I borrowed and ran these at the recent NRL Hunter match in Montana. Here's my review.
In short, they are highly featured but held back from greatness.
I'll start with the challenges I encountered and tricks to getting past them. I'll add detail here as I think it will help users of this product.
Setting them up is more difficult than it needs to be. Truing the azimuth (aka compass calibration), which is critical to the ballistic solution's windage, isn't as simple as the app or help video suggest. I found the best technique was to ignore the progress bar in the app and instead turn them over slowly in the three directions, like the videos shows, and to keep doing that for about 1 minute. Be sure to validate that they resolve the correct azimuth by checking at least every 45 degrees as you turn a full circle. Also be aware that inclination angle can really mess with the resolved azimuth, so always have them flat and level when you are setting the wind direction. I'll finish here by adding that I think the resolved azimuth could be more accurate if the technology was implemented better.
The ballistic calculator needs to be set to your rifle, as they all do. The app makes this relatively painless to create and enter all of the pertinent measurements. My biggest gripe here is that, after you put all this information in, you will need to validate the ballistic solution matches your DOPE, and, if necessary, adjust the calculator to match. However, you are not allowed to do this at will. Instead, you have to go outdoors to a location with objects you can range at distances that EXACTLY match your DOPE, and then measure them with the rangefinder in order to check the ballistic solution. That is brutal. Let's say you gathered DOPE three weeks ago on a special trip to your long range facility. Now you get these binos and want to make them match that DOPE. It can't be done until you go somewhere with those exact distances available to hit with the rangefinder and see its ballistic solution. I'm pretty sure that Vortex/AB put this limitation in simply to prevent you from using the app (called "Vortex FURY HD" by the way) as a free ballistic calculator. They didn't want to give away their money maker (an Applied Ballistics mobile ballistic calculator), but crippled the usability of the product in the process. I can directly contrast this with a comparable Vortex product, the Razor 4000 GB: the GB model uses Geoballistics app, which _does_ allow you to simply type in any distance and obtain a ballistic solution on demand from the comfort of your desk, making truing up the calculator vastly more convenient.
Once you work through the challenges, using the product in the field is very good. Things I like and are worth calling out as other products I have used can lack them:
works well with glasses
the bullet library yielded accurate ballistic solutions out to 1200 yards without any truing/tuning (Strelok does not)
auto-adjusting display brightness (Vortex Razor 4000 RF does not)
good fitment for small interpupillary distance and large nose (Apex binos do not)
dedicated button to set the wind direction to 1 degree resolution by pointing into the wind (SIG KILO10K Gen1+2 does not)
dedicated buttons to increase and decrease the wind speed in 1 mph increments (SIG KILO10K Gen1 does not)
ballistic solution shown in the binos factors in the wind direction direction and speed (Swaro EL Range does not)
focus dial has good resistance to unintended turning (Swaro NL Pure does not)
Finally, the elements that the FURY is decent at, but not good enough to keep you thinking about higher end products at night: Rangefinder target resolution and glass quality. The glass quality is quite good, not bad at all, and has good edge to edge clarity. But it isn't top-tier glass - the kind of glass that you have to offer up a couple extra thousand dollars to obtain. I think the most critical impediment to using these to achieve high performance in an unknown-distance rifle match is their ability - or inability - to resolve steel targets. I found that they simply would not hit steel targets, even the larger end of the size range we usually shoot these days. Instead, I had to range the terrain nearby (such as the T-post foot, or lower on the hill at what looked to be the same distance, or a nearby tree). I tried the scanning feature, and occasionally did see the number drop indicating a target scan, however it was impossible to stop the scan on the target and then achieve a ballistic solution. To be sure, this is not a unique downside to the FURY, as I dare say every RF I have used has been insufficient in this regard (Terrapin X, SIG KILO 10K, Vortex Razor 4000 GB, SIG KILO 5K). I might be asking too much from present day technology - I just want to put the target in the middle of the reticle, press the range button, and get the target's range, instead of the hill or grass behind the target. That would truly be a gamechanger in this space if/when it exists (and moves down the price range!).
Overall, these are very effective, do what they claim to, and fit the bill nicely for a NRL Hunter match.
