The laser rangefinder market has been developing at a breakneck pace over the last several decades. Not only are the rangefinders increasing their range. The cutting edge modern rangefinders now incorporate ballistic calculators and environmental sensors on board. The Vortex Razor 4000 GB is Vortex’s flagship rangefinder and is at the forefront of this new class of optics. I’ve ran one for the past season and have been very impressed with the unit.
Features
The Vortex Razor 4000 GB is a larger frame handheld rangefinder with the ability to pull environmentals and run a full power ballistic calculator. Additionally, the rangefinder can Bluetooth connect to your phone and hold up to 3 rifle profiles downloaded on the unit. Atmospheric pressure, ambient temperature, and humidity are measured automatically. Also, the rangefinder will calculate the horizontal distance to target to compensate for steep angle shots. Another useful feature is that the bottom of the Razor 4000 is threaded. This facilitates the attachment of an ARCA plate so the rangefinder can be mounted on a tripod for ranging distant targets.
The on board ballistic calculator is GeoBallistics. Currently, the standards in the precision shooting world are Applied Ballistics and Hornady 4DOF. That said I have found GeoBallistics to be very accurate at the ranges that I shoot. The bullet library is extensive and there’s some clever features such as the ability to calculate velocity from drop data, and set different BC values for different velocity windows.
An interesting feature of the Razor 4000 GB is the ability to input a wind value and an angle by pointing the unit in the direction of the wind. The Razor 4000 GB will spit out a wind call assuming that the wind is consistent from the shooters location to the target. While wind is often different downrange, this is a convenient way to get a rough wind call. For actual hunting this process is fairly slow but at the range it is a useful feature.
Performance
Anyone who has spent much time with laser rangefinders knows that achieving the advertised distances is difficult in the field. The Razor 400 GB is no different. In practice, the unit reliably ranged out to around 2500 yards in field conditions on trees and rocks. For my use cases this is farther than I will likely ever shoot and more than adequate. The on board ballistics are responsive and with a properly set up ballistics profile have been very accurate.
In use, I found the display on the Razor 4000 easy to see. The brightness settings are simple to adjust with levels appropriate for everything from dusk to midday. The range and required adjustment are large and the display isn’t cluttered.
One aspect that I dislike about the Razor 4000 is the fact that the unit only saves three rifle profiles. This was frustrating at the range when I was shooting a rifle that was not loaded into the unit. I still wanted to use the Razor 400 GB to obtain the environmentals and the distance to target. However, because of the Bluetooth connection the GeoBallistics app automatically changes the rifle profile to one of the pre-loaded profiles. It would be much better if the Razor 4000 GB was able to hold a larger number of profiles. At the very least, a software update stopping the Razor 4000 from changing the active profile on GeoBallistics automatically would streamline the process in the field.
Concluding Thoughts
In closing, the Vortex Razor 4000 GB is an excellent full featured rangefinder. For those that are not already entrenched in the Applied Ballistics/4DOF ecosystem, it makes for an attractive package. For those that do not want to carry a wind meter in the field, it is a great way to measure environmentals without necessitating the use of a Kestrel. One drawback is that for those with many rifles, it is annoying to shuffle profiles back and forth as the rangefinder only holds 3 profiles. If this isn’t a deal breaker, the Vortex Razor 4000 GB is a great ballistic rangefinder for the distances most people shoot.