The optical engineers and product managers at Michigan-based EOTECH apparently spend a good deal of their off-hours behind deer rifles and at the shooting bench. That’s the best way to explain the abundant and useful features they packed into EOTECH’s new Vudu X riflescope, a multi-purpose scope that will elevate your hunting game.
The new Vudu X accomplishes a number of all-around hunting tasks without adding needless complications, gadgets, and costs to the scope. Taken together, its simple and useful reticle, versatile magnification range, illumination intensity, and no-nonsense turrets make this a great pick for a hunting rifle, whether for hardwoods whitetails, open-country coyotes, mountain elk, or even small game.
The Vudu X is a new product family for EOTECH, though brand loyalists will recognize that it descends from the company’s excellent, and pricey, Vudu line of premium scopes. Beyond configurations that will appeal to both shooters and hunters, the value proposition of the Vudu X is just that: value. The 2-12×40 retails for about $850, or half the price of the original Vudu.
EOTECH manages to hit this price point while delivering a number of premium features by sourcing the Vudu X in the Philippines; the original Vudu is sourced in Japan, with a slightly higher grade of glass.
First iterations of the Vudu X include a 1-6×24 LPVO, or low-power variable optic. But the model that caught our eye is the 2-12×40, an all-around cross-over scope with features that will appeal to a wide range of hunters and mid-distance target shooters.
The 2-12-power Vudu X is built around a pair of MOA-based second focal-plane reticles. The scope is offered in an illuminated duplex reticle, but my favorite is what EOTECH calls its BD1 reticle, which stands for Bullet Drop 1. It’s a handy illuminated bullet-drop reticle with aiming circles on the vertical stadia that conform to the ballistics of common center-fire bullets. It also features hashes on the horizontal stadia for wind holds at standard 5- and 10-mph full (90-degree) wind values.
The BD1 reticle is useful for most mid-distance target work, where shooters engage steel plates or paper out to 600 and 700 yards. But it’s also a very handy hunting reticle, especially for holdover shooters like me. Zero a standard caliber at 100 yards, and the first circle corresponds to bullet drop at 200 yards, the second circle at 300 yards, and so on. That’s a fast and easy way to understand real-world holds when you don’t have time to dial turrets or deploy a ballistics app on your cell phone. The fast and intuitive wind holds further confirm the Vudu X as a field-worthy hunting scope.
The scope’s turrets are another nod to the real world of hunting and shooting. The turrets, which are tuned to ¼ MOA click values, are capped. That additional protection ensures that the turrets won’t inadvertently move in the field. Dialers, those shooters who would rather turn their turrets to an aiming solution rather than using reticle references, will appreciate the positive clicks and tactile feedback of the turrets.
The scope is built on a 30mm tube, which is sized right to combine an abundant 80 MOA of internal adjustment—that’s the ability to move the elevation and windage turrets—while keeping the scope in spec with common ring configurations.
The magnification range—zooming from 2-power up to 12-power with the aid of a removable throw lever—is probably the best indication that the Vudu X is positioned as an all-around versatile scope. At 2-power, especially with the red OLED illumination engaged, the scope functions as an LPVO. At those low mags, the scope picks up small, moving targets such as running hogs or snap shooting in personal-defense situations. It’s a wonderful both-eyes-open aiming platform.
At 12-power, though, the scope becomes a precision optic for mid-range target and hunting work. At the highest magnifications, the hold-over circles will drop bullets into targets as far out as I want to shoot at game animals.
EOTECH could have built this scope with a 50mm or larger objective lens, but the 40mm objective is perfect for most hunting situations. It enables low mounting options, and makes the Vudu X a perfect fit for nearly every hunting rig, whether that’s a chassis rifle or a mountain-light backcountry sheep rifle.
PREMIUM COMPONENTS
The Vudu X used high-density, low-dispersion glass, a grade of glass that balances impressive light transmission, vibrant contrast, and good low-light resolution. The scope ships with the throw lever to enable quick magnification changes, but it also comes with flip-up lens covers.
The reticle illumination, powered by a standard CR2032 battery, has 10 brightness settings, ranging from subtle, barely visible red that’s perfect for low-light situations like hunting whitetails at the very edge of legal light, up to blazingly bright. That most intense illumination makes the reticle visible even on the brightest days.
The dial rheostat that controls the illumination features off settings between each intensity level. That feature allows users to turn off the illumination by moving the dial with just one click. Of course, it also allows users to reactivate the illumination with a single click in either direction.
The Vudu X passed all the normal optics-evaluation steps, from low-light tests to recoil/drop assessments to freeze/thaw assessments. Those abusive tests should assure buyers that the Vudu X will hold up to all the abuses of the field, but if you want more assurance, EOTECH offers its No BS lifetime warranty. If the product doesn’t perform as promised, EOTECH will repair or replace the device for free, forever, whether you’re the original purchaser or not.
Putting the Vudu X in a wider perspective, its attributes are generally those of scopes costing several hundred dollars more. But EOTECH’s product managers, maybe owing to all the time they’ve spent in the field, have added features that are essential to shooters and hunters in a package that occupies a very appealing price point between entry-level optics and super-premium scopes.
Whether you are a competitive shooter, a mid-range target shooter, or a big-game hunter who chases whitetails or Western game, the Vudu X is a welcome addition to the sparsely populated category of affordable premium rifle scopes.