Applied Ballistics with Mark Boardman of Vortex. In this episode of the Epic Outdoors Podcast we talk in depth about the new products available for 2021 from Vortex Optics. The new Fury HD5000 AB is the latest and greatest from Vortex and has a lot to offer those seeking a range finding binocular with applied ballistics. the new Fury has a built in solver to create custom ballistic profiles and give you instant click value readouts. One of many awesome new products from Vortex.
Disclaimer: this text was produced through an automated transcription service and likely contains errors. Please listen to the original audio for exact content.
00:00:01:08 –> 00:01:19:07
To add to the precision when you’re ranging and dialing onboard. Environmental sensors, I mean, this is a winter storm warning, two to three feet bottled water. Yeah. Matches, flares. I mean, get it ready. Anything to do with Western Big Games. Welcome to the Epic Outdoors Podcast, powered by Under Armour. Here we go. Let’s do this. Hey everybody. Welcome to the El Outdoors Podcast today. I’m Matt Wright here next to Adam Bronson. John Peterson. Chris Peterson coming at you from snowy Southern Utah. Bronson. Yeah. Kind of little bit let down by the accumulation. I was disappointed this morning. We’re right here in town. It blew away. It blew away. It did. Kay. But, but we were sent a picture from Paceon, Arizona. That’s, that’s unit 23. That’s a long ways from here. One four inches. That’s waist high for a lot of people. Yeah. Might be killing Cote Kdo. The four footers might be killing deer. Yeah, that’s good point. When you brought that up, I was like, yeah, I wonder if there’s a feeding program around. They’s over their head. I think they got a deer feeding program place. They program inches at the back. I dunno. Yeah. The good thing about Arizona, parts of it, the sun will come out and it’ll settle down to 15 real quick. We’re kind of excited about this. This is a game changer. This storm alone, maybe it’s just a mental game changer, but it might save parts of Arizona.
00:01:19:07 –> 00:02:26:06
You’re right. Utah is still we’re we started talking about our snow here. I think we got between a quarter and a half an inch. Okay. And most of it’s ice out there. Yeah. So I think it was two to three inches and then it melted down to ice. So if that makes any of you feel better, so be it. I was looking at the winter storm warning and it was saying two to three feet in the mountains, but, well, I don’t see that happening. Well, I think they got a bit, they did get little bit. We were talking our buddy up at Canyon and they did get a good chunk I think. But yeah, still I had an early alarm set up ’cause I was ready, jump on the four-wheeler and touch it off a little bit this morning in the driveway. Clear off the office drive. Just maybe, well, if I needed to. But I didn’t even have to do something at my house, so I just drove to work. Well anyway, we’re excited. There’s something out there. Something to talk about. Looks like snow in Vegas. Yeah, well in the mountains. More in Vegas than southern Utah. Here in Cedar City. St. George. That’s probably got a two year supply moisture down there. Big bucks will abound everywhere. Alright, well anyway, let’s get started. They could die too. The desert sheet might die.
00:02:26:06 –> 00:03:28:10
Alright guys, speaking of that, we need Mark Borman on the line. He’s gonna visit with us about Vortex. All the pretty cool’s products coming out. What’s new? Some cool launches. That’s right. Let’s just, let’s see if we can get him on the line here. We’re a little bit late. But anyway, we tried him earlier and I think he was on the other line. Hold on. You there Mark? Yeah. What’s going on? This is super weird. It is. So this is Jason. Yeah, I tried you. I called like I Oh Jason, what’s going on dude, I left you a voicemail and then I text this number. I, I don’t know, dude, it’s bizarre. I think, I don’t know if I’ve got, I, I wonder if I’ve got like a setting on my phone. The weird thing is, your text came through, you’re like, are you ready? I’m like, yeah. And then you’re like, do you have me in your phone? ’cause you might have a setting that says ignore unregistered numbers be done. You know what I mean? Like, I have a setting that if I don’t have ’em in my contact list, oh, it’ll go straight. Oh, I need that. I need that. Yeah. Yeah. You, there’s a setting. There’s a setting and, and you’re showing up blue. So you’ve got an iPhone. There’s a setting in there that basically, if you’re not in his phone, it will go straight voice.
