New Budget King? - Vortex Venom 1-6x LPVO

Good morning, everyone, this is John with gun.deals, and today we're going to be taking a look at the new Vortex Venom 1-6 LPVO, and this might be one of the new best budget LPVOs on the market.

Full disclosure on the Vortex Venom 1-6 is that I have absolutely no relationship with Vortex whatsoever, however, this optic was actually sent in to me by a kind viewer of the channel, so I don't have any relationship with Vortex. However, I didn't pay for this optic whatsoever. If you're not familiar with the Venom I believe this is going to be their new flagship budget LPVO because they have the Strike Eagle Gen 2s, both 1-6, 1-8, and as well as the 1-8 first focal plane option, which is much more expensive than this, and this 1-6 is going to kind of slot in as their cheap ‘LPVO’.

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This 1-6 comes in with a MSRP of about $440, however, the street price is usually right at 250 bucks, making it very affordable.

Getting into some of the basics on it, this is a 30mm main tube, 24 mm objective, weight comes in right at about 20 ounces, just under 20 ounces, we have capped windage and elevation, these are very large, very nice turrets for a cheap LPVO, so it is kind of interesting to see, the clicks are nice and tactile, a little bit mushy, a little spongy, but perfectly fine for the price, and definitely more of a set and forget style. On the left hand side of the optic body we have our illumination, which has only six different settings, which is perfectly fine, and instead of having say 12 settings they now have off setting in between each one. On maximum illumination it illuminates on the AR BDC3 reticle, which we'll get into in just a minute, it illuminates the center dot, and then the outer horseshoe, and the rest of the BDC is not illuminated.

Moving back to the magnification ring, we have a very, very smooth 180° throw, it does have a good amount of resistance to it, but it honestly is one of the nicest throws that I've felt on an LPVO. For the price tag it feels much nicer than what it is, and I'm not sure if it comes with this throw lever, but this is the Vortex throw lever that you can purchase separately as well. Other than that you have a rear diopter at the back to adjust the reticles to your eyes, because everybody's eyes are a little bit different, so you need to make sure that the reticle looks as good to you as it can.

Starting off with eye relief and eye box, the eye relief itself is probably a little bit shorter at 1X than what you'll get on some other LPVOs on the market, only about 3 and 1/2 to 4 inches, so you do need to be a little bit closer than some other LPVOs on the market. Your up, down, left, and right, or your eye box, is fairly forgiving at 1X, most LPVOs at 1X are fairly forgiving and the Vortex Venom is no different. As we move up to 6X magnification, that is where both your eye box, your eye relief is going to tighten up, about 3 and 1/2 inches, a little bit forward and back, and then you get a little bit of up, down, left, and right play before you start to get too much scope shadow and you can't get a good sight picture.

While the eye relief and eye box might be somewhat average in the budget LPVO genre, the field of view is absolutely phenomenal coming in at a monstrous 126 feet at 1X at 100 yards, which is one of the most out of any LPVOS that I've used, I've used some that are in that 120 range, anywhere from 124 to 125, 126, like you see on the Venom 1-6, but it is a very, very large field of view, meaning that when you're at 1X magnification you get a ton of information through the scope, and that also translates very importantly to the higher magnifications as well.

Not only is the field of view fantastic, but on top of that, the image quality is also very good, it is a very bright, very punchy image. There is a tiny bit of chromatic aberration, depending on what exactly you're looking at, in full daylight some of the brightest parts of the image might have a slight color shift to them, but overall the image has very good clarity, very good light transmission as well, and competes in terms of quality with some optics that are about double the cost, and keep in mind that this is a sub $300 optic, so I am very, very happy with the field of view and the image quality.

Putting all of that together we have the AR bdc3 reticle, this reticle has been around for a long time, you basically have a center floating dot, your outer horseshoe for your fast acquisition, and then you have your BDC out to I believe 600 yards, and you have wind holds for 5 and 10 mph, perfectly fine, very adequate. On the first range session with this optic on this Caracal 816 11.5-inch upper I took it all the way out to 500 yards without issue.

On a shorter 11.5-inch upper throwing 77 grain bullets down range the BDC is not going to quite line up perfectly, I believe it is designed for 55 or 62 grain ball ammunition out of a 14.5 or a 16-inch barrel, so when we're throwing a much heavier projectile through a much shorter barrel, obviously the drops are going to be a little bit off. For instance, at 500 yards I was using the 600-yard post and putting that on the top of the target to make my hits. Depending on your barrel selection, ammo selection, that BDC is not going to line up quite perfectly. On top of that, you also have some auto-ranging features built into the top of the reticle, and you also have very large stadia lines drawing your eye to the center.

Overall, at 1X, the image quality looks very good, the field of view is fantastic, so using it on 1X is very, very nice, and at 6X you still get a phenomenal field of view, and the reticle is fine enough, and the glass quality is good enough to make out hits on targets, or more importantly your misses as well, so that you can readjust and actually make impacts at extended ranges.

I think what we end up here is a contender for the best budget LPVO on the market. I believe, currently it'd be probably the Sig MSR 1-6 or something like that, however, this optic, very similar size and weight, very similar cost as well, I believe this does have a better image quality overall combined with a, I don't want to say a better reticle, but one that I personally like a little bit more than like the Sig MSR 1-6. I think it's set up a little bit cleaner, it works a little bit better at all distances. Not that the Sig MSR is bad, but I think that this optic just does it a little bit better subjectively, it feels a little bit nicer as well, but only time will tell to see if it continues to hold up.

As of right now I am incredibly impressed with this LPVO for the money, I think the image quality and some of the other usability aspects of the scope, especially when considering its price, means that this is a top tier budget LPVO.