E,

Gassers can actually be hard on a scope with the bolt acting like a mini slide-hammer. Don't forget the bolt slams forward too.

Formi mentioned 70k rounds in the last few years. That is likely more, much more, than most shoot in their entire lifetime. You are interested in low volume, heavy recoil but there is something to be said for lighter recoil in high volume. Parts can still fatigue from the lighter loads and don't forget the slide-hammer and forward recoil.

I like Leupos, but only use their fixed-power scopes. Not so sure I trust their variables as much. Just went through this with a buddy's 3-9x. Leupo couldn't figure out why it wouldn't track or hold zero. This scope lived the vast majority of its life on a heavy 7mm Rem.

Their explanation was that it would cost too much money to figure out why it failed. This was after the 2nd trip to Beaverton. Their first inspection failed to confirm the problem. On the second trip we suggested that they shoot with the scope. After shooting with the scope, they agreed that it wouldn't hold zero or track. In the end, they made it right by giving him a new one but he had to be persistent. Should have gotten one with dual-bias springs, right?!

Rather than speculate on all this, why not check with some of Formi's buddies over at the Snipershide? They shoot high volume like Formi. Some of them run training classes for soldiers and they see hundreds of weapons come through their classes.

I've read their comments and there seems to be a trend that I've observed from them: Leupold Tacticals fail the most, Nightforce fails the least, and S&B is somewhere in between. Most all of these dudes also state that the only other scope that survives are the Super Snipers. Not Leupos, not Vortex, not Nikon, not Millet, etc. The new Bushnell DMR is also doing extremely well according to these guys.

I don't know of any controlled tests like you described, but the info from the professionals that actually use these scopes while performing their jobs is worthwhile and probably as good as we are going to get. They see this stuff being used side-by-side, different makes and models, and the Leupolds do not come out on top. They seem to have the highest failure rate.

Oh, repeatable adjustment is relevant here. This thread is about tactical scopes after all!

Jason