00:03:28:10 –> 00:04:31:11
If I’m not in your contacts, it it, you, there’s a setting that you can op, have that option go, you know, all those people, all those call unwanted callers can go straight to Interesting. Yep, yep. You know, and I’ve had a couple instances, like a couple mysterious, I’m gonna have to dive into that and check that out. That’s gotta be what’s going on. It’s interesting that your text will get through though, but like the text, text will, but this is just for like solicitors and it go straight to voicemail and it, it did went straight to voicemail. So, interesting. Well, soliciting me. That’s right. Well, you know, we want to know about this, these new Vortex products. So we’ve gotta talk to the man. Yeah, right. I’ll do my best. I’ll do my best. Well, I don’t know where you want to go with it, but there’s a lot of, we have a lot of questions, but I’m wondering if you can just answer those by just kind of starting off with what’s new and exciting. Of course, we know the new Fury HD five thousands, the applied ballistics binocular 10 by 42. Pretty incredible piece of equipment. And maybe we just start with that and start cranking on it. Yeah, yeah, let’s, let’s do that.
00:04:32:14 –> 00:05:57:24
So tell us, you know, I guess maybe compare the old model to the new model and then, you know, we’ll just let you kind of have the mic for a minute and, and then we’ll have, we’ll ask questions as we have ’em. Very cool. Very cool. So yeah, so lots of, lots of great new products from, from Vortex coming out this year. Really, really exciting stuff. Stuff that’s been in the works for, for quite some time. So I know for myself personally, it’s, it’s finally good to be able to talk about these things publicly. Publicly. ’cause you’re so pumped about ’em, you’ve gotta keep ’em under wraps and, and it’s, it’s hard to do. So yeah, the new, the new Fury HD 5,000, AB 10 by 42 laser range find of binocular like the, definitely a mouthful, right? But it’s doing a lot, a lot of stuff. So you guys brought up the original Fury, HD 5,000, which was, you know, a range finding binocular, 5,000 yard capable on reflective targets. You’re looking at about, you know, 2,400 yards on trees, 1600 yards on game. So very, very capable. A lot of that chassis or that platform has been integrated into this AB version. But that AB is kind of the big designator there, which stands for applied ballistics. So in this new Furation 5,000 ab, you’ve got the applied ballistics elite solver onboard the unit.
00:05:58:12 –> 00:07:10:23
You’ve got onboard environmental sensors that are gonna give you those real, real time atmospheric. So it’s gonna give you your, your temp, it’s gonna give you your, your pressure and things like that. All those environmental variables that go into giving you the most accurate ballistic solution possible. It’s also got an onboard compass, so you can enter your wind two different ways there. So you can enter a full value right, left. So you can say, yep, you know, it’s, it’s 90 degrees, you know, 10 miles an hour coming from the right, something of that nature. But with that compass, you can initiate the wind bearing capture mode. So you essentially take the unit point at the direction the wind is coming from, capture that bearing, and then from that point forward until you change it every time you, you range, it will remember that bearing so that you enter a, you know, a 10 mile an hour wind, but it’s coming from a particular angle. It’s gonna account for that angle angle and then it’s going to end the display. It’s gonna give you a, a more accurate wind hold there as well. Awesome. Yeah, no guesswork. Turn to the wind. Yeah, face the, just face the angle. Yep.
00:07:10:24 –> 00:08:26:28
And then when you go back to range your animal or target again, it’s going to use the angle of which the wind is gonna be hitting your bullet from, you know, cal, calculate that on your left and right hold basically. Exactly. Exactly. You know, so like, so when you set, let’s just say you’re setting up on a hill, you would, is there like a menu function where you hit the menu function? You, you or whatever you’re capturing the wind only the wind only angle angle and then you’re set up for that particular situation and for the next hour or two, whatever is that Yep. Basically how it’s working. Yeah, I mean, you guys nailed it. You know, I mean essentially you’re gonna have all your stuff set up in the unit, all, all your ballistics, all your different variables as far as velocity and, and you know, you have the ability to, to use, you know, the, you’ve got the access to the full applied ballistics suite of, of AB curves, you know, for darn near every bullet out there, I guess I know every bullet that I’ve used, it’s been in there, right? So you kind of get that super accurate customized AB curve there and it just, yeah, it just makes the whole system so accurate. You know, I mean everything that goes into executing that long range shot, you know, we call it tolerance stacking.
00:08:26:28 –> 00:09:36:28
So everything that could be off just a little bit, a little bit, a little bit, it adds up, right? And so this is taking all those different variables and making them as accurate as possible and then getting into, you know, even more accuracy. It will pair with your Bluetooth equipped kestrel wind meters and it will pair with your applied ballistics equipped garment devices. So it will pair via Bluetooth with third party devices. So you’ve got some extra functionality there. You got the Fury HD app, I should mention that, right? So you’re gonna enter a lot of this information into the actual Fury HD 5,000 AB via the Fury HD app. So you can use your phone, you throw it all in there at that point, you don’t need, you don’t necessarily need your phone. You can still use your phone in a variety of ways with the unit, but you don’t need it. So if you just wanna carry the unit into the field and, and that’s what you have, or you lost your phone, you’re still gonna have all, all that information in, in the unit where your phone can come into play is, let’s say you and I are on the mountain, maybe, you know, being quiet is, you know, of utmost importance.
