Burris Black Diamond or Burris XTR?

[boy412]

I'm tired of waiting for my Vortex Viper PST to ship. In the IT world we would call this "vapor-ware".

:P

I'm sure its a fine product but I can't keep waiting for months and months and months.

Looking at the Burris Black Diamond and the Burris XTR scopes now. Is there anyone out there that has seen these or used both? I'd be interested to hear if the XTR was worth the extra coin, or whether its just a "tacti-cool" thing.

Cheers...

[Rick_W]

Burris is typically a quality product. The big thing to look at in these scopes is total elevation & windage adjustment. The majority of the high magnification variable power Burris scopes don't have a lot.

[thunderchief]

I have a couple of Black Diamonds and I love them. From what I remember with the XTR is that the elevation is like 1 (MOA?) and windage is 1/2. If that works for you, cool, but I prefer the finer adjustment of the Black Diamond. I guess it depends what power you are looking at. If you go with the Black Diamond you will be happy, how does it compare to a Viper PST- I don't know, but I can compare it to my Viper and they are both great. My eyes can't tell a difference. Probably doesn't help your issue but the Black Diamonds are nice...

[boy412]

I'm going with the Black Diamond...but am keeping my PST on order. Then I can compare when Vortex finally starts shipping them.

::)

Thanks for the input...

[frank1947]

black diamond is good, but i am interested in vortex never heard of it, who sells it?

[boy412]

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=vortex+viper

:)

I had never heard of them either until I started poking around in these forums. The Viper PST is a new scope that Vortex has not started shipping quite yet. Some of us have been waiting a LONG time!

[frank1947]

thanks for link I will read about them do you know anyone that has one, I will have to look for reviews on google

[Jamie]

Truthfully, the first Burris scope I bought was bad out of the hermectically sealed box. Sent it back and got a ELite 3200. Year later bought another Burris, sent it back as well but stuck with them as they are the only ones with a 3x12 pistol scope. I currently own two of their pistol scopes and a Black Diamond 8x32x50. The Black Diamond has been on a .308 for about two hundred rounds. Out of the box the reticle was crooked. Two months later I got it back and now I have black specks on the inside of the front lens. The specks are a common problem with most of their scopes. The glass is great but it seems the assembly is not as precise. Out of the 5 I have ordered, 3 had issues.

Last two scopes I bought were Nikon Monarchs and have not had a single issue with them or the Buckmaster I bought 5 years ago. Next one will most likely be a Zeiss.

[MDM]

My buddy has the 8x32x50 Black Diamond. Nice scope, but he runs out of adjustment at 800yds, even with a 20 moa base. Not alot of adjustment in them.

[boy412]

Thanks for the feedback. I've received my Black Diamond (6-24x50) and got a chance to shoot with it this past weekend. The optics are nice and clear, but overall build quality is nothing like the Monarch X that this replaced. Like others have said there isn't a whole lot of adjustment range...and I may run into trouble if I start shooting out at longer distances. Even at 100 yards it feels like the rear of the base should be shimmed.

I'll be honest, this scope is just a stopgap until the Viper PST ships. Once you experience a quality product like the Nikon Monarch X its tough to use anything less. Standards, once established, can be very difficult to compromise! If I had the $ I'd buy a NightForce or IOR Valdada and be done with it. I liked the Monarch X but there wasn't enough power in there for me.

:)