Vortex 11-33x50mm Review, by Travis Bertrand

Some have said that Vortex's 11-33x50mm is the ounce-counters backcountry spotter. Rokslide Moderator Travis Bertrand set out to Nevada to see if the hype was true. See his review here:

http://www.rokslide.com/2012-01-09-05-09-42/optics/385-vortex-lightweight-spotter

Curious if this would be ample enough for determining legality of a bull on a an AK moose hunt.

fap1800 said:

Curious if this would be ample enough for determining legality of a bull on a an AK moose hunt.

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I’m not sure, I would imagine so! I can’t say I have hunted moose in Alaska but hopefully someone with experience will jump in. Good luck on your hunt!

fap1800 said:

Curious if this would be ample enough for determining legality of a bull on a an AK moose hunt.

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I would think you would want higher zoom range and great clarity at max zoom to do this, that costs money, I’d look at the Kowa tsn55 if your wanting compact and light weight high zoom with clarity (but it costs 3 times as much) and you may be better off going bigger overall then any compact option.

But I haven’t hunted moose so I’m just guessing.

fap1800 said:

Curious if this would be ample enough for determining legality of a bull on a an AK moose hunt.

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I have this scope, and wouldn't want to depend on it to count tines farther than about 600 yards, maybe 800 if conditions were perfect. It's an impressive little scope for its size but I think its niche is more on the finding side of things, farther than binoculars can, but not a great tool for counting tines and definitely not sheep rings. It's great for the 'any' hunts.

AkMtnRunner said:

I have this scope, and wouldn't want to depend on it to count tines farther than about 600 yards, maybe 800 if conditions were perfect. It's an impressive little scope for its size but I think its niche is more on the finding side of things, farther than binoculars can, but not a great tool for counting tines and definitely not sheep rings. It's great for the 'any' hunts.

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Great. Thanks for confirming. I appreciate it.


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I also have had this scope. Its nice for what it is, but you get what you pay for and the Kowa 553 is in a whole nother leauge.

That said for moose hunting its not generally a weight consisus things like it is for sheep and goats. You are not going to shoot one likely much more than 5 miles from anywhere (likely less than 2) unless you got a army of packers. As such weight of gear isn't that critical.

1) You aren't going that far from where you are dropped off or your mode of transport.
2) You are making trips with meat so an extra 2 pounds of spotter on one of your trips isn't gonna make or break that load.

You can do much better than the Vortex 33mm for judging moose legality without having to go up to Kowa 553 pricing if willing to haul a bit extra weight IMO.

Now the Kowa is my favorite spotter for almost everything as its so small and handy, but on a moose hunt weight isn't ciritcal so I generally just haul the Zeiss 85mm with its 75X and count browtines from afar.