00:09:37:10 –> 00:10:28:11
You know, you could be ranging something, I could be laying down on the gun and just have my phone next to me or something like that and it will relay that ballistic solution to my phone. So I can just glance down, look at it, go, okay, you range, you know, 535 yards, I need to dial, you know, X amount of mills or X amount of M oa. You don’t have to say anything, you don’t even have to whisper. I can just look down, get that info dial, execute that shot. Hmm, interesting. If you got a spotter, you know, or maybe a guide situation where you’re, you’re in cover, you’re a hundred crawls out there, five, 10 feet ahead of you or whatever like that. And yeah, you’re in a little bit of a quiet situation. You’re ranging the, the effective range is only gonna be two to three yards. It’s not gonna matter. But you, you know what you range pops up on his phone screen for his dial. That’s pretty handy. Yeah, yeah. No, but it’s definitely can come in handy.
00:10:28:12 –> 00:11:35:00
And you brought up a good point, you know, for, for a, for an outfitter or a guide, you know, a range finding binocular or even something with this kind of capability is definitely can be a big asset, you know, to be able to, you know, range, range the animal, you know, also on a consistent basis, you know, if it’s moving, you can keep calling out ranges, but you can keep calling out that ballistic solution if, you know, if your client has that information, you can plug that into the unit, give them their ballistic solution so they can dial. And then also, you know, being able to watch for impacts. Was it a hit, was it a miss? Was, was it a bad hit? You know, where, where did, where did it last go? Right. You know, and then that’s just all stuff that’s easier. You know, those visual cues are just easier to see in a binocular versus maybe a traditional handheld range finder. Pretty awesome. And so how many customized loads can you load? Like when you say you pair it, you don’t have to use your phone again, but like you, obviously you have four, four guns, 10, how many different cus loads can you load in into that? So, yeah, super good question. So it’s gonna come with kind of, I guess three pre-loaded solutions there. And they’re gonna be more, you know, general.
00:11:35:01 –> 00:12:50:07
So it’s gonna be kind of 2 7 1 4, your 30 out six, I don’t know, I, those are really good ones actually. Then we have put those in, we got the, we got the 5, 5 6 in there. We got the six five creed and the 3 0 8, right. And that’s, you know, I kind of consider that, you know, number one, those, those are of course maybe outside the 30 out six and the two 70, some, some common cartridges that people use. But it’s more of like a quick start guide. It’s, it’ll get you going if you have one of those calibers. But really the magic is when you, you, you customize it with your data and so it’ll hold up to three profiles. So if you’re hunting in a group, you can enter, you know, up to three people’s ballistic data and select profile A, B, or C depending on who, who is shooting or you know, if it’s just yours and, and you have three favorite rifles that you wanna have data in there for, you can, you can have three profiles in there for yourself so you can override the whatever it comes with. And that’s basically like for an ar, it sounds like an ar you can just say, you know, here’s a general, you know, a general maybe whatever for an AR or 5, 5, 6 or whatever. But then you can override that with three customized loads. Exactly. Exactly. Yep. Okay. All right. That’s pretty cool.
00:12:50:10 –> 00:13:54:19
And then, so if a, if a outfitter has, you know, a client or guide has a client in camp, of course he can override it or call it what, B or C or whatever, and then load, you know, 3, 3, 3 loads in there as well. Maybe his own and one one of the clients. Exactly, exactly. You know, you could, you could have your, your favorite one or maybe there’s, you know, a gun that they have in camp and in the event somebody needs to, you know, borrow a rifle or something like that. But then, you know, you have those leftovers to where yeah, if you got a client, you could, you could, and they have that information, right? It’s kind of good, good data in good data out, right? So you gotta have, you know, the different variables plugged in as accurate as possible. But, but yeah, it can definitely prove to be a, a really big asset. One thing I guess we were wondering is just how would you compare the quality of glass? You know, when you’ve got, you know, you know, the fury HD 5,000, what does that mean in re in relation to some of your other models of non range finding bin nows with like clarity of glass, like razor or vipers or whatever, you know? Yeah. How do you compare that? How would you hds hds?
