Koshkin,
You say that most reputable brands do some sort of drop or impact test for zero retention. Shoot to verify baseline, drop or create impact of some sort, then shoot again to verify zero retention. I think that’s what you said. Are they actually doing this in a manner that imparts lateral force via side impacts? To mimic actual drops that might occur in the field? Or via some sort of machine that only mimics longitudinal force (recoil simulation)?
I haven’t seen much of the former (outside of Nightforce). I have seen plenty of the latter, and frankly it doesn’t mean much to me. Of course a scope should hold up to recoil as that’s the very job it was assigned to do. That’s a minimum level expectation. Holding up to recoil of hunting rounds, magnums included, is really nothing exceptional, imo. Please show me exceptional so that I know it will easily hold up to the routine. Of course I also expect the tires I buy to be round, hold air, and roll down the road too.
And if a scope is truly drop tested/torture tested in some manner, why isn’t that shown in marketing materials? Nightforce seems to be the only company that actually demonstrates their durability claims. Consequently, I own more NF scopes than any other brand, and they are on all of my most important hunting rifles.
As a hunter, durability is my #1 concern. I buy quality scopes that naturally have good glass. The glass nuances and subtleties on $1000+ scopes are mostly meaningless for most hunters. Why do marketing departments focus so much energy on stuff that matters less? Show us more of the torture testing and we’d probably buy a lot more of those scopes.
I missed this one earlier.
All the major manufacturers I have talked to in any sort of a detail do side impact tests in addition to the recoil test. Some have the equipment to do it. Some rig things up out of what they have. It is a tricky thing to do in a repeatable manner without fairly expensive equipment. I obviously have not talked to all of the riflescope manufacturers, so I can not tell if they all do it or do not do it. I have not done an exhaustive survey of that.
I am not aware of Nightforce demonstrating anything. They talk about it in their marketing literature and do an occasional publicity stunt or two. It is mostly nonsense, but it looks impressive and seems to be a successful marketing technique for them. It is hard to estimate exactly, but I suspect Nightforce spends more marketing money per scope than anyone else and it has worked well for them. They seem to be falling a little behind on product development at the moment. Hopefully, they will start releasing something new soon or they will Leupold themselves into a tricky situation.
Back when Nightforce was a fairly new company and they were working on NXS scopes, they did a significant amount of work with their OEM on enhancing the reliability of their designs. I think they were one of the first companies or the first to work that closely with the OEM during the design process. It is a good bit more common now. In many ways, Nightforce is probably responsible for how robust many of LOW's designs are. You can design for reliability and that acquired knowledge went into LOW's designs that they do for other customers as well.
None of the marketing departments show you any torture testing. Actual testing is a very different thing from marketing stunts. Why marketing departments of optics companies do or do not focus on certain aspects of their products is not a question I can answer. I do not do marketing for anyone and I have no clue how they make marketing decisions.
ILya
