Vortex ACE Ballistic Weather Meter [FIRST LOOK][REVIEW]

Every once in a while, a brand name replaces the name of the tool. Think Coke, Kleenex, Band-Aid, etc. Kestrel, while more niche, is one such name. No one says weather meter with ballistic solver, it’s just a Kestrel. 

That might not be true anymore. The community is going to need to find a new name for it because Vortex ACE just became Player 2 and challenged the status quo in a big way.

In the simplest terms, the Vortex ACE is a weather meter and ballistic calculator powered by the Vortex-owned Geo Ballistics. A hand-held tool, this little guy can read wind speed at your location, temperature, humidity, and use that data to produce a firing solution for just about anything you care to ask it. If you can provide a muzzle velocity and information about your bullet (size, weight), and how your rifle is set up — the ACE can tell you what your bullet will do downrange. And it’s damn accurate.

A truly invaluable tool for long range shooting, weather meters, and ballistic solvers change how you shoot. Information is power, and nothing empowers a long range shooter like a *STRIKE* Kestrel weather meter with ballistic solver does.

Vortex ACE uses 2 AA batteries, fits in the plam of your hand, comes with 10 pre-built profiles, but these can be changed for custom profiles in the device or in the Geo Ballistics app, and has a full color LCD screen. 

The screen and the ease of use are what set ACE miles apart from everything else. LCD screen is a huge and obvious improvement, making everything better in every way. From navigating the settings to reading a range card, this larger, brighter, and easier-to-use screen is simply better in a way that should be clear to anyone who remembers technology before the iPhone. For the generations whose first phone came with high-speed internet, using the ACE will feel natural.

Learning curve on the ACE barely exists because the ACE is built to help you along the way. Every option, every screen, every menu tells you exactly what it is, what it does, and normally where to find the information. Even if you’ve never shot long range before, the ACE makes it easy to understand how to use it.

Geo Ballistics & Vortex Relay

If you haven’t played with the Geo Ballistics app, you really should. It’s free, and it has a lot of tools that you can take advantage of even if you don’t use Vortex systems. There is everything you’d expect, like being able to build custom profiles (importantly, an unlimited number of custom profiles), but there is more to the app than what you’d expect. 

Two major features make a huge impact: being able to set up custom libraries and use those libraries to build out custom rifle profiles, and a measuring tool that quickly and accurately measures your scope over bore offset with zero math or calipers required.

There is a lot that goes into the Geo Ballistics app, and even in our testing, we’ve only scratched the surface. 

While technically existing for a while, the Vortex Relay system officially launched with the release of the ACE and Talon HD 10k LRF binoculars. At its core, Vortex Relay is how each Vortex unit talks to each other over a closed network to share data. Ranging information, environmental data, ballistic calculations, etc. 

In our testing, the system has been extremely robust and reliable. Getting the new Talon, ACE, and Impact 4k on the same network was done using only one push of a button, and since then, nothing has lost connection or needed to be restarted. A major improvement over competing systems.

LOOSE ROUNDS

The Vortex ACE is extremely impressive and a major step forward for weather meters with ballistic software. 

We really live in the golden age for long range shooting and tools like the ACE make getting into western hunting, PRS, NRL: Hunter, or just plinking at 1,000 yards all the more accessible and enjoyable.

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