00:13:55:20 –> 00:15:06:03
So, yeah, so I’d say if a person has looked through the original fury, it’s gonna basically be identical. And then, you know, compared to other binoculars in our lineup, I’d say it’s gonna parallel pretty tightly with the Viper HD series. So kind of that, you know, and I guess if a person, you know, thinking of our series, we’ve got, you know, our top tier raise, UHD, then we have the raise hd, and then we have the Viper hd. And like I said, those Furies kind of parallel in that Viper HD tier glass. And that’s pretty common in the industry. I think it’s, it’s important to note out, it’s just common that if when you’re coupling all the electronics and the different things, you don’t, you’re dealing with the laser and whatnot. It’s just, it’s fairly common. You’re going to take a little bit of a hit on cla of glass, but you’re adding so much more, especially with guys that wanna pair that and have a combo, a a binocular rangefinder combo. Yeah, yeah. No, you’re right. I mean, that is pretty darn common. You’ve got some extra coatings in there to get everything, you know, the displays to work properly and things like that. So you’re, you’re trying to, you know, you definitely have to, I’m not an optical engineer by any stretch of the imagination, but you are overcoming some challenges there to, to get all the functionality to work.
00:15:07:02 –> 00:16:18:13
But like I said, you got, you got a ton of functionality, so you’re taking a little bit of a hit, but you know, you kind of personally can do their own cost benefit analysis and, and see, you know, what’s gonna serve them better in the field. And Mark, I think one of the best things about this Bino is, is the price point on it. Really good price point. I mean, someone can get into this, you know, it’s very affordable, you know, for our members, if you call us, you can get a price on that that’s screaming price, you know, for what the, the, the functionality you’re getting out of that. So anyway, just really good value. I think, I think you’re talking like a 14.99 with is the, you know, kind of the minimum advertised price. That’s just unbelievable. It’s unheard of for the, for what we’re talking about with technology range finding binocular all in one with all the new age, basically it’s, there’s nothing in this binocular that you want for, it’s got everything that we have with up-to-date technology. There’s nothing out there that does more, I guess is my point at a, at an incredible price point. No, I mean, we certainly like to think so, right?
00:16:18:13 –> 00:17:33:18
And I, I think it’s probably also worth pointing out, you know, you’ve got definitely a, a robust suite of technology built into the unit, but it still carries just like all of our Vortex products, it’s got our unconditional lifetime transferable VIP warranty. If you ever have an issue with it, we’re gonna take care of you. So, and I think that is, you know, there’s, there’s a lot of warranties out there, but I think, you know, having that electronics component in there covered is, is pretty darn unique. Well that’s, vortex has been well known for warranty on, not, we’re talking about this specific piece here, but that, that’s kind of what’s, you know, allowed if you wanna say that about Vortex products. It’s, you know, very famous for their warranty. So it kind of goes without saying, but worth mentioning. But I know we’ve got a pre-order in for a lot of these, for our, since we’re dealers, but what can you tell us about anticipated delivery availability, whether somebody wants to see ’em on the shelf and stores and things like that. What do you got to update on that? I would hope that you guys should be seeing ’em here very, very shortly. We appreciate that. And, and like Adam said, there’s there, you know, you guys have, I wanna say built the company on warranty, but it’s not necessarily true, it’s product and warranty, but best in the business.
00:17:33:18 –> 00:18:40:12
There’s, I have people, Bronson does too, talk to us every day about the warranty and dealing with Vortex just adds the whole level of confidence, I guess. You know, buy, buy whatever you want, know that that’s there if, if you ever need it. So yeah, I think think, and that’s, that’s a really good point. You know, I mean we definitely, I’d say at our core, you know, is customer service. You know, we, we wanna hear from our customers, we wanna talk to our customers and we wanna, you know, help our customers before, during, and after the sale. And, and I know that, you know, maybe that, that can sound like, oh, that’s just kind of a bunch of fluff, but we genuinely mean that, you know, I always say we, we do the, the, the best we can to build our products. So a person never has an issue, but I mean, you guys are pretty hardcore hunters and I mean, you know, some, some wild stuff can happen, right? And we realize that as well. And, and so we wanna take care of our customers. I just can’t wait till you guys start making trucks so we can have the unlimited warranty for the rest of our life. That’s what I’m looking forward to. I’ll, I’ll, I’ll four wheelers, I’ll fill that Neil suggestion box when I get back to the office. Start with four wheelers, then move to side-by-side.
00:18:40:19 –> 00:19:52:29
Mark, here’s just a bit of advice if, if you guys ever add that Jason Carter should be excluded from all warranties. Come on, come on. All that stuff. Just, you’ll never, you’ll lose your shorts. Don’t be profiling D is hard on stuff. So it’ll be in, it’ll be in fine print. Yeah. If your initials begin with the letters, jc, you got a problem. That’s right. You lost money at the sale. All right. So anyway, anything else more you wanna add to the Fury HD 5,000 ab, anything that we maybe haven’t talked about? I mean, I know you have a great, for those that use it, listening on vortex.com website, they got a, you know, all the bells and whistles are there. We can go through them line by line. It’s not necessarily what we’re gonna do today, but the key points, I think we’ve hit ’em hard with the integrated environmental stuff, the load data capability to load that in all the environmental variables with elevation, bare metric, pressure, temperature, all the things that you want to be able to Bluetooth from your phone to your unit, range factor, everything to, to add to the precision when you’re ranging and dialing, that’s kind of what, that’s the gap that it made up from the old fury, right? The environmental data basically. And the Bluetooth competitor.