In short, they are highly featured but held back from greatness.
I'll start with the challenges I encountered and tricks to getting past them. I'll add detail here as I think it will help users of this product.
Setting them up is more difficult than it needs to be. Truing the azimuth (aka compass calibration), which is critical to the ballistic solution's windage, isn't as simple as the app or help video suggest. I found the best technique was to ignore the progress bar in the app and instead turn them over slowly in the three directions, like the videos shows, and to keep doing that for about 1 minute. Be sure to validate that they resolve the correct azimuth by checking at least every 45 degrees as you turn a full circle. Also be aware that inclination angle can really mess with the resolved azimuth, so always have them flat and level when you are setting the wind direction. I'll finish here by adding that I think the resolved azimuth could be more accurate if the technology was implemented better.
The ballistic calculator needs to be set to your rifle, as they all do. The app makes this relatively painless to create and enter all of the pertinent measurements. My biggest gripe here is that, after you put all this information in, you will need to validate the ballistic solution matches your DOPE, and, if necessary, adjust the calculator to match. However, you are not allowed to do this at will. Instead, you have to go outdoors to a location with objects you can range at distances that EXACTLY match your DOPE, and then measure them with the rangefinder in order to check the ballistic solution. That is brutal. Let's say you gathered DOPE three weeks ago on a special trip to your long range facility. Now you get these binos and want to make them match that DOPE. It can't be done until you go somewhere with those exact distances available to hit with the rangefinder and see its ballistic solution. I'm pretty sure that Vortex/AB put this limitation in simply to prevent you from using the app (called "Vortex FURY HD" by the way) as a free ballistic calculator. They didn't want to give away their money maker (an Applied Ballistics mobile ballistic calculator), but crippled the usability of the product in the process. I can directly contrast this with a comparable Vortex product, the Razor 4000 GB: the GB model uses Geoballistics app, which _does_ allow you to simply type in any distance and obtain a ballistic solution on demand from the comfort of your desk, making truing up the calculator vastly more convenient.
Once you work through the challenges, using the product in the field is very good. Things I like and are worth calling out as other products I have used can lack them:
works well with glasses
the bullet library yielded accurate ballistic solutions out to 1200 yards without any truing/tuning (Strelok does not)
auto-adjusting display brightness (Vortex Razor 4000 RF does not)
good fitment for small interpupillary distance and large nose (Apex binos do not)
dedicated button to set the wind direction to 1 degree resolution by pointing into the wind (SIG KILO10K Gen1+2 does not)
dedicated buttons to increase and decrease the wind speed in 1 mph increments (SIG KILO10K Gen1 does not)
ballistic solution shown in the binos factors in the wind direction direction and speed (Swaro EL Range does not)
focus dial has good resistance to unintended turning (Swaro NL Pure does not)
Finally, the elements that the FURY is decent at, but not good enough to keep you thinking about higher end products at night: Rangefinder target resolution and glass quality. The glass quality is quite good, not bad at all, and has good edge to edge clarity. But it isn't top-tier glass - the kind of glass that you have to offer up a couple extra thousand dollars to obtain. I think the most critical impediment to using these to achieve high performance in an unknown-distance rifle match is their ability - or inability - to resolve steel targets. I found that they simply would not hit steel targets, even the larger end of the size range we usually shoot these days. Instead, I had to range the terrain nearby (such as the T-post foot, or lower on the hill at what looked to be the same distance, or a nearby tree). I tried the scanning feature, and occasionally did see the number drop indicating a target scan, however it was impossible to stop the scan on the target and then achieve a ballistic solution. To be sure, this is not a unique downside to the FURY, as I dare say every RF I have used has been insufficient in this regard (Terrapin X, SIG KILO 10K, Vortex Razor 4000 GB, SIG KILO 5K). I might be asking too much from present day technology - I just want to put the target in the middle of the reticle, press the range button, and get the target's range, instead of the hill or grass behind the target. That would truly be a gamechanger in this space if/when it exists (and moves down the price range!).
Overall, these are very effective, do what they claim to, and fit the bill nicely for a NRL Hunter match.
