vortex sparc II

Vortex Optics design and produce rugged binoculars, spotting scopes and riflescopes for the most demanding users. Vortex takes knowledge and expertise gained over the past 20 years and delivers a full line of premium optics with an unwavering dedication to quality, value and superior performance in the field. Starting out as a small retail store, since 1986 they have been and remain a family and veteran owned company based in central Wisconsin.

The business grew and evolved over time and in 2002 Vortex Optics was established. Starting with the original owners, Dan and Margie Hamilton, the company now has over 100 American team members who work diligently to produce the best products and service in the optics industry.

Quite apart from the quality and performance of what they offer, Vortex products also have a unique selling point – they will repair or replace your Vortex product in the event it becomes damaged or defective at no charge to you. It doesn’t matter how it happened, whose fault it was, or where you purchased it. Essentially they offer an unlimited, unconditional lifetime warranty, one that’s fully transferable, with no warranty card to fill out, no receipt you need to hang on to, and if you ever have a problem, no matter the cost, they promise to take care of you! That is some warranty!

Bright SPARC

Although Vortex are perhaps best known for their magnified glass, they also have a small but ever expanding range of tactical optics, including a prism scope and a number of red-dots. The SPARC II (Speed Point Aiming for Rapid Combat) is ultracompact and lightweight, and is equally at home mounted on a railed rifle, carbine or shotgun. There are rear-facing digital controls for powering the sight on and off; these controls are also used for adjusting the two MOA daylight bright red dot for 10 intensity levels. The sight automatically returns to the last dot intensity used when powered up.

The SPARC II has a rugged single-piece body machined from aircraft grade aluminium which is nitrogen purged and o-ring sealed for waterproof and fogproof performance; the whole sight has a hard anodised Matte Black finish. The lenses are multi-coated with an anti-reflective finish for consistently brighter views, and the shockproof construction withstands even the harshest impact.

It also comes with a versatile multi-height mount system which means you can get the height and position of the sight precisely as you want it; all the fixings and tools required and included in the package, as are protective flip-caps and the single, long-lasting CR 2032 battery needed to power everything up.

Once you’ve decided whether to run it on the high mount to co-witness with backup iron sights or on the low mount to keep it as close to the bore as possible, a single hex bolt solidly mates the sight with your gun.

Spot On

The easy to adjust digital controls allow you to increase or decrease the brightness of the red-dot, which is easy and instinctive to acquire even on the sunniest of days. I range tested the SPARC II late on a really sunny afternoon when, although still intense, the light does tend to flatten out and render some red-dot sights next to useless. Not so with the SPARC II, as little increments of adjustment kept everything crystal clear.

The SPARC II sells for £130 and is every bit as good as anything else out there; if you think that similar sights from other manufacturers have a RRP of double that, and come with an inferior warranty, it makes the SPARC II from Vortex Optics insanely good value for money! For more information on this and the other sights in the Vortex Optics line-up, along with stockist details please visit www.vortexoptics.com and for UK trade enquiries please contact [email protected].