00:19:53:00 –> 00:21:08:01
Yeah, I mean, yeah, the, the environmental and ballistic data, and I, and I think, you know, I mean it’s, it’s should, it’s probably pretty obvious, but it, it’s a time saver, right? You know, and, and we know that these opportunities that we get in the field are measured in fractions of seconds. And I can definitely look back in my, you know, history of big game encounters and, and there’s definitely a handful where it’s like, man, this would’ve been the difference maker. I wouldn’t have had to check or recheck the dope, the dope chart on my stock or something like that. And, you know, the difference between, you know, breaking that shot or not breaking that shot. So I think it really is gonna increase, you know, opportunities for folks in, excuse me, for folks in the field. That’s awesome. Mark. One, one of the other things that we kind of had on our list to ask you about, was that Spitfire fire? Yeah, absolutely. So really cool Riflescope series. It’s, it’s, they’re prism scopes. So we’ve had the Spitfire series in the past, which was also a prism based optical design. We kept the one X version, there was a one and a three x, we’ve completely updated the three X and added a five x. And they’re really, really awesome optics. I’d say they’re optimized for the AR platform, but they do have our multi height mount system.
00:21:08:03 –> 00:22:32:12
So a person can mount it at kind of that typical AR height as well as a low height, if you wanna put it on maybe a more traditional gun. You know, they’ve got that functionality, the functionality of the, the fixed three x and five x. They’ve got our new ar, BDC four radical, which is gonna be optimized for the 5, 5 6. So again, very common caliber in the AR platform. Super compact, right? That prism based optical system is really, really compact. It always has been in these new versions, it’s even more compact. So you’ve got a very compact, lightweight scope. I’d say form factor wise, if a person is familiar with like a, a red.style scope, it’s gonna follow that very tightly and just a really, really sleek optic. The, the adjustments are flush and semi recessed into the housing, they’re exposed, so you can always get to ’em, but protected at the same time. So man, they’re just, they’re a workhorse and they’re gonna do, they’re gonna do great. Another way they shine is if a person has, you know, potentially like an astigmatism and they wanna use a red dot, but that dot appears to them to be distorted in some capacity. The Spitfires have a glass etch redle directly on the prism. So they’re always gonna have a redle it, they don’t, you don’t, you’re not relying on battery power to see the redle and they’re not gonna get that distortion.
00:22:32:13 –> 00:23:58:00
So if you kind of want that red.site functionality, but don’t want to, or maybe a red dot might not be best suited for you, this is a really, really good choice. And so this is, you know, specifically targeted at the ar. What about the, the Spark Solar red dot? Oh man, spark Solar, definitely one that I’m super excited about this year. As the name implies, guys, we’ve, we’ve harnessed the power of the sun. So the Spark Solar is a, it’s a red.site, it’s got a solar panel, very fleshly integrated into the top of the housing. And what that gives a person is really, really insanely long battery life. So, you know, we’re kind of crunched some numbers and, and came up with an average of kind of average use using the battery, average use, you know, solar and, you know, you’re looking at up to 150,000 hours of battery life, you know, so that’s debatable whether that’s good enough, isn’t it? I think somebody needs to try that out 150,000 hours. Wow. Chris didn’t somebody said to you like one day it was like your job to know exactly how long that will last. It’s just somebody’s job. Somebody, somebody needs to look through that for a while. We could even get temp services down here. Hey, I mean, there’s college kids look through that for while intern internships and just internships, right? Pretty impressive. Pretty impressive test.
00:23:58:09 –> 00:25:12:23
I, I, I don’t know, I haven’t seen, okay, so this is your industry more so than mine per se, but is there other solar scope? Is this popular? Are you guys, I don’t know, you know, the solar version of these, I mean, I just haven’t seen another one like it, so anyway, enlighten me there. Well, you know, I, so it’s definitely the first in our lineup. I, I think there are some other dots out there that have used, you know, probably some, some similar functionality. But I do know it’s the first in our lineup. We’ve been working on it for a few years now. Super exciting to see it come out. And again, it kind of shares some of the design cues of the, the Spitfire as well. The, it’s got, it’s very flush, it’s very sleek. The adjustments are, you know, integrated and they don’t, they don’t have a cap, you know, so you’re not, you’re not having to undo a cap, but there’s not a cap sticking up. It’s just very flush with the unit and you can adjust ’em whenever you need to. But yeah, that solar though, that is the key feature there. And another cool aspect of it is the solar component. It’s not charging the battery, right? It’s an independent power source. So it’s either gonna work on battery or it’s gonna work off solar and it’s very smart. It’s gonna know it’s gonna automatically, yeah, yeah.
