Vortex Sandpiper or something newer? (1 Viewer)

Hello everyone. Longtime lurker. Thanks for all the great information.

Looking to pick up a spotting scope for occasional use. Someone local has a used Vortex Sandpiper 15-45x65mm for sale for $165. Doing some research on it, it seems to be a great scope but the reviews are dated since it does not appear that it has been sold in the past few years. What I am wondering is if I should go with this vs. getting something like a Celestron Ultima 80 or a Konus KonuSpot 20-60x80 which would be in the same price range new.

I was looking at the Konus KonuSpot 100, but based on what I have read, 100mm scopes are not as good for birding. While I would not plan on hiking long distances with it, but probably would be doing some walking with it.

Thanks for any feedback!
Ed

Welcome.

I would try the Konus before buying.
The older Konus optics that I tried were not good.
I think originally Konus was an Italian importer of low price optics.

I have an awful plastic Konus mirror scope, and a poor 20x60 Konus binocular.
Perhaps they have gone upmarket now.
At least I hope so.

Hi Ed,

welcome to BF, first of all!

Buying local is nice, if you know what good optics looks like, when looking through it... so if you have some experience or can ask sb. with it to come along and the Vortex looks good despite the mediocre reviews (at least that's what I found), get it.

After all, the biggest problem of these cheap scopes is sample variation, which means that you also could get a good one...
A fast achro like this should still be reasonably sharp at 45x - if it doesn't quite focus above 35x, you should get wary...

My usual advice for getting a scope with low budget is to patiently look at ebay, craigslist and classifieds in here and local to get used alpha or at least upper class glass. Swaro, Leica and Zeiss tend to be still quite expensive even used, but used Kowa ED or fluorite scopes (numbers ending in 3 and 4), Nikon fieldscope ED series and Pentax scopes PR EDs can be found at $500 and below and they usually run circles around everything found new in that price bracket.

Joachim