EDIT, and I see now that's why they put the periscope ahead of it. That lets them dial past the scope's zeroing limits.
People use $4000-9000 thermal scopes at much less zoom and much shorter ranges under 400 yards shooting feral hogs in Texas.
They aren't aiming for a 4-6 inch target though (I seriously doubt you could even see that with 35x at 4.5 miles). They are aiming for the center of a target 7.5 feet by 10 feet.
The difference between that 8k scope and this 4k scope is mostly a tiny bit of clarity and last 2-3% of fit and finish. Neither of these would affect scope accuracy and the clarity wouldn't exist at that range anyway due to particles in the air. No purpose in special ordering one and blowing 4k that could be spent elsewhere on something that won't impact the actual shot.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minute_and_second_of_arc#Firea...
Then your post to see, oh, I have that one.
It’s good, but I’ve had better, and it’s heavy which doesn’t matter in this application.
The logic doesn’t hold water. If I win a competition with x scope, it doesn’t mean there aren’t better ones; it just means I didn’t use y when I did some thing.
I have Nightforce ATACR 7-35x56 and Khales that are both objectively better optics than the Vortex Razor HD III.
But yea, maybe check out “what the pros use” for ELR, the Vortex line is a distant third.
https://precisionrifleblog.com/2020/09/05/best-elr-scope-and...
* https://www.gunsamerica.com/digest/tech-behind-record-settin...