00:25:12:23 –> 00:26:26:00
It’s, it’s gonna automatically transition and you know, I’m in, I guess in my, in, in a room right now and just ambient light will operate that solar component, right? So you don’t need to be like outside or in the sun If there’s, you know, ambient light, like you’d see, you know, in a, in a regularly lit room, it’s gonna run off that solar power LEDs are super crazy efficient nowadays, giving them that capability. But if you get into a, a really dark setting with minimal light, it’s gonna automatically transition to that battery and go to that power source. So yeah, really, really cool. Tell us a little bit about this night vision ca compatible. You know, it says the lowest two settings are night vision compatible. And I know that’s kind of popular right now. There’s a lot of predator hunting that’s happening at night in states that allow it and, and it’s just, you know, it’s, it’s just gaining popularity like crazy, which I totally understand. I like killing stuff, especially coyotes at night. Anytime, anytime, anytime. You can kill one. But tell us a little bit about’s a good time. Yeah, tell us a little bit about that. I just can’t get over night vision compatible all of these different things, solar, yada, yada, at a price point of, I wanna say 3 9, 9 MSRP. I just can’t get over the, the value. So yeah.
00:26:26:02 –> 00:27:47:21
So yeah, the, the two lowest settings, like you said are gonna be night vision compatible. Night vision is definitely getting more popular. I’d say that technology is, you know, I mean, it’s still expensive, right? But it’s getting more within reach of, of folks that are out there. So yeah, I mean, nighttime predator hunting, very, very popular, increasing in popularity. And then you also have, you know, folks that may be in a more tactical environment using night vision and it’s gonna operate for those, those people as well. And essentially it’s just a super, super low setting. It’s a, it’s a, it’s a super low setting of that dot probably not even visible to the naked eye, right? But it works with your night vision, night vision units. So, so it’s compatible you, you have your night vision unit, I guess, with it, is that how it works? So, yeah. Yeah. So you’d be using, you know, I guess an ancillary night vision optic, if you will, but you’d be able to see the dot right, right. While using it. Yeah. That’s pretty cool. Cool. I think tripods are, are up, right? Yeah, that’s the other thing. I know you guys announced that it’s been a few months ago, I guess, in terms of different models of tripods, you wanna dive into those a little bit, mark, and talk about, you know, some of the three or four of those that you want to highlight. Yeah, for sure.
00:27:47:25 –> 00:29:08:25
So, you know, we’ve always had tripods, right? But we really spent the last, you know, couple years refining our tripod games. So I, I wouldn’t say it’s like, it’s not an update. We completely like revamped, we have an all new tripod series, really excited about ’em. Probably some standouts on the hunting side would be the summit carbon, the summit carbon two. So as the name implies it’s got carbon fiber leg set, ultra lightweight, so it’s gonna be coming in at 2.5 pounds for the tripod can be really suited for, you know, the, the backcountry person, the person that’s packing their tripod in trying to shave weight very steady. It’s gonna get you to, you know, it’s optimally gonna work like at a sitting or kneeling height. So it’s for I’d say an average statured person that’s not gonna be a tripod that they’re gonna use from a standing position. So, but you know, again, you’re, you’re shaving, you’re shaving some weight there, it’s super packable, it’s gonna fit in, you know, darn near any p any pocket that’s, you know, suited for a spotting scope or tripod on your pack. And yeah, really, really solid tripod. It’s got a a two-way pan head, easy to adjust, simple turn to the right or left, you know, to, to unlock or lock the head and, and pan up, down left, right. And it’s Aus was compatible, right?
00:29:08:25 –> 00:30:22:10
So it’s using an aus plate, a very common plate system if you will. I mean you can almost say it’s like an industry standard across a variety of, you know, optical and even, you know, things that are like necessarily outside of our space, like, you know, the photography videography, a lot of folks are going to that archus Swiss for shooting as well, where they’ve got either a archis rail on their firearm or even an integrated archis Swiss rail on the firearm. So just a lot of, lot of of good stuff going on there. If you wanna, if you do have a need to get to that standing position, you know, and you guys hunt a variety of places and, you know, certain landscape landscapes lend themselves to where you’re gonna need to get to that standing position. We’ve got the ridgeview carbon, right? So it’s gonna have all those same features of the summer carbon two, the leg set is gonna be a little bit longer and it’s gonna get you to that standing height. So those, those are kind of the two, the two heavy hitters, you know, at least on in the hunt space. And then, you know, thirdly we have the high country two and that’s an, it’s got an aluminum leg set, flip lever leg locks versus twist lock legs. So I should mention that the other two have twist lock legs.
