circle, just the dot and the hash marks, the dot and the entire outer circle, or just the dot.

Last thing to mention before we get into issues is that the glass quality is really good, it looks very, very nice, for the money it is kind of fantastic, it looks really good on its own, it looks surprisingly good under magnification, and it looks really good under night vision as well, so again, for the money it's very, very good glass.

Now onto issues, the first most obvious issue is that the emitter housing reflection is very noticeable in the image, meaning that you get this red blob around your dot at all times in any amount of daylight, you can also get some very annoying glare in the glass as well, depending on where light is being shown from. On top of that, the emitter refresh rate is kind of random and when moving the gun or shooting it will cause it to go haywire for just a moment or two. That's not really noticeable to the shooter obviously cuz the gun's recoiling and other things are happening for you to notice that momentary dip and refresh rate, but it is very noticeable on camera. It's not the worst refresh rate ever, it's just one step over or one step under that constant laser-like refresh rate that you'll get on most other dots of a higher quality let's say, but it is noticeable and annoying.

A lot of other optics of this size and style they go with a transverse mounted CR123A, and that probably could have gotten around that flicker issue under recoil, and because the batteries aren't mounted in line with the gun it tends to have a little bit better durability in that regard.

Getting into the supposed night vision settings, keep in mind that this optic has a dedicated night vision button that will bring you directly into the night vision mode, and then if you hold it for 2 seconds it will bring you back to your last daylight mode. Unfortunately, instead of having two settings it only has one, and that setting doesn't actually work for when it's actually needed. At dusk, meaning that you can still see things with your naked eye and don't need the night vision yet, it is just barely not blooming out, it's still a little bit on the bright side, and try as I might I couldn't access the second, assuming it's the dimmer setting, I couldn't access that second lower brightness setting. The dot is just way too bright for use under night vision, and also, again, the emitter housing reflection is horrible, it looks very bad in what is otherwise a great looking image. So, it has dedicated night vision mode, which is great, you can instantly swap to your night vision settings, and then back to your daylight settings, well, setting in this case.

Unfortunately, it just doesn't work, and it looks terrible, kind of defeats the whole purpose of setting something up like this. The ideas are there but the execution is extremely poor. Mine is a very early run sample, but still it should at least have the settings it claims to have on paper.

So, what are we left with then? Well, we have a very, very mixed bag. I like the large window, I like the glass quality, in theory, the dedicated night vision mode is a great quality of life feature, the price is also great, at 250 bucks or less. Unfortunately, just none of the features and settings actually work properly or are set up the way they should, it's possible my unit is just very, very defective.

When it comes to using it as a daylight optic I think it looks relatively nice, other than the ugly glare and emitter housing reflection in the glass, and that kind of ruins the fact that you have this really good glass quality to begin with. And when you want to use it at night, because it does have settings that in theory will work well for that, it just doesn't, it's just too bright, in any sort of real dark environment where you would actually need night vision, and you're looking through the optic, it is just far, far too bright, and unfortunately, the whole optic feels like it needs a refresh or a Gen 2 immediately, and I'm not really a fan of Beta testing on your early adopters. In theory, these are fixable issues, but only time will tell, and hopefully at some point I will update you on that.