00:30:22:29 –> 00:31:36:16
So if you prefer twist lever locks, this might be the one for you. It’s got an aluminum aluminum leg set and it’s coming in at about four pounds, so a little bit heavier, you know, the aluminum, you know, can be a little bit noisier depending if you bang something on it. The carbon is nice for that, it’s a little bit quieter. It’s gonna, it’s gonna settle a little bit better. It’s kind of got a inherent vibration dampening aspect to it. So, but all really, really solid tripods. And then you get to the, the radian carbon, which that is purpose built for shooting. So you guys were talking about, you know, if, if a person’s a competitive shooter or if you are hunting predators at night and you’ve got an archis rail on your firearm, man, probably not a better way to go. I mean, ultimate stability, you’re able to use your night vision or your thermal and scan and do things like that and you’re just got a way stable platform. You’ve got the cover of darkness so you can, you know, have a little bit more leeway there with what you can get away with and very, very effective in a system like that. That’s awesome. This Summit Carbon two, it comes like, it comes tripod, panhead all included for two and a half pounds, right?
00:31:37:12 –> 00:32:49:10
Yeah, yeah, that’s, that’s the whole kit and caboodle and I got a chance to use that actually, I think it must’ve been a prototype, but co deer hunting actually last year. And man, it, it, it worked really good. I really enjoyed it. Used it on, on a black bear hunt in the North Cascades this year as well. And man, it’s, it’s a joy to pack, you know? Yeah, I mean it definitely, it, it’s, it makes, you know, the decision to carry or not carry that tripod pretty easy. Yeah, you’d, you’d definitely, you know, it, it’s definitely one of those backpackable where Bronson, you’d be using it on sheep, goat, whatever myself as well. We have tripods that are we, this is the one we always backpack with. And then we have one that we use for everyday use, which would be the ridge view, which is the carbon fiber tripod and panhead. And of course there’s aluminum out there too, and I’ve got a few of those as well over the years. A lot of which my kids are using and abusing, let’s just call it abusing. But, but anyway, I’m a huge fan of the carbon fiber tripods and those are a great price point as well. Very competitive in the market. And so, like you said, I mean, you’ve got some that obviously are way up there in price that, that are able to handle one of them 44 pounds.
00:32:49:13 –> 00:34:00:13
So anyway, kind of that next level photography and whatnot. But, but for hunters, generally speaking, it feels like, like you said, the ri ridgeview, the summit and high country would be the, the three to choose from and definitely exactly the ones we would want to use ourselves. Yeah, absolutely. Yep. Anyway. For sure. You know, and they all, they all share that same head, you know, so they, they have that in common, but if a person, you know, if they have a, a head they prefer, you know, they can swap that out as well. So they have that versatility going on. What else haven’t we covered here, mark? I mean, I know it was a little bit of a blitz through, but we spent probably the most time on the fur HD 5,000 ab a little bit on the, the scopes for some of the AR platforms and then, you know, the tripods as far as what is new, and that’s kind of what we’re talking about. But anything else, I guess noteworthy, even though it maybe isn’t brand new, like some of these products we’ve just talked about. Anything noteworthy you think you wanna bring up from a vortex standpoint, moving into 2021? Man, man, you know, I mean those are definitely the heavy hitters as of right now. I’d say, you know, anybody out there stay tuned. We’re always working hard to come out with new and innovative and exciting products.
00:34:01:05 –> 00:35:15:17
So keep keep your eyes open for that. And, you know, other, other notable things, you know, our apparel game, we’re, we’re definitely trying to up our apparel game. That’s an area of focus for us. You know, we, I guess if, if you need something good to look through, you need to look good as well, right? So we’re trying to help folks out with that also. So, you know, check out the website and check out, you know, the hats and shirts and sweatshirts and all sorts of good stuff there. Yeah. Cleaning supplies and everything. I have one last question and you give it to me if you brace yourself, and if you don’t know it, that’s okay. But anyway, I do wanna know, like about the warranty on the tripod, if I break the legs, can I send it back? So that’s, that’s gonna be the same. It’s that same, you know, vortex VIP warranty. So I mean, that’s pretty much across the board on, on all of our stuff, so, yeah, so John, I think you’re hard on stuff and you’re headed to Mexico. I’m hard on stuff sometimes, you know, four wheeler’s gotta flip, you know? Yeah. Gear went sprawling for a hundred yards in it back. All right. Yeah. You know, you guys, you guys brought up a couple points. I may have to go back. Might have, we may have to insert the, the epic clause into that warranty, so John’s included.
00:35:16:07 –> 00:36:25:06
Yeah, he’s, he’s got some stuff we found out recently on warranty items, maybe non-warranty items. Anyway, he’s, it’s always good to find out who you’re working with, that’s all. So, oh my gosh, that’s awesome. Okay. How much snow did you get up there? Man, we got pounded. I mean I, I, that’s actually why I’m at home today. We had unexpected, or at least to me, it was kind of an unexpected snow storm and kids had to stay home from school. So I’m doing the, the stay at home dad slash stay at home at work. So probably doing neither of them well, but I think we’ve got about a foot man, so, yeah. And for our listeners that don’t know where you’re at, where are you talking, where are you reside? So we’re based in south central Wisconsin, so Vortex itself is in, in Barnesville. And I’m, I’m in Barnesville, Wisconsin. I’m in, I live in a, in an adjacent community, but, but yeah, good old wisco kind of came through with the snow finally this year. It’s been a pretty mild winter, so I can’t complain. But yeah, we need more of that here. We’ve been, we, we were braced ’cause you know, we haven’t had a big one all winter in southern Utah. And so the first time that they think it’s gonna be big, they basically tell you to stock up on all medic. I mean this is it, but get ready.
00:36:25:27 –> 00:37:42:24
I mean this is a winter storm warning, two to three feet bottled water. Yeah. Matches, flares. I mean, get it ready, you’re not, you know, say goodbye to your neighbors for two, three days and we got about a quarter of snow loss. No, that’s here in our little hometown. Yeah. So we, we would take, we would take whatever you got. So probably doesn’t have many snow days in Wisconsin. I don’t bet. They’re pretty, I’d say they’re generally pretty, pretty good about, yeah, leaving it to the big ones. But this one, this one was definitely enough to cancel school. But the good news for you guys though is you’re, you know, now you’re ready for when it calls for blue skies, but you get two feet of snow. Yeah, yeah. I guess that’s one way to put it. But what am I gonna do with the dozen flares? Light some stuff up. We can, we’ll, we’ll chat about the softline. Alright. Alright. Well we appreciate your time. Hope you have a great day. We appreciate it. Just teaching everybody about the new products out there. Vortex, anybody out there listening, you’re looking to buy some of these new products? Definitely give us a call here at Epic Outdoors. (435) 263-0777. We can get you on the list and get you a price quote that won’t be beat. All right? Okay buddy. Anything else? No, man. I think that’s it.
00:37:42:25 –> 00:38:54:19
I appreciate you guys having me on and the opportunity to chat. It’s always good chatting and don’t get to see you guys at the, at the expo this year, but hopefully sometime here shortly. So, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, really appreciate your time Mark and you’re welcome back anytime and you got something else to, you know, to divulge, you know, to listeners, us included. So appreciate it. Appreciate it guys. Nope, thanks so much and take care and we’ll talk soon, okay? Okay. Talk to it. See you. Bye. I wonder if they’re gonna hire any temps to go look through that scope for 1,517 years. Is it You did the math. I did the math. We’re do the math. That’s a lifetime scope. All right. Even if it’s in dark and you’re safe like forever. Yeah. Dark. Like we’re under your mattress. If it’s at ar you sleep close. The next level would be like if that worked and you could hook it up to the grid and get paid back. You know what I mean? Hook it up to the grid. Yeah. I’ve got more power in this. You get 3 cents over the 17 year life and, and we know how Bronson, Mike spinning. I’ve got more. I’m just saying we’re gonna sell power to California. I’ve got more power in this scope than I need. I’m gonna send it back to the grid. What you gonna pay me for? Yeah. New one. Yeah. What are we paying?
00:38:55:03 –> 00:39:51:11
Four, 4 cents a year. Hey. Hey. I mean penny, penny earned. Is a penny saved or penny saved? Is a penny earned? Who knows? We change that to a nickel. Just change that to a nickel saved as nickel earned. How’s that? I’ll go with it. Is that how we got freaking hot in here? I think so. Are we done? That’s right. We good. Appreciate it. Yeah, like you said, like Jason ended with though, call us if you’re interested in the CE Fury HD 5,000 ab, which it is an incredible price point for what it does. Give us a call here at Epic Outdoors. Keep you on the list for that. Get it out to you. ASAP, turn ’em around. As soon as we get stuff like that in the mail with new and updated orders, they go out the same day. And like Jason said too, prices won’t be beat. So give us a call for a price quote as well on that or whatever else you’re looking for from your vortex optics needs. John, you’re a deal maker. Anybody out there talks to John? He’ll, he’ll he will not be beat. Alright, everybody call it a day.
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